Best Tableau Books 2024

Learning Tableau 2022: Create effective data visualizations, build interactive visual analytics, and improve your data storytelling capabilities, 5th Edition

by Joshua N Milligan helps you get started with Tableau and data visualization, but it does more than just cover the basic principles. It helps you understand how to analyze and communicate data visually, and articulate data stories using advanced features. Updated with Tableau’s latest features, such as dashboard extensions, Explain Data, and integration with CRM Analytics (Einstein Analytics), which will help you harness the full potential of artificial intelligence (AI) and predictive modeling in Tableau.

After an exploration of the core principles, this best book to learn tableau will teach you how to use table and level of detail calculations to extend and alter default visualizations, build interactive dashboards, and master the art of telling stories with data.

You’ll learn about visual statistical analytics and create different types of static and animated visualizations and dashboards for rich user experiences. We then move on to interlinking different data sources with Tableau’s Data Model capabilities, along with maps and geospatial visualization. You will further use Tableau Prep Builder’s ability to efficiently clean and structure data.

By the end of this book, you will be proficient in implementing the powerful features of Tableau 2022 to improve the business intelligence insights you can extract from your data.
What you will learn

Develop stunning visualizations to explain complex data with clarity
Build interactive dashboards to drive actionable user insights
Explore Data Model capabilities and interlink data from various sources
Create and use calculations to solve problems and enrich your analytics
Enable smart decision-making with data clustering, distribution, and forecasting
Extend Tableau’s native functionality with extensions, scripts, and AI through CRM Analytics (formerly Einstein Analytics)
Leverage Tableau Prep Builder’s amazing capabilities for data cleaning and structuring
Share your data stories to build a culture of trust and action

Mastering Tableau 2021

by Marleen Meier, David Baldwin with foreward by Kate Strachnyi is Updated with fresh topics including Quick Level of Detail expressions, the newest Tableau Server features, Einstein Discovery, and more, this book covers essential Tableau concepts and advanced functionalities. Leveraging Tableau Hyper files and using Prep Builder, you’ll be able to perform data preparation and handling easily. You’ll gear up to perform complex joins, spatial joins, unions, and data blending tasks using practical examples. Following this, you’ll learn how to execute data densification and further explore expert-level examples to help you with calculations, mapping, and visual design using Tableau extensions. You’ll also learn about improving dashboard performance, connecting to Tableau Server and understanding data visualization with examples. Finally, you’ll cover advanced use cases such as self-service analysis, time series analysis, and geo-spatial analysis, and connect Tableau to Python and R to implement programming functionalities within Tableau.

By the end of this Tableau book, you’ll have mastered the advanced offerings of Tableau 2023 and be able to tackle common and advanced challenges in the BI domain. This is the best Tableau book in 2023.

Tableau Prep: Up & Running: Self-Service Data Preparation for Better Analysis

by Carl Allchin introduces you to Tableau Prep through a series of hands-on tutorials that cover methods for preparing, cleaning, automating, organizing, and exporting your datasets.

This practical book, based on Allchin’s famous blog, Preppin’ Data, walks you through the principles of Tableau Prep step by step. Self-service data preparation speeds up the completion of data projects while also improving the quality of your studies. Learn how Tableau Prep may help you gain access to your data and transform it into useful information. You will:

When preparing data, know what to look for.
When working with data fields, you’ll need to know which Tableau Prep functions to employ.
Examine your dataset’s form and profile.
Learn how Tableau Prep automates your process by generating data for analysis.
Learn how to use Tableau Prep routines to clean your dataset.
Examine how to apply Tableau Prep concepts to real-life circumstances.
Manage and document the output to make your data available to others.

Tableau Desktop Cookbook

Whether you’re a beginner just learning how to create data visualizations or a Jedi who’s already used Tableau for years, this learn tableau book has a recipe for everyone. Author Lorna Brown provides more than 100 practical recipes to enhance the way you build Tableau dashboards–and helps you understand your data through the power of Tableau Desktop’s interactive datavisualizations.

With this cookbook, Tableau beginners will learn hands-on how this unique self-serve tool works, while experienced users will find this book to be an ideal reference guide on how to employ specific techniques. It also links you to online resources and community features, such as Tableau Tip Tuesday and Workout Wednesday. By the time you reach the end, you’ll be a competent user of Tableau Desktop.

You’ll learn how to:

Build both basic and complex data visualizations with Tableau Desktop
Gain hands-on experience with Tableau’s latest features, including set and parameter actions
Create interactive dashboards to support business questions
Improve your analytical skills to enhance the visualizations you’ve already created
Learn data visualization skills and best practices to help you and your organization

Innovative Tableau: 100 More Tips, Tutorials, and Strategies

Level up with Tableau to build eye-catching, easy-to-interpret data visualizations. Ryan Sleeper takes you through a collection of unique tips and tutorials for using this popular software. Beginning to advanced Tableau users will learn how to go beyond Show Me to make better charts and learn dozens of tricks to improve both the author and user experience.

