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COFHE-IR Tableau Training IIMarin Clarkberg and Deb Fyler, Cornell UniversitySession II: Tableau Tools April 7, 2013 . A Tableau document with the suffix .twb. It may contain worksheets and dashboards. A packaged workbook, .twbx, is a Tableau workbook integrated with the data source and compressed. Worksheet. Like in Excel, one ‘tab’ within a workbook.Dashboard. Also a ‘tab’ within a workbook, a dashboard is a presentation space for one or more worksheets. It may be linked to multiple or many datasets.Data. As with SPSS or another statistical software package, the data is generally a separate, independent file. In Tableau, we start by “connecting” to a data file, such as a .xls file or a .csv file.Data Extract. Sort of similar with the .sav file with SPSS, you can save the data in a format that will improve the performance of Tableau. This is a data “extract”, .tde. Viz. The hip Tableau way to say “graph” or “chart.”Connect to a Data File34925004953000Open Tableau and select “Connect to data” Select text file and choose to “IPEDS FTF Fin Aid 08-11”. Comma delimited is the default.This is a file I downloaded from IPEDS late last month. It contains information on financial aid for first time full time degree seeking freshmen for year 2008 to 2011 for all COFHE schools plus a few more. All data is in aggregate. Select “Import All Data”. Tableau will ask where you want to store the extract file that results (anywhere is fine, it’s your computer!). Make a TableTableau imports your data and makes determinations on data type – that are not always correct. Lucky for you, in this dataset, they almost all are! VocabularyDimensions. Roughly speaking, these tend to be categorical variables that you might want to use to break the data into groups (e.g. sex, race, major). You could also think of dimensions as your “independent variables.” Tableau starts by assuming that all your non-numeric data is data that might want to use for breakouts. You are not stuck with this designation. Measures. Tableau starts by assuming that all numeric data is something that you might want to sum, average, or trend. You might think of measures as your “outcomes” or “dependent variables.” Of course it is not always appropriate to take an average of a variable stored numerically (like, say, race stored as numeric codes). Therefore, you may want to change some of your “measures” into “dimensions”… a very easy task: just drag them. Make unitid and Year dimensions. Now make a crosstab: Drop the ‘number receiving institutional grant aid’ into center of cross-tab. Note that it sums this measure.Make GroupsMake a group - there are a few institutions included in this dataset that are not COFHE schools. Make two groups, one “COFHE” and one “Not COFHE” (U Calif, Illinois, Michigan, Virginia, Wisconsin, and Caltech).Filter on COFHE and make the filter “global” (Apply to worksheets>All Using this Data Source) Now all worksheets you make in this doc will be limited to COFHE schools.Make a group of the COFHE schools by type (Ivies, non-Ivy universities, women’s colleges, coeducational colleges)CalculationsCreate some calculated fields:“Percent receiving Aid”: [number receiving federal- state- local or institutional grant ai]/[Number of full-time first-time degree/certificate seeking Freshmen ]“Percent receiving Inst Aid”: [number receiving institutional grant aid]/[Number of full-time first-time degree/certificate seeking]“Percent receiving Fed Loan”: [number receiving federal loan aid]/[Total number of full-time first-time degree/certificate seeking ]“Total Amt of Inst Aid”: [Avg amount of institutional grant aid received]*[number receiving institutional grant aid]“Percent receiving Pell”: [number receiving pell grants]/[Total number of full-time first-time degree/certificate seeking ]Make a duplicate worksheet and add a calc. ChartsFormat axes to be percentages.Show Me Start a new sheet by right clicking on the Sheet tab and selecting Duplicate Sheet.Select the bar graph in the “Show Me” wizard and insert “instnm” into the color box. Make all institutions blue and make your institution red (or another color). Sort at top of column.Add a reference line to Percent Fed Loan and/or other measures. Make all axes the same. Format the fields. Add a “quick limit” for year.Make a dashboard, add a title. Add ‘pages’ for year. Size it for an iPad and to fit entire view. Format. Modify Tooltips.VocabularyTooltips. When you mouse over data displayed in a Tableau dashboard, text will appear. This text is a “tooltip.” You can control what, exactly, is displayed when people mouse over using the Tooltip function on the Marks card. SharingPublish to Tableau Public (free) to post on the web