10 Common Tableau Interview Questions and How to Answer Them

Data is used in various ways to help convey information or tell a story. Tableau can be a helpful tool for creating visuals with data that can build on your ability to make that information easily accessible to your audience. You can use your Tableau skills to relay useful data for projects to different types of businesses and organizations. To prepare for your next job interview, explore this platform in more detail and find out how to answer the Tableau-related questions your interviewer might ask.

What is Tableau?

Tableau is an analytics tool that visualizes different types of data on various topics, making it easier to explain the data in charts, graphs, and other visualizations. It allows you to manage, express, and analyze large amounts of data concisely to help clients and coworkers better understand a particular topic. With its connectivity to any database and easy-to-create visualizations, Tableau can help empower you to drive sound decisions based on insights you glean from data.

The tool includes several different products, such as data analytics visualization with desktop and web versions, Tableau Server services, and Tableau Cloud services. These require a license and fees to use. However, you can also access free public and reader versions.

Read more: Data Analytics: Definition, Uses, Examples, and More

Tableau careers and salaries

Consider the following job roles that use Tableau daily or require understanding Tableau as part of the job requirements. Their average salaries, job outlook, and educational requirements are included.

Data visualization designer

Average annual base salary: $81,297 [1]

Job outlook (projected growth from 2023 to 2033): 36 percent [2]

Requirements: Bachelor’s degree

A data visualization designer is responsible for designing graphics and other visuals to explain data concepts using graphics, charts, and infographics. You might hear this job referred to as an information designer. The role's primary focus is to transform those data concepts into something engaging and easier for viewers to understand. 

Business analyst

Average annual base salary: $92,670 [3]

Job outlook (projected growth from 2023 to 2033): 11 percent [4]

Requirements: Bachelor’s degree

A business analyst reviews an organization and recommends improving production, employment, or other issues the organization faces. Your management reports may include data you present in an understandable way using Tableau. 

Tableau developer

Average annual base salary: $106,367 [5]

Job outlook (projected growth from 2023 to 2033): 17 percent [6]

Requirements: Bachelor’s degree

As a Tableau developer, you’ll play an essential role in helping businesses work efficiently. Common tasks include integrating visualizations into applications, creating extension add-ins, and generating custom reports to support companies’ goals.

Read more: Data Analyst vs. Business Analyst: What’s the Difference?

10 Tableau interview questions

Regarding the interview process for a job requiring expertise with the company’s analytics tools, you will likely encounter questions that test your knowledge of Tableau. Explore some standard questions here and tips for preparing your Tableau interview answers.

1. Which types of filters can you use with Tableau?

Tableau allows you to filter data and customize views based on the specific information you need for yourself or to present to managers or clients.

You can include or exclude specific data points, select particular headers, filter by date, or choose specific dimensions. You can also use calculations from the data to filter choices based on the total found for calculations.

2. How can you create a calculated field?

A table calculation is a specific field in Tableau based on data in a file. Tableau allows you to make basic calculations across a row or a column within a data set, or you can create more involved calculations that utilize multiple columns and rows simultaneously using specific parameters on which calculations you should perform first.

3. How do treemaps and heatmaps compare in Tableau?

Tableau allows you to display your data in different ways to suit each data set best. Two important ways to visualize data are treemaps and heatmaps.

• Treemaps: Treemaps use nested rectangles that vary in size and color to help illustrate the size and ratios of data points compared to one another.

• Heatmaps: Heatmaps rely on colors to differentiate data points within a Tableau data set.

4. What is a parameter in Tableau?

Parameters in Tableau allow you to set specific variables that can filter data and control how your data appears to viewers. You may create parameters based on a constant value or create more dynamic parameters using a list of variables that can change and adapt each time you modify data.

5. What are the differences between .twb and .twbx extensions?

Two main options for saving data in Tableau are files with a .twb extension and files with a .twbx extension.

Tableau workbook files, or .twb files, are XML documents that contain the structure for interacting with Tableau but not the actual data. Meanwhile, Tableau packaged workbooks, or .twbx files, include a .twb file as well as data sources packaged together in one file.

6. What are the different data types supported in Tableau?

Tableau categorizes data into seven different data types that you can use:

• Text or string values

• Geographic values

• Numerical values

• Cluster group values

• Date values

• Boolean values

• Date and time values

7. Explain the differences between blending and joining data.

A major difference between data blending and data joining is where your data sources are coming from. Using data blending is helpful if you bring in data from different sources with common data points. Data joining, however, uses one source for data and joins specific data points together from that source.

8. What are the different joins in Tableau?

Tableau has four options for joining data from different data points within a source: inner, left, right, and full outer. Each of these four joins has its own parameters, which can be helpful when organizing data depending on how you want to combine data points.

9. Explain the differences between discrete and continuous data roles.

Discrete data and continuous data determine how data points in Tableau appear in a graphic. Discrete data has finite values and can be visualized with a bar graph. Continuous data, however, is data that can be measured on an infinite scale; it is visualized with a continuous field, such as a line graph.

10. How are filters ordered?

Tableau’s order of operations, sometimes called a “query pipeline,” provides a specific way to order its filters based on user needs. These filters give Tableau a path to follow when you place inquiries and sort data.

For Tableau, the order of operations is:

1. Extract filters

2. Data source filters

3. Context filters

4. Dimension filters

5. Measure filters

6. Table calc filters

Read more: How to Prepare for an Interview

Learn more about Tableau on Coursera.

Tableau can be an important skill to add to your resume or a necessary tool for a particular job. Familiarizing yourself with the topics covered here can help you prepare for the questions job interviewers may ask. You have options, including online courses, to learn more about Tableau and hone your skills.

For example, you can explore the Fundamentals of Visualization with Tableau from the University of California Davis on Coursera. In this course, discover how to navigate the Tableau Public workspace and practice connecting to different data sources.

You can also explore how to tell a story through data visualization with Data Visualization and Communication with Tableau, offered by Duke University on Coursera. Explore how to ask the right questions when starting a project in Tableau and present your data in a compelling way that communicates your results.