Understanding Data Blending in Tableau

Introduction:

             In today’s data-centric world, professionals often need to work with data from multiple sources to gain comprehensive insights. Tableau, a leading data visualization tool, offers a powerful feature called data blending that allows users to combine data from different sources seamlessly. This blog post will delve into what data blending is, how it works, its advantages, and when to use it in your data analysis.

What is Data Blending?

          Data blending in Tableau is the process of combining data from different sources into a single view. Unlike traditional joins, which combine data at the row level within a single data source, blending happens at an aggregated level and allows you to work with data from different sources such as SQL databases, Excel files, and web data connectors.

How Does Data Blending Work?

When blending data, Tableau designates one data source as the primary source and the others as secondary sources. The primary source is where your primary analysis originates, while the secondary sources are used to enrich the primary data.

Let's dive deeper into data blending in Tableau with a step-by-step example.

Example: Analyzing Sales and Customer Feedback Data

Scenario: You have sales data in a SQL database and customer feedback data in an Excel file. You want to analyze the sales performance alongside customer feedback to gain insights into how customer sentiments correlate with sales figures.

Step 1: Connect to Your Primary Data Source

- Primary Data Source: SQL Database containing sales data

- Fields: `Customer ID`, `Sales Amount`, `Date`

1. Connect to the SQL Database: In Tableau, go to `Data` > `Connect

      to Data` and select your SQL database.

Primary Data Source - MS SQL

2. Load the Sales Data Table: Select the relevant sales table and load

       it into Tableau.

Load Sales Table

 Step 2: Connect to Your Secondary Data Source

- Secondary Data Source: Excel file containing customer feedback data

- Fields: `Customer ID`, `Feedback Score`, `Date`

1. Connect to the Excel File: In Tableau, go to `Data` > `New Data Source` and select your Excel file.

Secondary Data Source - Excel

2. Load the Customer Feedback Data: Select the relevant sheet and load it into Tableau.

Load the Customer Feedback Data

 Step 3: Relationship Between Data Sources

·       If there is a linking field icon, the data sources are automatically linked. As long as there is at least one active link, the data can be blended.

Linking Field icon (Customer ID)

 Step 4: Build Your Visualization

1. Primary Data Source (Sales): Create a visualization showing `Sales Amount` over time.

2. Blend Data: Drag fields from the secondary data source (`Feedback Score`) into the view. Tableau automatically blends the data using the `Customer ID` field. 

Final Visualization

The final visualization will show how `Sales Amount` trends correlate with `Feedback Score`. This can provide valuable insights into whether positive customer feedback is associated with higher sales.

Conclusion:

By blending data from different sources in Tableau, you can gain a comprehensive view of your data. This example illustrates how to combine sales data from a SQL database with customer feedback from an Excel file to uncover insights.

Thank you for reading this Blog.