You can connect to data from either Tableau Desktop or a web browser by using the Tableau Server or Tableau Online. The process differs slightly for each. The Microsoft Excel file is the most effortless connection between Tableau and Data source.
If you have data in an excel file, it is straightforward to connect the Excel file and Tableau. In Tableau, you have to connect with outside Data Sources most of the time.
Connect Excel Workbook with Tableau
There are simple steps to connect an excel sheet to Tableau.
Step 1: Gather the data
To connect an Excel file, we need an excel file. So Let’s hover to the tableau website and go to the following link.
https://public.tableau.com/en-us/s/resources
We have downloaded the World Bank CO2 (.xlsx).
Okay, so now we have data to connect Tableau.
Step 2: Open Tableau and connect data.
Launch the Tableau Desktop app, and you will see the following home screen.
Now, here you can see that Tableau provides some data by default to work with, but we will not use that one. Instead, we will use the outside data that we just downloaded.
Here left-hand panel under Connect pane, you can see the various options are available to connect with. Some of them will require drivers, for example, Databases like MySQL, AWS Aurora, SQL Server, Alibaba cloud, etc.
In that, you can see the pane called To a file, and under that file section, there is an item called Microsoft Excel.
Now, click on the Microsoft Excel menu, and it will open up a pop-up box, which is the browsing box.
Through that box, we will have to connect our Microsoft Excel file.
Select the data file, and you will see the next screen like this.
That means our connection between the file and Tableau is successful, and data has been successfully connected to the source.
Step 3: Fetch the Data
On the left-hand side, you can see various tables Datasets available.
Click on the CO2 Data Cleared set, and you will see something like the following.
That is it, folks; you have successfully connected outside Data Source to Tableau.
