Tableau for Teaching: Using Tableau Public

Contents 

What is Tableau Public?
How to Access Tableau Public
Incorporating Tableau Public in Your Class

What is Tableau Public? 

Tableau Public is a free platform where millions of users around the world explore, create, and publicly share data visualizations based on topics such as movies, environment or sports. This is a great platform for students to create an analytics portfolio for them to showcase their skills for future employers. If you want to learn more about Tableau Public, check out the Trailhead module Data Storytelling with Tableau. 

How to Access Tableau Public

To get started, visit Tableau Public and log in to your Tableau account. If you have not yet created an account, check out the “Create Your Tableau Account” section in the Tableau for Teaching: Getting Access to Tableau help article. This article details how to create a new Tableau account. After signing in to your account, remember to build your profile by adding a photo, school, and a short bio. It is especially important for your students to build this profile, which can serve as an analytics portfolio that can enhance their future job applications. 

After creating your profile, subscribe to the viz of the day and follow profiles that peak your interest. Here’s a few below to get you started!

• Chimdi Nwosu - Dashboard design inspiration using simplicity and consistency.
• Ellen Blackburn - Variety of examples of business dashboard designs.
• Pradeep Kumar G - Showcasing data storytelling through dashboards and infographics.
• Shreya Arya - Dashboard design inspiration using beautiful colors.
• Wendy Shijia - Variety of examples from mapping to testing Tableau functionality in creative ways.
• Tableau Academic Programs - Example dashboards of our teaching content.
• Tableau Accelerators - Prebuilt Tableau dashboards to plug & play.

Incorporating Tableau Public in Your Class 

The Tableau Academic Program offers a collection of workbooks for academic use. These collections include both the starter and solution workbooks. Each workbook has a companion case study or curriculum attached to it. Information on how you can access the teaching content can be found on our Tableau Curriculum help article.

If you decide to use these workbooks in your curriculum, you can either download them to use offline with Tableau Desktop or Tableau Public Desktop Edition or edit them directly from Tableau Public using the copy feature.

Once the students have completed their assignments, they can publish their dashboard directly to Tableau Public. Using the Tableau Public share feature, they can send you a direct link to the workbook. This link can be sent via email or shared directly with a url.

Publishing visualizations to Tableau Public helps students start building their portfolio. Countless users of Tableau Public have shared their stories of putting their Tableau Public profile link on their resumes and applications to demonstrate their skills and land their job. On the Tableau Public profile page, there is also a “Hire Me” button which allows students to stand out on the platform when they are seeking a job.