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Tableau for Teaching: Tableau Prep Builder

Contents 

About Tableau Prep Builder
Prep Builder Learning Resources
Tableau Prep Builder in the Classroom

About Tableau Prep Builder

Tableau Prep Builder is a desktop tool in the Tableau product suite designed to make preparing your data easy and intuitive. Use Tableau Prep Builder to combine, shape, and clean your data for analysis in Tableau. If you are using Tableau Cloud, a version of Tableau Prep Builder titled “Flow” is available. 

Tableau Prep Builder is available for free for educators verified through Tableau for Teaching. If you want to provide access to your students, request the Student Course License, Lab License or Tableau Cloud site depending on the format of your class. For more information regarding the course license types, please check out the “License Types” section of the Tableau for Teaching: Introduction help article.

Prep Builder Learning Resources

As a part of the Tableau for Teaching program, you have access to all of the below resources free of charge. Students will have access to Trailhead and Tableau Help, however, they will need an educators’ support to access Tableau eLearning. If you would like your students to access eLearning, reach out to us at tft@tableau.com.

Tableau Prep Builder in the Classroom

When teaching Tableau Prep Builder, our suggested lecture time is around 1-2 weeks. Tableau Prep Builder can also be included as a part of the Tableau Web Authoring and/or Desktop section. Tableau Prep Builder is a great tool to help teach students how to clean, shape, and combine data to optimize it for analysis.

How to Structure Data

Before introducing the Tableau Prep Builder software, use the modules below to introduce data structure and best practices for structuring data. The modules below are available through the Tableau for Teaching Curriculum and Trailhead.

  • Data Literacy One Curriculum (accessible through Tableau for Teaching Curriculum)
    • Module 3 Collection and Structure: this module explores the importance of properly structuring your data.
    • Module 4 Variable and Field Types: this module explores the different ways values are represented in a data set. 
  • Build Your Data Literacy Trail - Well Structured Data Trailhead module that introduces the concepts of well-structured data. Content covered in this module includes identifying data characteristics, understanding how data is organized, and how to restructure data.

How to use Tableau Prep Builder

After establishing a foundation of structuring data, use these Tableau and Salesforce learning resources to teach Tableau Prep Builder. These materials can be found across the Tableau website and Trailhead.

  • Tableau Prep Builder Basics -  Trailhead module that provides an overall tour of the product. Students can complete the modules and the instructor can provide additional concepts/demos in class. The module walks students through:
    • An overview of the product
    • Connecting and processing data
    • Outputting data
  • Get Started with Tableau Prep Builder - Tableau Help article that follows a similar path to the Tableau Prep trailhead.

Practice with Tableau Prep Builder 

After introducing the concepts of Data Literacy and Tableau Prep Builder, use the sample projects below to test your students' understanding. These projects can be used as an in-class demonstration or as a stand alone project. Both assignments will challenge students to restructure the data and produce a new output. As a secondary assignment, ask students to visualize the data once the data has been restructured. 

  • Hospital Bed Usage (Level: Basic) - Help determine hospital bed capacity using patient data.
  • Finding the Second Date (Level: Advanced) - Find the second traffic infraction date for each driver based on a compiled list of driver infractions. 

 

 
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