Connect Tableau To Any Big Data Source (Mongodb And ...

[laymanlearning]

Tableau - Connecting to data

In real life, data is generated from different data sources. With the versatile nature of data, it becomes very difficult to do analysis on top of it. Tableau proves handy in such situations. It facilitates connection to a variety of data sources by providing rich set of features. These features include :
Native Data Connectors
Live or In Memory Connection
Ability to Combine Data Sources

We'll discuss about Native Data Connectors and Live or In Memory Connection.

Native Connectors :
Tableau provides native connectors for different types of data sources such as RDBMS,OLAP cubes,big data sources and even online data sources such as sales force.

These connectors are optimized to leverage capabilities of each data source and increase performance. Besides this,they honor and enforce security protocols.

ODBC connectors are available to connect to data sources for which native connectors are not supported. i.e. Simba for mongodb

Once we have established connection to data source,next step is to extract data out of it. Tableau provides two ways to accomplish this;live or in memory connect.

Live or In Memory Connection :

Live Connect : In live connect,data is taken directly from source database. Tableau provides optimized, live connector to many data sources. This option can be chosen to connect to high performance databases or to reflect database changes directly to visualization. Note that, live connect may be slow sometimes.

In Memory Connection / Extract : In this, data is stored in tableau's in memory data engine. This option can be chosen in following scenarios:
For slow databases or if the db is under heavy load
To reduce query load off critical system
To work with part of data
Since the data is stored in tableau's in memory data engine,changes to DB will not be reflected unless and until the extract is refreshed.

Note : live and extract options will be available based upon the nature of DB. Any time we can switch between this two options if available.

Database filters and Custom SQL :
While connecting with some of the databases, filters can be defined to get specific data. There is also a Custom SQL option to extract data based upon some complex criteria. In any case, connecting to data in a standard manner either as live or extract and using filters is the best option to get the data hence, custom sql option should be used only when needed.

Let us go through a practical example to see how data connection works in tableau.

1        

Launch tableau and click on Connect to data option to connect to data source.

This brings a list of data sources for which tableau provides native connectors. At a higher level,tableau categorizes data sources in 2 categories depending on where the data resides,In a File or On a Server.
 

2        

Connect to Sample Superstore data source. Click on Microsoft Excel from In a File data sources. Browse to the tableau data source repository and click on Sample - Superstore Subset (Excel). Click on Open button.
 

This brings data to tableau work area as shown below. Now from the sheets/tables available, drag Orders sheet to the empty area saying “Drag sheets here” or double click on it. As a result, all the records of Orders table will be shown as below :
 

3        

Connection shows two options : Live and Extract. By default, Live is selected. We can also choose extract option.

Many a times while working with analysis, only single table data is not enough. Data from different tables need to be combined in order to bring useful information out of it. Tableau provides feature called Data Join to effectively combine data from different tables and generate meaningful visualization out of it.

In our example,Orders table alone doesn't provide any meaningful insight but combined with Customers table can provide useful statistics such as order by user.

 

By default inner join is performed based upon common key in tables. We can change the the join type as well as join key. Other join types available are left,right and full join.

Click on circles. It shows join types available as well as lists down join key(s).Any modification to join can be made from here.

 

Remember,data join is used to join tables of the same data source.

With this, we have completed connection to database. Click on Go to Worksheet to draw your favorite charts !!

 

Layman Learning is now providing globally Online IT Training from Hyderabad,India by the real time IT ... Corporate Training. ... the best of IT support services. www.laymanlearning.com

 

Support; Query? +91-741-626-7887 ... Online Corporate IT training services. OnlineTraining | Corporate Training | Layman Learning.

[email protected]