Connecting to Data in Tableau Desktop

The two primary tools for connecting to data in Tableau are Tableau Prep Builder and Tableau Desktop. Building off the previous four chapters, which covered Tableau Prep Builder, this chapter focuses on connecting to data in Tableau Desktop.

Tableau Desktop has connectors to many different data sources. These broadly fall into the categories of flat files, database servers, data from the web, and Tableau data servers, called published data sources.

In this chapter, we’re going to check out how to connect to each of these data sources through the following main topics:

• Connecting to files in Tableau Desktop
• The data interpreter feature and pivoting columns to rows
• Connecting to data servers – on-premises, cloud, applications, and file shares
• Web data connectors and additional connectors
• Connecting to data sources that aren’t listed
• Connecting to Tableau published data sources

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