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You're reading from  Maximizing Tableau Server

Product typeBook
Published inOct 2021
Reading LevelBeginner
PublisherPackt
ISBN-139781801071130
Edition1st Edition
Languages
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Authors (2):
Patrick Sarsfield
Patrick Sarsfield
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Patrick Sarsfield

Patrick Sarsfield is a senior data visualization consultant at Lovelytics. He is a Tableau Certified Associate Consultant, was a Tableau Public Featured Author in 2020, and is a multiple-time Tableau “Viz of the Day” winner.
Read more about Patrick Sarsfield

Brandi Locker
Brandi Locker
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Brandi Locker

Brandi Locker is a senior exploratory analytics consultant at Allstate Insurance Company. She is a certified Tableau Desktop Specialist and co-leads the North Texas Tableau User Group.
Read more about Brandi Locker

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Preface

Tableau Server provides a centralized location to store, edit, share, and collaborate on content such as dashboards and curated data sources. This book gets you up and running with Tableau Server to help you increase end user engagement for your published work, as well as reducing or eliminating redundant tasks.

You'll explore Tableau Server's structure and understand how to get started by connecting, publishing content, and navigating the software interface. Next, you'll learn when and how to update the settings of your content at various levels to best utilize Tableau Server's features. You'll explore how to interact with the Tableau Server interface to efficiently locate, sort, filter, manage, and customize content. After that, the book shows you how to leverage other valuable features that enable you and your audience to share, download, and interact with content on Tableau Server. As you progress, you'll discover ways to increase the performance of your published content. All along, the book shows you how to navigate, interact with, and best utilize Tableau Server with the help of engaging examples and best practices shared by recognized Tableau professionals.

By the end of this Tableau book, you'll have a comprehensive understanding of how to use Tableau Server to manage content, automate tasks, and increase end user engagement.

Who this book is for

This book is for BI developers, data analysts, and everyday users who have access to Tableau Server and possess basic web navigation skills. No prior experience with Tableau Server is required.

What this book covers

Chapter 1, What is Tableau Server?, introduces Tableau Server, Tableau Online, and Tableau Public, with a focus on the Server version. You will learn about each available platform and the license and role types used to access the platform. You will gain a broad understanding of the tools at your disposal and how these tools are maintained by your organization.

Chapter 2, How to Connect and Publish to Tableau Server, teaches you how to get connected to Tableau Server so that you will be able to publish your own content and interact with your company's content. You will also learn how to connect and publish to Tableau Public so that you can learn from the Tableau community and enhance your skills.

Chapter 3, Tableau Server Navigation Pane, teaches you how to navigate the Tableau Server sidebar options and the uses for each option. This toolbar is a main feature of Tableau Server navigation that is always available, regardless of what you are viewing in the main server window. Proper utilization of these available options will increase your efficiency in navigating Tableau Server.

Chapter 4, Tableau Server Top Toolbar, teaches you how to utilize the features available in the top toolbar, including searching for content on the server, accessing Tableau Help, reviewing notifications and troubleshooting, and changing your view and account settings. Understanding how to use the top toolbar enhances your experience with Tableau Server and helps identify crucial notifications to manage your content. 

Chapter 5, Filtering and Sorting Content, teaches you how to search, sort, and filter through available content by utilizing the content toolbar. This is useful when you have a large volume of published content and need to locate specific information or a particular item. The available options will change based on the content type you are currently viewing.

Chapter 6, Navigating Content Pages in Tableau Server, teaches you how to locate and interpret additional details for workbooks, data sources, and metrics by exploring the information found within their individual content pages. Understanding where to find this information will help you manage content and troubleshoot common issues.

Chapter 7, What is in the More Actions (…) Menu, covers the more actions () menu on Tableau Server, which is a primary location to manage many of the important components of your published content. This is where you can set and review access privileges, view and edit data connection details, view and manage data extract refresh information, monitor usage of your content, and more. 

Chapter 8, Interacting with Views on Tableau Server, teaches you how to customize various preferences for yourself and those using your published content. You can also use Tableau Server to increase customer utilization of your work by creating subscriptions for your audience. You will then learn how to leverage other valuable features that enable you and your audience to share, download, and interact with content on Tableau Server.

Chapter 9, Tableau Server Best Practices, teaches you about best practices when publishing content to the server, refreshing the data, and ways you can optimize the performance of your data and workbooks. Understanding these principles will help reduce the space used on the server, improve the refresh speed of your data, and increase the efficiency and performance of your published content. Following these guidelines will help you in discussions with your company's Tableau Server administrators and will help improve the user experience of those interacting with your published content.

Chapter 10, Conclusion, provides a brief recap/wrap-up of the principles learned throughout the book. It will encourage you to practice working with data and to develop a personal portfolio on Tableau Public. This chapter will also provide a brief overview of the Tableau Community and how to get involved. Doing so will enhance your analytic and technical skills and will serve you well by having a professional portfolio available and a network of Tableau professionals to provide help when needed, as well as encouragement, collaboration, and possibly even opening the door for future career opportunities. The chapter will end with suggested resources for furthering a developer or analyst's skills in Tableau and Tableau Server.

To get the most out of this book

You will need access to Tableau Server version 2020.1 or later. Examples in this book were provided using the 2021.1 and 2021.2 versions of Tableau Server. Depending on which version you have access to, your interface may vary slightly from the example images used throughout the book. These minor variations should not impact the concepts presented in this book.

Because this book is written for developers and not for administrators, the installation and deployment of Tableau Server are not covered in this book. It is assumed that you have web access to an established Tableau Server environment.

While there are some references to Tableau Desktop features and concepts, particularly in Chapter 9, Tableau Server Best Practices, no prior knowledge of Tableau Desktop is required to apply the Tableau Server concepts presented in this book.

Download the color images

We also provide a PDF file that has color images of the screenshots and diagrams used in this book. You can download it here: https://static.packt-cdn.com/downloads/9781801071130_ColorImages.pdf.

Conventions used

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

Code in text: 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: "These refer to a subset, or snapshot, of data that is stored in Tableau file format, that is, .hyper or .tde."

Bold: Indicates a new term, an important word, or words that you see onscreen. For instance, words in menus or dialog boxes appear in bold. Here is an example: "Click on the Server menu from the top menu bar in Tableau Desktop."

Tips or important notes

Appear like this.

Get in touch

Feedback from our readers is always welcome.

General feedback: If you have questions about any aspect of this book, email us at customercare@packtpub.com and mention the book title in the subject of your message.

Errata: Although we have taken every care to ensure the accuracy of our content, mistakes do happen. If you have found a mistake in this book, we would be grateful if you would report this to us. Please visit www.packtpub.com/support/errata and fill in the form.

Piracy: If you come across any illegal copies of our works in any form on the internet, we would be grateful if you would provide us with the location address or website name. Please contact us at copyright@packt.com with a link to the material.

If you are interested in becoming an author: If there is a topic that you have expertise in and you are interested in either writing or contributing to a book, please visit authors.packtpub.com.

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Authors (2)

author image
Patrick Sarsfield

Patrick Sarsfield is a senior data visualization consultant at Lovelytics. He is a Tableau Certified Associate Consultant, was a Tableau Public Featured Author in 2020, and is a multiple-time Tableau “Viz of the Day” winner.
Read more about Patrick Sarsfield

author image
Brandi Locker

Brandi Locker is a senior exploratory analytics consultant at Allstate Insurance Company. She is a certified Tableau Desktop Specialist and co-leads the North Texas Tableau User Group.
Read more about Brandi Locker