Tableau – Connect to a data source

Visualisation in Tableau starts with connecting to an outside data source. This article explains how to connect Tableau to any external data source.

Steps to follow –

• Run Tableau. On the left side of the start screen, there is a Connect Panel.
• Go to the File Section and choose the type of data file you want. Let’s choose any excel file.
  
• On clicking the Microsoft Excel option, a dialogue box will appear for the user to choose the required data file. As shown below I have chosen a data – ‘Coral data.xlsx’
  
• Now, Tableau will create connection to the data file and as you can see we have our data at the bottom.
  
• If you are connecting to a Microsoft file then it is straight forward but if you are connecting to a Microsoft SQL server then there is a possibility that it might need some credentials like username, password e.t.c
• After connecting to the data file, the user can go the Worksheet.
  
• Then finally you can work on the data visualisation after wrangling your data.