for all to see and for all to download – copy the email link to share.Publish to Tableau Public Premium ($$) to post to the web (can disallow downloading).Send whole doc via e-mail to someone who has Tableau Reader (free) on their laptop or computer.Publish to your Tableau server How Survey Data LookConnect to the COFHE Senior Survey Excel file. Because survey data are frequently stored as numeric codes (rather than with value labels), Tableau considers them “measures.” This is helpful if you want to calculate a mean, but less than helpful if you want to see the distribution of responses. It may be helpful to convert some of these measures to Dimensions.Duplicate one of the learning gains measures, like “cartlit” by right-clicking on it and selecting “Duplicate.” Move the copy up to Dimensions.List institutions as the rows in your table by moving inst_txt to the rows shelf. Put your learning gains dimension (or another dimension) on the columns shelf.At the bottom of the list of Measures is a Tableau-calculated measure called “Number of Records.” Drag that into the crosstab on top of the Abc’s.VocabularyShelf. You will use the “Columns” shelf and the “Rows” shelf in Tableau. Card. Cards just containers for the controls in Tableau. You will see the “Pages” card, the “Marks” card, the “Filters” card and so forth. Pills. The little blue and green rounded rectangles that contain the names of your variables are called pills. For example, you might refer to the “Ssr Component” pill or the “student id” pill. Blue pills are dimensions; green pills are measures.On the Marks card, right click on the green pill labeled “SUM(Number of Records)”. Select “Quick Table Calculation” and then “Percent of Total.” Exclude the Null values (right click on the word Null).Variable Labels and Value LabelsThey are gone, gone, gone! There is no way to import them from SPSS or SAS or Stata or anything else. Yes, this seems incredible. We plow ahead:Right click on the name of the survey measure being used as a dimension [e.g. cartlit (copy)]. If you clicked on the pill, select “Edit Aliases.” If you clicked on the item in the Dimensions pane, select “Default Attributes” and then “Aliases…”Edit as appropriate.ParametersVocabularyParameters. Parameters are part of what makes Tableau incredibly flexible and powerful. I think of a parameter as a knob that I can design. I can not only tell Tableau how the knob will look and what values it can take on, but I can also tell Tableau what to do when someone the knob is set at each particular value.The drop-down menus displayed below are done with parameters. The top drop-down menu allows you to choose which survey item to look at. The lower drop-down menu allows you to choose what will be displayed on the x-axis: college, sex, or race/ethnicity/citizenship.Creating a Parameter ControlRight-click in the Measures window and select “Create Parameter.”Name the new parameter “Select an item from the 2012 Senior Survey.”Select “String” next to the “Data type” prompt. Select “List” from “Allowable values”.You can save yourself the trouble of typing in list of variable names and descriptors if you have that information available separately. So, for example, in a different window, open an Excel spreadsheet that has variable mnemonics and long descriptors in it. Copy both fields, as illustrated here:Back in Tableau in the Edit Parameter dialogue box, press “Paste from Clipboard.” You should see something that looks like this:Click ‘ok’. You have now created a knob and designed its appearance. It does nothing at all… until we tell what to do.You now have a new pane below Measures labeled Parameters. Right click on the parameter you just made and select “Show Parameter Control.” You will then get a drop down menu that looks like this:Using a Parameter Control to Drive TableauRight-click in the Dimensions window and select “Create Calculated Field.” Rename it “Learning Outcome” or something else.Using a combination of typing and clicking on Parameter names and Field names, produce something along these lines:Above, I completed only four of the possible values of our parameter, but eventually we’ll want all 15 of them. When you are satisfied you have enough, press OK to close the window.Put your new parameter-driven calculated Dimension, Learning Outcome, on the Columns shelf.Edit the aliases for Learning Outcome (see bottom of page 8). Note: Once you have fleshed out all fifteen learning outcomes that you now have a display that allows you to view a whole survey bank, and you only had to type on the value labels (or Aliases, in Tableau-speak) one time.In no time at all, you can put your work into a fun dashboard: ................
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