To get the most out of this book

This book does not assume any specific database knowledge, but it definitely will help to have some basic familiarity with data itself. We'll cover the foundational principles first, and while it may be tempting to skip the first chapter, please don't! We'll lay a foundation of terminology and the paradigm that will be used throughout the remainder of the book.

You'll be able to follow along with many of the examples in the book using Tableau Desktop and Tableau Prep Builder (in Chapter 10, Introducing Tableau Prep). You may download and install the most recent versions from Tableau using the following links:

• Tableau Desktop: https://www.tableau.com/products/desktop/download
• Tableau Prep Builder: https://www.tableau.com/products/prep/download

Please speak to a Tableau representative for licensing information. In most cases, you may install a 14-day trial of each product if you do not currently have a license.

Download the example code files

For most chapters, you'll find applicable data files (Excel and text files) and a set of Tableau Workbook files, (.twbx) , or Tableau Flow files, (.tfl) , which you may open in Tableau Desktop or Tableau Prep Builder, respectively. These will follow the convention ChapterNN_Starter and ChapterNN_Complete (where NN is the chapter number). The starter workbooks and flows are intended to allow you to work through the examples in the book on your own, though at times, they will include completed examples for reference. The complete workbooks are entirely finished and are intended to allow you to check your work or see the finished example.

You may download the example files for this book from your account at www.packt.com. If you purchased this book elsewhere, you can visit www.packt.com/support and register to have the files emailed directly to you.

You can download the code files by following these steps:

1. Log in or register at www.packt.com.
2. Select the SUPPORT tab.
3. Click on Code Downloads & Errata.
4. Enter the name of the book in the Search box and follow the onscreen instructions.

Once the file is downloaded, please make sure that you unzip or extract the folder using the latest version of:

• WinRAR/7-Zip for Windows
• Zipeg/iZip/UnRarX for Mac
• 7-Zip/PeaZip for Linux

The code bundle for the book is also hosted on GitHub at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/Learning-Tableau-2019. In case there's an update to the code, it will be updated on the existing GitHub repository.

We also have other code bundles from our rich catalog of books and videos available at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/. Check them out!

Download the color images

We also provide a PDF file that has color images of the screenshots/diagrams used in this book. You can download it here: https://www.packtpub.com/sites/default/files/downloads/9781788839525_ColorImages.pdf.

Conventions used

There are a number of text conventions used throughout this book.

CodeInText: Indicates code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles. Here is an example: "Open the Chapter07_Starter workbook, where you will find this example."

A block of code is set as follows:

IF [Animal] = "DOG" 
THEN
    IF [Age] < 2 
    THEN "Puppy"
    ELSE "Dog"
    END
ELSE [Animal]
END

Bold: Indicates a new term, an important word, or words that you see on screen. For example, words in menus or dialog boxes appear in the text like this. Here is an example: "Select Extract | Refresh from the Data menu."

Warnings or important notes appear like this.

Tips and tricks appear like this.