Featuring many approaches he developed himself, this best book for tableau shows you how to create charts that empower Tableau users to explore, understand, and derive value from their data. He also shares many of his favorite tricks that enabled him to become a Tableau Zen Master, Tableau Public Visualization of the Year author, and Tableau Global Iron Viz Champion.

Learn what’s new in Tableau since Practical Tableau was released
Examine unique new charts—timelines, custom gauges, and leapfrog charts—plus innovations to traditional charts such as highlight tables, scatter plots, and maps
Get tips that can help make a Tableau developer’s life easier
Understand what developers can do to make users’ lives easier

Tableau For Dummies

by Molly Monsey and Paul Sochan. This best books on tableau brings order to the chaotic world of data. Understanding your data and organizing it into formats and visualizations that make sense to you are crucial to making a real impact on your business with the information that’s already at your fingertips. This easy-to-use reference explores the user interface, and guides you through the process of connecting your data sources to the software. Additionally, this approachable, yet comprehensive text shows you how to use graphs, charts, and other images to bring visual interest to your data, how to create dashboards from multiple data sources, and how to export the visualizations that you have developed into multiple formats that translate into positive change for your business.

The mission of Tableau Software is to grant you access to data that, when put into action, will help you build your company. Learning to use the data available to you helps you make informed, grounded business decisions that can spell success for your company.

Navigate the user interface to efficiently access the features you need
Connect to various spreadsheets, databases, and other data sources to create a multi-dimensional snapshot of your business
Develop visualizations with easy to use drag and drop features
Start building your data with templates and sample workbooks to spark your creativity and help you organize your information

Tableau Your Data!

by Daniel G. Murray shows you how to build dynamic, best visualizations using the Tableau Software toolset. This comprehensive guide covers the core feature set for designing data visualization, data analytics, and provides clear step-by-step guidance toward all the tableau concepts, best practices and advanced techniques that go way beyond the user manual. You’ll learn how Tableau is different from traditional business information analysis tools, and how to navigate your way around the Tableau 9.0 desktop before delving into functions and calculations, as well as sharing with the Tableau Server.
Analyze data more effectively with Tableau Desktop

Getting Started with Tableau 2019.2

Getting Started with Tableau 2019.2 by Tristan Guillevin will allow you to familiarize yourself with these additional features.
The book begins by highlighting the new features in Tableau 2019.2 and providing concrete examples of how they are used. However, if you’re new to Tableau, don’t worry – you’ll be guided through the main things in Tableau with relevant examples. You will learn how to connect to data, create a data source, visualize your data, create a dashboard, and even share data online. In the final chapters, you will dive into advanced techniques such as creating a database merge and mixing data.

Practical Tableau

by Ryan Sleeper will help you in learning Tableau tips and tricks.Whether you have some experience or is just starting out, this guide goes beyond the basics to help you build compelling, interactive data visualization applications. Ryan Slipper, one of the world’s foremost consulting consultant writers, complements your web post and instructional videos with this guide to give you an in-depth understanding of how to use fringe swarms to find valuable insights into data. This book provides visualization tips, tutorials and strategies to help you get the best out of Tableau.

This Tableau book includes five sections:

1. Tableau Fundamentals so you can get started from the beginning
2. Tableau Chart types consisting of step-by-step tutorials to build a variety of charts
3. Learn innovative uses of parameters, color theory to make your Tableau workbooks run efficiently
4. INSIGHT Framework for building dashboards
5. Storytelling tactics for storytelling with data, including specific and actionable tips you can implement immediately

Communicating Data with Tableau

by Ben Jones is a practical guide to Tableau. This best book on tableau describes the principles of communicating data and takes you on an in-depth tour of common visualization methods.

You will:

• Present comparisons of how much and how many
• Use blended data sources to create ratios and rates
• Create charts to depict proportions and percentages
• Visualize measures of mean, median, and mode
• Lean how to deal with variation and uncertainty
• Communicate multiple quantities in the same view
• Show how quantities and events change over time
• Use maps to communicate positional data
• Build dashboards to combine several visualizations

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Tableau?

Tableau is a data visualization and business intelligence (BI) tool that allows users to connect to various data sources, create interactive and shareable dashboards, and explore data to gain insights.

How do I get started with Tableau?

You can start by downloading and installing Tableau Desktop, which is the authoring and development tool. Tableau also offers Tableau Public, a free version for creating and sharing visualizations, and Tableau Server for collaboration within an organization.

What data sources can I connect to in Tableau?

Tableau supports a wide range of data sources, including databases (SQL, Oracle, etc.), Excel files, cloud-based sources (like Google Sheets and Salesforce), and more. You can also create data extracts for improved performance.

What is a Tableau dashboard?

A Tableau dashboard is a collection of visualizations (charts, maps, tables, etc.) that allow you to interactively explore and analyze data. Dashboards can be created to provide a comprehensive view of your data.