Tableau & Exasol expert opinion

How to Analyze
Big Data in Tableau
How to Analyze
Big Data in Tableau
The terms Big Data, Data Lake, real-
time processing and streaming are
all around us. While most analyses
done in organizations are still at the
‘spreadsheet level’, involving small
tables and manageable data volumes,
the challenge of working with very
large volumes (100 million records and
beyond) is something more and more
people have to tackle.
Whether you are a data analyst
searching for insights in your data, a
decision maker in need of actionable
information to drive your company
strategy, or you lead a team of analysts
who want to use their tools in the
most effective way, handling big data
volumes is a topic you will not be
able to ignore in the long-term. So
what is so special about working with
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large data volumes when it comes to
analysis in general and visual analytics
in particular? The short of it is: there
isn’t that much of a difference. At the
detailed level, however, there are a
number of things to consider to make
the analysis process as smooth and
efficient as possible, while also making
the most of the rich and granular
datasets available to you.
We want to share a few tips for
analyzing Big Data in Tableau. These
ideas apply generally to visual analysis
and we have included a couple of
interactive visualizations to help you
better understand how you can put the
suggestions into practice.
Know and understand
your data
Having a good grasp of your data will help
you work with massive datasets much
more effectively. This includes some
preparatory work with the metadata,
identifying the fields available, data types,
hierarchies that exist in the dataset, date
ranges and the level of granularity.
Why is this helpful? Working with data
volumes in excess of several hundred
million records means that when
visualizing individual data points, we need
to understand what happens when we
place specific fields into a view.
When you build a scatterplot in Tableau
and drag a field onto the Level of Detail
marks card, which has record level detail,
the result will be a visualization with a
huge amount of data points. The larger
the number of data points displayed, the
greater the processing demands on your
machine to render the visualization.
Understanding what each field in your
dataset represents, means you can build
visualizations more effectively.
We want you to visually explore and
analyze as much data as possible,
while being mindful that displaying four
million data points at once will probably
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not be required to gain insights and 2009-2015, colored by Taxi Type
can be slowed down by processing (Yellow cabs vs. Green cabs).
power. Knowing and understanding
The map clearly shows the dominance
your data means you can run effective
of Yellow Cabs in lower Manhattan,
visual analyses without running into
the coverage by Green Cabs of the
performance problems.
Bronx, Queens and Brooklyn, and the
Exasol and Tableau, together, are ready popularity of the route to JFK airport.
to handle your analysis, your exploration,
This dataset contains 1.2 billion records
and to help you answer the really tricky
for taxi trips between 2009-2015. Do
questions. Just make sure your computer
we need all those data points to see the
can keep up!
above pattern? Not really.
Applying a simple date filter helps
reduce the data to a subset and gives us
Use effective filters a starting point for our analysis.
Filtering? But why? You want to explore
Any pattern we detect can now be
all your data, right? You certainly
investigated further. For example, by
should be able to tackle your analytical
only looking at the data for Queens
questions using all of your data if that’s
but extending it out across all dates,
what you want to do. Filters can help
or reducing it to Green Cabs across all
you to structure your analysis in a way
Boroughs.
that also supports the previous point
about knowing your data: There are
only so many data points you can
realistically work with and interpret in a
single view at any one point. The view displays
325,557 data points.
Take maps for example. We visualized
taxi pickups for New York City on
February 1 for every year between
Know and understand 4
your data
Using effective filters therefore gives us Which filters will work best? Are you
 European market analysis | Growth across key regions
the best chance of staying in the flow of interested in specific date ranges
analysis, moving from one insight to the across all regions or do we need to
next, going from the aggregate level to visualize a single region’s results across
the finest detail, tackling subsets of data all years?
and generating hypotheses which we
How can we produce aggregated

then test against ALL the data.
visuals that tell an effective story and
Visual analysis is the strength of Tableau reflect the insights we found in the
– and for massive data volumes, Exasol detailed data?
is a powerful enabler to keep you in
What flexibility do our users need

the flow, working without disruptions
when it comes to interacting with the
as your data processing will be
data in a dashboard?
exceptionally fast.
No waiting, no coffee breaks to kill time.
You‘ll be able to focus on your analysis,
get those insights and move on.
Knowing and understanding your
data before you dive deep into your
analysis will help you find the smartest,
most effective approach to your data
questions:
Know and understand
your data
Interactivity and
user-centric design
It can be tempting to give your audience
ten different quick filters to customize
the dashboard for their preferences so
they can drill down into the detailed data
for their department, a specific team, or
even individual employees.
The question I want to challenge you
with, is this: Do you really need all that
flexibility, which also assumes a certain
sophistication from your end users
when it comes to dashboard usage and
an understanding of interactive data
visualizations? And are you willing to
make compromises for the sake of this
flexibility?
Quick filters impact performance and
there are simple ways to avoid the
challenge that comes with Tableau
sending queries to the database to
identify the values that need to be
visualized, for the given selection made
in a quick filter. Multiply this effort of
querying all the possible values across
all the quick filters in your view and you
understand where performance issues
can come from.
There are ways to address this. If
your product manager wants a
comprehensive dashboard based on
ALL of the available data relating to the
product domain, and wants a lot of
flexibility in this dashboard, then you
basically have two options:
Option 1: Give them a dashboard

