5 Best Tableau Books to Learn Tableau and Data Visualization

By | May 6, 2019
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Finding a veracious way to learn tableau is for sure a difficult task and many learners feel agitated when they don’t find one. But hey let’s not lose hope as there are many people out there who make sure that there are enough and genuine ways available regarding different things to learn. So here we are, giving a brief overview of some of the most amazing and high rated tableau books that we have on Amazon. If a person manages to get all the necessary information regarding these books then it can become a little easy for him to decide which one is according to his needs. So let us discuss everything there is to know about these books. But before any of this, I am going to share my tale with you all as to how I was able to find the right book for me.

Things to consider while Purchasing an Online Book:

Whether you go out to buy a book or order it online, never ever buy a book that is lowest rated or available at a cheap price. Usually the books that are being sold at a cheapest price are usually the leftovers that the company tries to get rid of by selling it at a very cheap rate. Neither buy such a book that you think is overly priced because there are many sellers out there who are fraud and makes you pay more. If you truly are a book lover then always look for the books that are available at a recognized store. And the best way to buy the right book for you at a right price is simply to compare it with other places or websites.

My Tale:

I am a person who loves to read, when I started to develop interest in tableau I looked for different ways that could help me understand this tool. I was looking for a nice book that could introduce me to Tableau. I indulge myself so much into reading that I was sure if a get the right book I would be able to get a sense of tableau. But guess what? Not every day you get lucky and find the right book for you. I went to so many libraries, book shops but none of the books seemed to be right for me. I got really agitated but then I thought of Amazon, I am not kind of person who gets satisfied through online shopping. I like to see the product live and then decide whether I should take it or not. This is why I never thought of buying it online or from Amazon. But I was really surprised when I typed Tableau books on the search bar of the website. There came a number of books at once and not only some low rated, less efficient books but high-rated, best seller books popped out. A brief introduction of the book, what you will learn from it, its rating, price, name of the publisher, pros and cons and other different but relevant details were given. I took a look at 3 to 4 tableau books and read all about it. And then chose the one that I thought might be best for me. In this way, through Amazon I was able to find the right book for me and it turned out to be helpful in understanding so much about tableau.

Top 5 Tableau Books based on Ratings:

In this Tableau tutorial, we are going to give names of some of the top rated tableau books that are available at amazon. This will surely give you an idea about which book is the best or most informational.

1. Learning tableau 2019: Tools for Business Intelligence, Data prep and Visual Analytics (3rd edition)

As we all know that tableau is something that has proven to be the most important data visualization tool that really helps to deal with handling of huge data. If you really wish to redefine business analytics for you organization then you must take this book as it has all the latest 2019 tableau features which means that you get access to all the latest techniques there are about tableau. This book is the most convenient way to learn how to visualize and interpret data with the help of different charts, graphs, dashboards and other features. The key features of the book includes how we can learn effective data storytelling and make better business decisions, how to get the best insights from your huge piles of data and explore all the latest tableau features.

This is a third edition book that has been published by a well reputed author named Joshua N. Milligan. This amazing author has made sure that he adds almost all the concepts that he knows about this amazing tool. There are a number of features that are available in the book. From installation of the tool to creating you first visualization with tableau, the book will help to explore all the practical examples and techniques. Not only that, this book has everything there is to know about how to make pie charts, bar charts, tree maps, visualizations and much more. Next what the book has to offer is different techniques that can be applied in order to tackle all the challenges that come in the way decision making and storytelling. Hence the book can turn out to be helpful in learning so many concepts about tableau.

Next comes the question that what a person can manage to learn after completing this book. Well we can say that there will be a lot of things that a person can learn with the help of this book. Starting from becoming capable enough to make stunning data visualizations, exploring all the amazing features of tableau desktop and prep, how we can connect the different kinds of data sources and bring them to one place in order to deduce results and many much more. You just have to start reading the book and try to understand all the terminologies explained in it very carefully. Further different concepts like how to build data stories and enable smart decisions with the help of distributing, clustering and forecasting is also explained in this book. Hence we can say that the learner can definitely learn something different from this book.

