Integrating Programming Languages

After 14 chapters full of Tableau functionality and exercises, what are we still missing? Correct, the one feature that opens a whole new universe of opportunities: programming integration! If you need a function that isn’t covered natively by Tableau’s calculated fields and you know how to code it, you can fall back on programming integrations. To be precise, two languages are supported: R and Python.

Imagine the following scenario: you deal with a financial dataset and want to add an options pricing formula to your Tableau dashboard. You look up the formula and see that you have all the required variables, like strike price, stock price, and volatility, but you also need a probability density function, which you can’t find in Tableau. In this case, you can fall back to the programming integration and run the calculation in R or Python and send back the output—great, isn’t it? Now imagine a second scenario:...