Tableau · Quick Reference

Lesson 2 — Connecting Data Sources Cheat Sheet

Tableau

In one line: Excel and CSV files are the most common starting points for Tableau users. Whether you received a report from a colleague or exported data from your accounting software, Tableau...

Key Ideas

1Connecting to Excel & CSV Files. Excel and CSV files are the most common starting points for Tableau users. Whether you received a report from a colleague or exported data from your accounting softwar...

2Database Connections. For production-level analytics, data lives in relational databases — MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQL Server, Oracle, and more. Tableau connects natively to all of them. You'll ...

3Cloud Data Sources. Modern data doesn't just live in local databases — it lives in the cloud. Tableau connects natively to Google Sheets, Salesforce, cloud data warehouses, and dozens of ...

4Live vs Extract Connections. This is one of the most important architectural decisions in Tableau. Every connection is either Live (queries the source in real-time) or an Extract (a snapshot of da...

5Managing & Cleaning Data Sources. Once connected, Tableau gives you several tools to shape and clean your data before analysis. These are applied at the Data Source level, so they affect every workshee...