Need to change a datasource but don't want to rebuild the workbook? Has a field name changed? 

It can be a real pain to update each sheet in a workbook one by one. 

Conveniently, Tableau allows you to change the entire datasource with the "Replace Datasource" option.

Or, if you only need to change a field, Tableau has an option called "Replace References" that allows you to swap one field out for another all in one shot. 

In this example, I take you through the whole process. 

You could also apply this method when you simply want to swap out all existences of one field for another. 

For example, you want to change all used of Order Date to Ship Date. 

Easy peasy!

At the start of this week, I attempted to follow the lead set by Stefanie and Giorgia during their week 49 and track every time I heard, said or wrote the word “data”. Tracking swear words was difficult enough and I quickly realized there was no way I would be able to keep up with “data”, there’s simply too much of it.

It was Tuesday and I couldn’t really start a new topic because I’d be missing a day. Instead, I decided to look at the data I had created through the first 48 week of Dear Data Two. There are four main types of data I create every week: raw data (usually in Excel), Tableau extracts, Tableau workbooks, and scanned images. As you click through the story below, you’ll see I’ve created nearly 1GB of data through 48 weeks, 95% from pictures.

This means that the data sets I had been working with have mostly been small. And this revealed a problem I hadn’t know: my Tableau extract were actually BIGGER than the raw data. I always had it in my head that Tableau extracts would be smaller than the source data, but in 42/45 weeks, that wasn’t the case.

Some summary stats:

• 357 pictures = 926.4 MB
  
• Raw data = 3.5 MB
• TDEs created = 3.9 MB
• TDEs were on average 10% bigger than the raw data
• 45 Tableau workbooks = 36.2 MB

Overall, it was fun to analyse the data of Dear Data Two. Flip through the story below to see my take.

Yesterday I wrote about being a hypocrite and walked through several alternatives to pie charts.  Today I am sharing a Tableau Public workbook that I created based on comments to the last post.

I received questions about how the different charts would look for different time periods, so I’ve added:

1. A year filter
2. A parameter that allows you to pick a date format (e.g., view the data by Year, Year/Month, etc.)

You can download the workbook from the viz below or here.