Learn Tableau with the help of the Community: A starter list of data vloggers
When I first started on my Tableau journey 6 years ago, I found myself being provided countless books and blogs by community members. I wanted to scale up my knowledge in a new role as fast as I could and found a couple of excellent YouTube channels devoted to showing you the step-by-step of how to build and become fluent in the Tableau Desktop environment. One of the reasons I found this learning mode effective for me is I could observe, pause the video, replicate the calculated fields, click the same settings as the speaker, and then hit play again to continue watching. Rather than reading through a 20+ step process in a written article with limited snapshots, I could see the entire development process first-hand. This mode proved to be effective at giving me some confidence in understanding not only how to do things in Tableau, but also why I was doing them.
Fast track 6 years and the variety and quality of the Tableau vloggers has multiplied infinitely. However, it is tough to find a centralized list on the Tableau Community for these resources. Knowing this, I wanted to provide a starting point for anyone looking to add Tableau vloggers to their skills development practice. For this list, I wanted to focus on vloggers that were tutorial-based and still producing content as of February 2022.
If you are new to Tableau, start here: Donabel Santos a.k.a. “Sqlbelle”
In Donabel Santos's YouTube video she covers 12 common errors made in Tableau and how you can troubleshoot them.
Considering Sqlbelle has only had her Youtube channel since September 2020 she has put together over 50 videos (and counting!) in that time. Not only is she an accredited Tableau Trainer and Desktop Certified, but she has a professional background in the business intelligence field with database management and SharePoint. Her videos run the gamut of getting oriented with the Tableau Desktop interface, troubleshooting, and practical use cases for certain calculation types. I also appreciate that her video descriptions have timed breakdowns/table of contents so you can jump to the video section you want to see right away. I am always sending Sqlbelle’s video content along to Tableau beginners and seasoned users because it covers a bit of everything but does so in a succinct and easy-to-follow structure.
For those who want technical deep-dives: Marc Reid
In Marc Reid’s YouTube video he covers Learn to create a spatial join in Tableau between two spatial files.
Marc, a Tableau Visionary and Information Lab UK alumni, has been blogging for a couple of years since his start with Tableau in 2017. While his written blog posts remain the bulk of his public content, he has also begun to record narrated tutorials on his YouTube channel in 2020. Prior to 2020, you will see a lot of brief (<1 minute) videos showing different techniques such as show/hide instruction dashboard layers and ways to implement buffer calculations. Marc’s primary focus is on working with more technical aspects of the data process, especially with geospatial data. One of the helpful features of his videos is the description area—it will give you a link to the accompanying blog post so you can use both to guide your learning process.
If you classify yourself as an intermediate user: Anthony Smoak
Anthony Smoak’s YouTube video on how to build an interactive resume.
Anthony is a Tableau Public Ambassador who has been making content for his YouTube channel for five years. One facet I like about his approach is building content catered to Tableau users that classify themselves as “intermediate.” Sometimes that leg of the Tableau skills development can be ambiguous to identify because you may have all of the basics down but depending upon time spent with the tool, you may be strong in one area but have less experience with some others. In the above video, Anthony walks viewers through the process of building an interactive resume from the data prep all the way to finalizing formatting.
If you want to get savvy with embedded analytics or data developer projects: Andre de Vries
Andre de Vries’s YouTube Channel.This video above introduces the embedded analytics playground.
Andre is a Tableau DataDev Ambassador and part of the Information Lab UK team. His earlier YouTube videos cover a wide variety of Tableau content but the primary focus of the last 2 years has been on providing embedded analytics tutorials. If this is an area you want to get more experience in, Andre’s videos provide a great place to start.
These Tableau vloggers are a small snapshot into what is available for tutorial-based videos. I’ll be updating this blog to highlight more amazing tutorial content from the DataFam quarterly. Please feel free to share with me and the Community team any Tableau vloggers you think deserve a shout-out.
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