Most people while looking for a book also looks at the criteria as to whether they are capable of taking this book or not. Will they be able to handle the amount of knowledge given in the book or not. We would say that there is no such criteria to take this book. Means any person with having even a slightest of interest in understanding tableau can take this book. You don’t have to be a master in tableau to fall under the criteria instead anyone can take it and start learning from it. The purpose of this book is to help all such people out there who wish to learn tableau, develop a better understanding of tableau and then use this knowledge to understand practical examples too. This all can help in moving on to the advanced techniques further.

Hence what we have got to know so far about this book is that it can help a person to develop a fine understanding of tableau. So buying this book shouldn’t be a difficult decision for any user. Also if we talk about the rating of this book, we would say that as this is the latest edition of this book so it doesn’t have a rating yet but if we take a look at the previous editions of the book, both of them had an astounding rating. Which means that this book is also worth buying.

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2. Tableau 10: Business Intelligence Cookbook

Don’t get caught up by the word cookbook because this is not some cooking book that will help you cook food. Instead this cookbook will help you cook your favorite Tableau 10 business intelligence with the help of a very special recipe. The book has easy steps that will help you build interactive dashboards and visualizations just like the easy steps that are available in any cookbook that helps a cook to make even the hardest dish easily. When you take this book, you are going to find more than you have expected. The book is a guarantee that you will become an expert in tableau 10. It covers basic to advanced case scenarios that will get the learner up and running with tableau 10 in no time. It has step-by-step recipes to make advanced charts, become familiar with tableau interface, how to create effective and compelling dashboards and much more. By the end of the book it will make the person capable of analyzing and communicating huge data more efficiently. The name of this author is Donabel Santos who is a data geek and she loves to spend her time working with data, exploring data, visualizing it and deducing results from it. She has tried to publish such a book that has almost all the answers of the problems that a user encounters while working with tableau. Also the rating of this book is quite appealing hat is 4. Which shows that users are really satisfied by the content available in this book. Also it has been found out that rating really matters to the buyer, if a buyer sees a good rating, he is more convinced to buy something. As this book has a good rating so this means that if a person takes this book, it would surely not be a waste of time or money and he will end up being satisfied by the content.

Here’s what the book has to offer

  • Suitable for all types of business and analytics professionals who have to deal with data on a daily basis and use data driver approaches that can help them to support their strategies and other business operations.
  • Will get the reader up and running with all the fundamentals of tableau 10.
  • Contains basic to advanced level case scenarios that can help a learner to fully understand the fundamentals.
  • The book will start from telling how to make step by step charts and then eventually take the user to the advanced level where he will be taught how to make advanced level charts too.
  • Contains a separate chapter for dashboards. This means that those who are looking for the right knowledge to know about dashboards, look no further because this book has it all.
  • Further terms like analytics, data preparation and geo-spatial visualization are also explained in this book.

In the previous section, we came to know what the book has to offer which is totally a different thing. Now let us get to know what we will be finally learning from the book after completing it. It is the belief of the author that this book can give a user useful insights about tableau that can help him in learning this tool to a good extent. After completing the book, a user will become familiar with tableau and its interface. A user will become confident enough in making unique and rich visualizations using tableau. A user will be able to know all the tips and techniques that can help in doing the work more quickly and efficiently. These tips and techniques can be called as shortcuts that can make a user’s work much easier. How to shape data and visualize the locations with the help of tableau’s mapping will also be in a user’s finger tips. Hence we can say that after completing the book, not everything but a lot would be learned by a user.

In the end we can say that all the readers who are looking for the right book to learn Tableau, visit this page and you will get all the information that you need about which book is the best and which one is not worth buying. And trust me, our aim here is only to provide what is best for our learners and that is why we have compiled all this information so that our learner can choose the best.

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3. Practical Tableau: 100 Tips, Tutorials, and Strategies from a Tableau Zen Master 1st Edition

This book is the perfect choice that will help a learner to build compelling and the most interactive data visualization applications. The course has turned out to be really effective and has helped many tableau enthusiast in improving their skills regarding how to use an amazing tool named tableau. It would be totally fair if we mention here about the author Ryan Sleeper. This amazing author has managed to recognize his name as one of the world’s most qualified and exceptional tableau consultants. The amazing author has made to publish such a book that can help all kinds of tableau enthusiast in understanding this amazing tool as much as they can. The book contains information that will help a learner to become capable of finding valuable acumen from piles of data. The book is your only go or we should say a perfect pick if you wish to learn to develop tableau skills that you can bring to actual use.

