Tableau Interview Questions & Answers

Best Tableau Interview Questions and Answers

Dear Readers, Welcome to Tableau Interview Questions and Answers have been designed specially to get you acquainted with the nature of questions you may encounter during your Job interview for the subject of Tableau Interview Questions. These Tableau Questions are very important for campus placement test and job interviews. As per my experience good interviewers hardly plan to ask any particular questions during your Job interview and these model questions are asked in the online technical test and interview of many IT & Non IT Industries.

1. Who are the founders of Tableau?

The company was founded in Mountain View, California in January, 2003 by Chris Stolte, Christian Chabot and Pat Hanrahan.

2. What is Tableau?

Tableau is a business intelligence software that allows anyone to connect to respective data, and then visualize and create interactive, sharable dashboards.

 

3. What is a data Source page?

A page where you can set up your data source. The Data Source page generally consists of four main areas: left pane, join area, preview area, and metadata area.

 

4. What different products Tableau provide ?

Tableau Server : on-premise or cloud-hosted software to access the workbooks built.

Tableau desktop : desktop environment to create and publish standard and packaged workbooks.

Tableau Public : workbooks available publicly online for users to download and access the included data.

Tableau Reader : get a local access to open Tableau Packaged workbook.

 

5. Is Tableau Software good for a strategic acquisition ?

Yes for sure! It gives you data insight to the extend that others don’t.

Helps u plan and point the anomalies and improvise your process for betterment.

 

6. Mention the difference between published data sources and embedded data sources in Tableau ?

The difference between published data source and embedded data source is that,

Published data source: It contains connection information that is independent of any workbook and can be used by multiple workbooks.

Embedded data source: It contains connection information and is associated with a workbook.

 

7. What are some of the new features introduced in Tableau 9.1?

=> Visual analytics

=> Mobile

=> Data

=> Enterprise

 

8. What is the difference between Tableau and Qlikview?

Tableau:

=> More connectors

=> No coding is required

=> Interface is simple

=> Doesn’t render feature to search content across all your data

 

Qlikview:

=> Easy to use and discover the hidden trends

=> Offers a personal edition free

=> Data is stored in qvd form from the performance point of view

=> Great capabilities for processing data.

 

9. What are the four different kinds of shelves in Tableau?

Rows, columns, filters and pages.

 

10. Name some file extensions in Tableau?

Tableau Datasource (.tds)

Tabelau Bookmark (.tdm)

Tableau preferences (.tps)

Tableau workbook (.twb)

Tableau Mapsource (.tms)

 

11. When can we use Joins vs. Blending in Tableau ?

If data resides in a single source, it is always desirable to use Joins. When your data is not in one place blending is the most viable way to create a left join like the connection between your primary and secondary data sources.

 

12. What is the difference between blending and joining in Tableau ?

Following are the difference between blending and joining in Tableau:

Joining term is used when you are combining data from the same source. for example, worksheet in an Excel file or tables in Oracle database.

While blending requires two completely defined data sources in your report.

 

13. What are the reasons for slow performance in Tableau?

One of the reasons is data source is slow in itself. This might be because your CSV file is too big or your database is old for reading. 

You can improve Tableau experience by following ways:

=> Use extracts

=> Limit the amount of data you bring in – both rows and columns

=> Switch data source using the “extract function”

=> Pre-aggregate your data before brining into Tableau.

 

14. What are the differences between Tableau desktop and Tableau Server ?

While Tableau desktop performs data visualization and workbook creation, Tableau server is used to distribute these interactive workbooks and/or reports to the right audience. Users can edit and update the workbooks and dashboards online or Server but cannot create new ones. However, there are limited editing options when compared to desktop.

Tableau Public is again a free tool consisting of Desktop and Server components accessible to anyone.

 

15. How many types of Joins you can use in Tableau?

There are four types of Joins in Tableau:

=> Left

=> Right

=> Inner

=> Full outer

 

16. Differentiate between parameters and filters in Tableau ?

The difference actually lies in the application. Parameters allow users to insert their values, which can be integers, float, date, string that can be used in calculations. However, filters receive only values users choose to ‘filter by’ the list, which cannot be used to perform calculations.

Users can dynamically change measures and dimensions in parameter but filters do not approve of this feature.Most in-depth, industry-led curriculum in Tableau.

 

17. Explain the aggregation and disaggregation of data in Tableau?

Aggregation and disaggregation of data in Tableau are the ways to develop a scatterplot to measure and compare the data values.

Aggregation:

It is calculated the form of a set of values that return a single numeric value. A default aggregation can be set for any measure which is not user-defined.

