To visualise data in Tableau, we need a data source file. Most of the times the data file contains no straw value and can be used directly for the visualisation. But there can be situations that the data source is not formatted and needs to be clean. So, this article aims to learn how to clean the data file in Tableau.
Steps to follow:
- Open the Tableau and add data source file – YearlyData
- But there might be a problem in this data. The first indication of which can be the displayed message saying that Data Interpreter might be able to clean my Excel workbook.
- Till now it is not clear what the actual problem is, so let’s load the data – Products sheet.
- It can be clearly seen that the data has a stray value of Year2016 above it where ProductID, the ProductName, and the ProductCategory is also present.
- To clean up the data, go over to the sheets section of the left-hand pane and check Use Data Interpreter. This will clean the data, Year2016 value is gone, and the data has ProductID, ProductName, ProductCategory, and Price appearing as it’s supposed to be.
- Go to the Sheet, under dimensions, it has ProductCategory and ProductName, and under Measures, the data has Price and ProductID.
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ProductID is actually a dimension rather than a measure, so hover the mouse pointer over ProductID, click its down-arrow, and then click Convert to Dimension.
- Now, ProductID is a searchable and sort-able value that can be used here.
- If the data source is too complicated, the Data Interpreter might not be able to help but if a single stray value, or perhaps some irregular formatting is present within your data, then using the Data Interpreter is a great way to solve that problem