Now let us discuss about what the book has in it for us. The book contains five sections and each section is unique on its own. The author has managed to provide different visualization tips, tutorials and strategies and much more that will for sure help a learner to develop a good understanding of tableau regardless of his experience. The author clearly knows what tableau is and what it has to offer, which is to help you see, understand and handle huge piles of data in the easiest way possible. So keeping this in mind, the author has tried to be as efficient as possible and explained everything related to tableau in an elaborated form. The purpose of this book is to help you understand and develop the foundation of tableau so that you can take your understanding to the next level. What you are going to learn from this book will for sure help you in establishing a good career for yourself.

  • You will be able to develop understanding of tableau from the very beginning that will help you to develop a strong base of tableau from the start. This will not only help you develop a string base from the start but will also help you to take your understanding to an advanced level in the coming time.
  • Become able to understand parameters and learn its innovative uses.
  • What is meant by color theory and what and where can it be used.
  • How you can become capable enough to make your tableau workbooks run in the most efficient way possible.
  • You will be able to learn tangible tactics that can help you so storytelling of your data. The book will introduce you to some tips that can be applied immediately and can polish your work in an instant.
  • What are the steps to build tableau dashboards and how it can be learned instantly?
  • What are the different types of charts and what are the steps to make these charts.

The book contains 624 pages and it has been found out that the rating of this book is quite astounding that is 4.5. This rating is something that can easily convince any user to take this book and start learning from it. But not just rating, here we are going to discuss some of the feedback that our users have given about the book. In this way it can give our other users an idea about what the book is and what good it can do to them.

  • I like the content of this book and the way that the material has been presented in the book is really appealing and make things understand better and quicker.
  • If you want to get to speed in producing effective visualization then you must get this book.
  • This book is a fantastic resource for all those who call themselves tableau users.
  • The illustrations are beautifully explained in this book and a user can easily understand what the author is trying to explain.

We can say that the rating and the reviews that users have given about this book pretty much say that the book is totally worth buying and the chances that a learner can learn things about tableau are very much high if he take this book. Even if you are a beginner or an experienced professional, taking this book might help you in ways that you haven’t thought of before. So we can conclude our discussion by saying that this book is totally something that is worth our time and effort

4. Mastering Tableau 2019.1: An expert guide to implementing advanced business intelligence and analytics with Tableau 2019.1, 2nd Edition

This is a second edition of the mastering tableau series where a user can get a proper guide regarding how he can learn to build, improve and design advanced business intelligence solutions using the latest techniques of tableau. Features include

  • Tableau prep.
  • Tableau hyper.
  • Tableau server.

This book has all the essential tableau concepts enclosed in it that will help a learner to understand how it works and what are the tips and techniques involved in it that can let a user work with tableau in the most efficient way ever. The focus of this book is not just one topic but a number of terms regarding tableau have been discussed in this book. The book has explanation as to how we can prepare and handle data easily with the help of tableau prep and tableau server. The best thing about this book is that, as it is a revised edition, it contains much more new and interesting terms, explanation, examples and code that are very much helpful in getting a grip over this concept. On starting the book, you are going to explore many things like how to make it easier to display granular data by performing data densification, how expert level examples given in the book can help you in performing advanced calculations, mapping and creating other visual designs using tableau extensions. The book contains a number of examples that can help you out in becoming better in creating dashboards and also connecting tableau server. Also you’ll be able to understand data visualization in a better way with the help of this book.

We have come to know about what this book has to offer in the previous section. But let us now get to know what we could actually learn from this book. If we get an idea about how much we can learn from this book then it gets easy to decide whether to take the book or not.

  • As tableau has a lot of components and it gets really tiring to remember all this. But this book will help you in learning and knowing various tableau components. What are its uses and how we can use them effectively will be taught in this book.
  • How to create power point presentations with the help of tableau in the most appealing way possible will be learned by a user.
  • If you lack dashboard and advanced data visualization techniques then don’t worry because this book will help you get to speed about these features.
  • You will be able to understand the different technicalities of architecture and functionalities of tableau.
  • You will become efficient in learning all the techniques that are required to prepare data using tableau prep.
  • You will be able to polish your skills about time series analytics and much more by completing this book.