Disaggregation:

The disaggregation of data refers to view each data source row during analyzing of data both dependently and independently.

 

18. Mention some file extension in Tableau?

There are many file types and extensions in Tableau.

Some of the file extensions in Tableau are:

Tableau Workbook (.twb).

Tableau Packaged Workbook (.twbx).

Tableau Datasource (.tds).

Tableau Packaged Datasource (.tdsx).

Tableau Data extract (.tde).

Tableau Bookmark (.tdm).

Tableau Map Source (.tms).

Tableau Preferences (.tps)

 

19. What are the extracts and schedules in Tableau server?

First copies or subdivisions of the actual data from the original data source are called data extract.

The workbooks which use the data extracts instead of using live DB connections are faster and the extracted data is imported into Tableau engine.

Later after the extraction of data the users can publish the workbooks which publish the extracts in Tableau server.

And, the scheduled refreshers are the scheduling tasks which are already set for data extract refresh so that they get refreshed automatically while a workbook is published with data extraction.

 

20. Difference between Tiled and Floating in Tableau Dashboards

Tiled items are organized in a single layer grid that modifies in a measure, which is based on the total dashboard size and the objects around it. Floating items could be layered on top of other objects and can have a permanent size and position.

Floating Layout While most questions are tiled on this dashboard, the map view and its related color legend are floating. They are layered on top of the bar graph, which utilizes a tiled layout.

 

21. what is a format pane in Tableau?

A pane that contains formatting settings that control the entire worksheet, as well as individual fields in the view.

 

22. What is LOD expression in Tableau?

A syntax that supports aggregation at dimensionalities other than the view level. With level of detail expressions, you can attach one or more dimensions to any aggregate expression.

 

23. What is the difference between Quick Filter and Normal filter?

Normal Filter is used to restrict the data from database based on selected dimension or measure. But Quick Filters are used to give a chance to user for dynamically changing data members at run time.

 

24. What is Tableau Reader?

Tableau Reader is a free viewing application that lets anyone read and interact with packaged workbooks created by Tableau Desktop.

 

25. What is a Dimension?

Tableau treats any field containing qualitative, categorical information as a dimension. This includes any field with text or dates values.

 

26. What is a Measure?

A measure is a field that is a dependent on value of one or more dimensions. Tableau treats any field containing numeric (quantitative) information as a measure.

 

27. What does the extension .twbx represent in Tableau?

It is a file which represents Tableau Packaged Workbook, in which the .twb file grouped together with the datasources.

 

28. What is marks card in Tableau?

A card to the left of the view where you can drag fields to control mark properties such as type, color, size, shape, label, tooltip, and detail.

 

29. What are shelves in Tableau?

They are Named areas to the left and top of the view. You build views by placing fields onto the shelves. Some shelves are available only when you select certain mark types.

 

30. What is a Tableau workbook?

It is a file with a .twb extension that contains one or more worksheets (and possibly also dashboards and stories).

 

31. What is an alais in Tableau?

An alternative name that you can assign to a field or to a dimension member.

 

32. What is Import all data feature in Tableau?

It Imports the entire data source into Tableau's fast data engine as an extract and saves it in the workbook.

 

33. What is TDE file in Tableau?

It refers to the file that contains data extracted from external sources like MS Excel, MS Access or CSV file.

 

34. How to automate reports using Tableau software?

You need to publish report to tableau server, while publishing you will find one option to schedule reports.You just need to select the time when you want to refresh data.

 

35. How to check the meatadata of a table?

In the menu Data -> New connection drag the table to the data pane to view its meatdata.

 

36. What does REPLACE function do in Tableau?

The REPLACE function searches a given string for a substring and replaces it with replacement string.

 

37. Can Tableau be installed on MacOS ?

Yes, Tableau Desktop can be installed on both on Mac and Windows Operating System.

 

38. What is the different between twb and twbx file extensions. Please explain?

Twb is a live connection, it points to the data source; the user receiving twb needs permission to said data source and no data is included. .twbx takes data offline, stroes the data as a package or zip like file, thereby eradicating the need for permissions from end user, it’s now a snapshot in time of the data as of the time it was Saved as . twbx

 

39. How will you publish and schedule workbook in tableau server ?

First create a schedule for particular time and then create extract for the data source and publish the workbook for the server. Before you publish, there is a option called Scheduling and Authentication, click on that and select the schedule from the drop down which is created and publish. Also publish data source and assign the schedule. This schedule will automatically run for the assigned time and the workbook is refreshed.

 

40. What is Forecasting in Tableau?

Forecasting is about predicting the future value of a measure. There are many mathematical models for forecasting. Tableau uses the model known as exponential smoothing.