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Showing posts from February, 2020

Can you do this analysis in Tableau?

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If all you know how to use is a hammer, everything looks like a nail! I frequently get asked, "Izam, can you use Tableau to create a chart that looks like this ..." or "Izam, can you use Tableau to calculate this ..." Lately, I've been thinking about how the tools we use shape the way that we go about solving problems. And the above adage comes to mind: if all you know how to use is a hammer, everything looks like a nail! Excel and PowerPoint are great for writing documents and reports. Reports which go about answering the: "WHAT"  are we planning to do?  "HOW MUCH"  are profits? or "WHEN"  does it need to be done by? Tableau on the other hand, shines when we use it to explore the question ... "WHY"  is this trend happening? "How much are profits?" For example, with the Superstore sample data set, an analyst might be interested in building out a table that compares the key performance indicators of