Now the question comes, who is the right audience for this book? By looking at the technicalities that are available in this book, we can say that the right audience for this book are all the data analyst out there who want to polish their skills regarding solving different ranges of data science and business intelligence problems. The book is also a suitable for all the business analytics and BI professionals out there. All these personnel if take this book, they will be able to polish so many of their skills about tableau and can change their way of doing things in a positive way.

It wouldn’t be fair if we don’t mention the efforts that are authors have put in this book. Both our authors Marleen Meier and David Baldwin have shown tremendous dedication towards publishing this book and they have tried to be as elaborated as possible so that the learn can get the most out of this book. Hence we can say that this book is totally worth buying.

5. The Big Book of Dashboards

Are you a tableau geek and have a lot of interest in this tool and looking for ways to understand about dashboards in a most effective way possible? Then look no further because this book named the big book of dashboards is one tough book that has everything that is required in learning how to build and oversee the development of business dashboards. The book is a perfect pick for all those who have even the slightest of ambiguities in dashboards concepts and intend to build effective business dashboards from the scratch. The book has been published by three different authors named

  • Steve Wexler.
  • Jeffrey Shaffer.
  • Andy Cotgreave.

The above mentioned authors have tried to embed 30 years of hands-on experience regarding how to create effective dashboards and creating visualizations. The purpose of this book as mentioned by the authors is to help all those learners out there who wish to survive and flourish in the world of data visualization. These amazingly talented authors have tried to share all their experiences, their dead ends and much more so that a learner can get the most about dashboards and how it points out different risks and opportunities. This book has turned out to be the only book that has information about dashboards with real-world business scenarios. Using these real-world business scenarios can help a learner to understand this concept even better.

The book has a lot of things to offer according to the authors. It has a number of examples that depict different industries and departments like

  • Finance
  • Healthcare
  • Transportation
  • Human Resource
  • Marketing

And many other departments and also their platforms like smartphone, desktop, tablet, print etc. how these departments are being addressed in this book with the help of examples can help a learner a lot in understanding exactly about how dashboards can be made wisely and what can they show us and help us with.

After completing the book, a user will be able to learn a number of things like

  • How to address different practical and psychological factors that you are going to face at your workplace.
  • How to make cool dashboards with the help of packed bubbles and donut charts.
  • Introduces you with the tools, models and guidance that can help you to produce amazing dashboards with full clarity and engagement.

The book contains 448 pages and the rating of this book is 4.5 stars. This rating is considered to be a very good one and can put a good impact on those who intend to buy this book. But reviews from those who have already completed the book can help another user the most in deciding whether to take this book or not. So let us take a look at some of the reviews that our users have given about the book.

  • This is an incredible book that that focuses more on my desk rather than on my shelf which is an incredible thing.
  • Unlike other books that only focuses on showing principles and guidelines, this book actually focuses on explaining how to apply them. I really liked this book.
  • The numerous examples of real dashboards turned out to be very helpful and made the concept become easy to understand.
  • The authors have beautifully explained powerful design principles using real world cases.

After reading some of the reviews that our users have given about the book, one can easily get satisfied by the quality of this book and can say that this book has what it takes to help others to become good at making dashboards. The content available in the book clearly shows that this book is something that has been made with pure dedication, hard work and enthusiasm and also with the purpose of helping others to learn about this tool in the most efficient way possible. So if you are a business analytic, a beginner or a professional, taking this book will be a wise choice you’ve ever made.

Conclusion:

We can conclude our topic by saying that if we take a look at all the description of the above books then it can become really easy for us to decide which tableau book can help us the most in learning this tool. All of the above mentioned books are equally competitive and resourceful and any book chosen from the above list can turn out to be very helpful. The purpose of this discussion is to help all the users in deciding which book is suitable for them by giving a brief description of top most books and give an idea about what each book has to offer, we have done our part by giving this information now all you have to do is decide for yourself which book is your right pick.