Foundations for building visualizations

When you first connect to a data source such as the Superstore file, Tableau will display the data connection and the fields in the data pane on the left Side Bar. Fields can be dragged from the data pane onto the canvas area or onto various shelves such as Rows, Columns, Color, or Size. As we'll see, the placement of the fields will result in different encodings of the data based on the type of field.

Measures and dimensions

The fields from the data source are visible in the data pane and are divided into Measures and Dimensions. The difference between measures and dimensions is a fundamental concept to understand when using Tableau:

• Measures are values that are aggregated. For...