Program 2 : Connecting to Data Source – Connecting to Database, Different types of Tableau
Joins.
Dataset used: Tableau Joins File: Contains 3 sheets : Demographics, Salary, Job Title
1. Connecting to Excel Files in Tableau:
Open Tableau and click on Connect in the left pane.
Under To a File, choose Microsoft Excel.
Browse and select your Excel file (Tableau Joins [Link]).
Tableau will display the sheets from the Excel file in the Data Source tab.
Drag the relevant sheets to the workspace.
2. Tableau Joins [Link] Dataset: has three Excel sheets
Demographics:
EmployeeID
NameofEmployee
EmployeeAge
EmployeeGender
Salary:
EmployeeID
EmployeeSalary
These sheets have a relationship based on the EmployeeID, and you can join them using this field.
Drag and drop Demographics table- Right click-select open- that allows you to do following types of
joins.
Now Drag and drop Salary table - That allows you to do join of your choice.
3. Types of Joins in Tableau:
Once both tables are in the Data Source tab, Tableau automatically suggests an inner join, but you can
modify the type of join depending on the scenario.
a. Inner Join:
Description: Returns only records where there is a match in both tables.
How to Create in Tableau:
Drag Demographics and Salary sheets into the canvas.
Tableau automatically detects the common field (EmployeeID). If not, manually select it.
Choose Inner Join in the Join Type options.
Result: You will see only employees whose employee id matches in both Demographics and
Salary table.
b. Left Join:
Description: Returns all records from the left table (Demographics), and matched records
from the right table (salary). If there’s no match, NULL values are returned for fields from
the right table.
How to Create in Tableau:
In the join settings, select Left Join.
Result: All employees will be returned, even if data missing in Salary. Salary information
will be NULL for those without a match.
c. Right Join:
Description: Returns all records from the right table (Salary), and matched records from the left
table (Demographics). If there’s no match, NULL values are returned for fields from the left table.
How to Create in Tableau:
Select Right Join.
Result: You will see all salary, even if they don't have employee id. Employee information will be
NULL for those salary with no matching employee id.
d. Full Outer Join:
Description: Returns all records when there is a match in either the left (Demographics) or right
(Job Title) table. If there’s no match, NULL values are returned for the missing side.
How to Create in Tableau:
Select Full Outer Join.
Result: You will see all employees and all salary, even if they don’t have a match in the
other table. NULL values will appear where there’s no corresponding record.
4. Creating a Visualization Based on Joins:
After performing the joins, you
can build different visualizations.
Press on Sheet 1:
For example:
Number of employees and their
Bar Chart:
NameofEmployee to Columns.
salary. Drag
Drag EmployeeSalary to Rows.
This chart will display the number of employees and their salary based on the type of join.
Sort it in decending
Drag EmployeeSalary to Marks - Select color Color, Label