Changing data types
With Tableau Prep's ability to connect to an incredible number of different data sources comes the challenge of data type management. Every data source technology handles data types slightly differently, or stores values differently. The wrong data type may limit the number of functions you can perform with that field. For example, you cannot aggregate a number if its data type is text, nor can you filter for a date range if the data type is not a date.
Tableau Prep does a phenomenal job of automatically detecting the appropriate data type. Tableau Prep data types are listed as follows:
- Number (decimal)
- Number (whole)
- Date & Time
- Date
- String
There are times when Tableau is unable to determine the correct data type, and times when it is unable to set it to your desired type because the values in the data are not compatible. We'll look at both cases in this recipe and how to address them.
Getting ready
To follow...
