At the same time as Hyper, the Tableau Data Engine that we discussed in Chapter 2, All About Data – Getting Your Data Ready, Tableau Prep was introduced with version 10.5 of Tableau.
What can we use Tableau Prep for? Correct: data preparation. The good news is, Tableau Prep is fully integrated with Tableau Desktop, and starting from version 2019.1, also with Tableau Server. That means you can schedule jobs in Prep to clean your data before you even arrive at the office. Additionally, Tableau Prep is as visual as its big brother, Tableau Desktop, meaning that you can literally see every step of data preparation.
Therefore, let's dive into the Graphical User Interface (GUI) and be amazed by another high-end product.
In this chapter, the following topics will be discuss:
- Connecting to data
- The Tableau Prep GUI
- Prepping data
- Exporting data