with all the filters they ask for,
but reduce the underlying data
to aggregated levels as the
individual transaction-level data
is unlikely to be required. Should
they wish to go that far into the
detail, discuss whether providing
drilldown capabilities in a separate
dashboard (one that doesn’t
contain all the high-level business
insight visualizations as well) would
be better and give them a second
dashboard where they can get into
the detail, but with limited filtering
options.
Option 2: Recommend a two-
 give your users a similar level of
pronged approach and challenge
them on the flexibility they are
asking for (after all, YOU are
the expert when it comes to
visualization and analysis, so give
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yourself the freedom to make The resulting dot plot shows the
some recommendations here): concentration of harmful ozone levels
A dashboard you deliver which for a single state, at the ‘hour of the
provides them with guided analysis day’ level across months, displaying
around the business questions every single reading for that state that
they have. You can also deliver an falls above a certain value.
additional ‘self-service’ exploratory
dashboard, where you establish
the connection to the database,
create a couple of ‘starter views’,
The dot plot for California
and give them the ability to drag
contains 477,109 data points.
and drop, bringing in fields and
Imagine how many data points
running their own analyses on
would be in the chart if every
more detailed data.
state was displayed at once …
Okay, so aside from not filling up
your dashboard with numerous quick
filters, what else can you do to create
an effective dashboard your users will
WANT to interact and work with?
Use Dashboard Actions to drive
filtering and highlighting in your
workbook, and use it to reduce
complexity. As a result, you would
control over the display as what
would be achieved with quick filters.
In the below example of a dashboard
about Air Quality in the US, ozone
levels were analyzed for each state.
Know and understand
your data
The hexmap acts to fulfill different
objectives:
provide context: i.e., we’re looking

at US data and the data is at a state
level
drive interactivity from the

audience: i.e., ‘Select a state’ lets
the viewer take an action and
navigate through the data
filter the results: i.e., in the dot
 step. Whether you use Tableau‘s story points
plot, only the values for a single
state are displayed at once to show
a meaningful view where patterns
become obvious. This would be
obscured if all states were shown
together. Additionally, the hexmap
also filters the slope chart in the
top right corner to show an overall
increase or decrease between the
first and the most recent year of
the measurements.
Seasonal patterns of unhealthy ozone levels in the US
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Dashboard actions work very quickly and
are intuitive to use. Including specific
instructions and calls to action that draw
people‘s attention to these levels of
interactivity will ensure your audience
explores the data and information.
With this user-centric design approach, you
can guide your audience not just through
a single dashboard but through layers of
information and an entire data story step by
to let your insights unfold or you apply
dashboard actions that take your viewers
from one page to the next, you can use
interactivity to guide your audience to, and
through, your findings and let your analysis
develop gradually.
In my opinion, guided analysis can be
much more effective than handing over a
dashboard with a dozen filters, resulting in an
audience unsure what to actually look for.
As the analyst, show your findings and tell
your audience how you got there. Take
them from the summary level into the detail
of your data. Share information, create ‘Aha’
moments, and engage people by making
data and insights accessible.
Know and understand 7
your data

Enrich your data Yes, you may already have massive

amounts of data and adding
As a third recommendation, I want to ‘complexity’ by joining further data
suggest that you enrich your data to could seem too ambitious, given
make it more meaningful. the time or expertise available in
your team. Don’t let that restrain
Our ozone data is interesting and rich
you, though. Find people in your
and gives us plenty of opportunity
organization who can support you
to explore different hypotheses,
by making data available, preparing
but imagine if we combined it with
custom views for you, or assisting
population data, as well as the
with finding relevant data in the first
numbers of cars and factories in the
place.
area where the sensors are located ...
This would allow us to correlate the Telling better data stories with richer
data and gain even more insights, tell datasets will be a worthwhile effort
more data stories and reach a broader that can inject fresh ideas for the
audience. business areas you work with and can
help them identify new focus areas
You have massive datasets in your
and priorities.
organization and want to drive
insights from them. It is important to
identify whether they can be joined
to other relevant data in a meaningful
way. This allows you and the other
analysts in your team, department or
organization, to dig deeper, analyze
more and to identify new ideas that
were possibly never thought of
before.
Are you ready?
Start with Big Data
Get to know your data and gain a
good understanding of your metadata
which can help you analyze it more
efficiently and effectively. Make
sure you use effective filters and
don’t immediately default to the
commonly used quick filters that can
impact performance. Instead, create
dashboards that use interactivity
and are designed for the audience.
Take people on a journey through
your insights, working from the
high-level findings to the granular
details, moving from one point to
the next effectively and without
performance implications. Keep your
design clean and simple to support
this structure and, lastly, enrich your
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data to give you scope for more
analysis, meaningful correlations
and new insights that can push your
organization into new directions.
I’d love to hear how you use Tableau
to bring your Big Data to life. If that’s
not yet what you’re doing but you are
keen to play with massive datasets in
Tableau, or any other tool you have
access to, register for access to our
publicly hosted data sets that you can
explore, analyze and visualize ...
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