Tableau - Business Intelligence Clinic: Create and Learn

A great hands on approach to building a dashboard with Tableau. I purchased other books in this series using Power BI and Excel to build a similar dashboard. I used those books as an intro with additional video courses to pass the MS exams. This would have come in handy as a first step (with the additional video courses that I took) before I took a Tableau exam.The series style is a hands on lab approach. It’s no 650 page put you to sleep yawner. It just gives you step-by-step instructions to building a practical dashboard. For additional in depth details, you’ll need more. But, this is an excellent place to start.

It felt like I was reading a Adobe’s Classroom in the Book lesson. It was easy to follow and I feel more comfortable tackling new BI projects in Tableau.

Although the book is generally easy to follow, I came across two problems: first, I have Version 2023.2.2 of Tableau for Desktop and when I got to p. 56 in the book, dealing with Gross Margin, I began having problems. With respect to Gross Margin, I couldn't get the 42% value to appear on the canvas even though there was a moving frame that said "Gross Margin, 42%". I had similar problems with the rest of the book where my screen didn't match the book. The second problem is really a suggestion. The book could benefit from a detailed screen identifying the parts of the Tableau screen. The author references, for example, the Data panel but one has to search the Tableau screen to find the specific thing he writes about. Similarly, he writes about Fit, but there's nothing on the screen that says "Fit". Instead, by looking at his example photos, one can see that there's a dropdown at the top that says "Standard".

I recommend anyone to buy very straight forward hands on book.

I hardly write reviews, but this book was so bad I had to. DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK IF YOU WANT TO "LEARN". This book just tells you to click on this, then click on that. It gives no mention of what you just accomplished by "clicking on this and clicking on that". Does it help you create something? Yes - but it does not help you learn or even know what you just did.

Worst book I have ever bought! I assume the author photocopied the work and decided to bind together and create a book. Don't buy this book. I wasted my money!!!!!