In this post, I am going to write about the Tableau certifications offered by Tableau and a brief overview. Tableau is the leading Data visualization and Business Intelligence tool and is placed as the leader in the Gartner magic quadrant 2020.
Tableau Overview
When we access different websites, shop online, send emails, access social media, and spend so much of our time browsing on our laptops and mobiles, we are generating data in exabytes ( bytes)! As one part of the globe sleeps, the other part starts their day and it so truly proves that data never sleeps.
With tremendous data being generated every second, it is not difficult to imagine the potential of the many vital insights that may be hiding in the data. Understanding the importance of data, using data for business decisions has become an integral part of many organizations. But, can you imagine scrolling through this massive amount of data and trying to find trends and patterns? Every data set is telling us some story, but we need effective tools to find that out and communicate the details of the story with the stake holders. Thus, visualization, which refers to techniques that help us graphically visualize data to find out trends, communicate insights and understand complex relationships between variables, has become an integral part of analytics.
Currently, Tableau is one of the most powerful and fastest growing Business Intelligence and visualization tool in the industry. Tableau is a visual analytics platform helping users to analyze data, find insights and solve problems. Tableau’s interface is designed for a natural and seamless flow of thought and actions.
Popularity of Tableau
- Tableau analyzes data in a quick, iterative way that provides immediate feedback; making Tableau engaging, and easy to learn.
- It is known for taking any kind of data from almost any system, and turning it into actionable insights with speed and ease.
- It caters to a wide range of users from business analysts, data scientists as well as business users.
- Being a popular tool, it has great community support.
- Tableau has significant contribution in advanced analytics and predictive modeling which can help us build complete and sophisticated analytics projects in just a few hours! With features like forecasting, clustering, trend lines, reference lines and bands, there are many exciting things that you can do in Tableau.
- It has a user-friendly, simple and intuitive workspace with numerous in-built features which help users to concentrate on the questions they are trying to answer rather than learning new software or writing queries.
Using Tableau
Let us look at an example to get an idea of how powerful Tableau can prove for analyzing data. Common scenarios involve analyzing something with the question: “Compared to what?” or “Compared to whole”.
Many times we would like to select something say state, city or product and look at its performance in comparison to the overall performance. Suppose we are analyzing sales in United States for a retail company and we want to understand the contribution of each state for different products.
The powerful dashboard below will give us those details precisely. You can see how accurately information can be presented while at the same time is displayed in a visually engaging and easy to understand format. This is the beauty of Tableau.
The dashboard allows us to select the state of our choice from the map and then in the left bar chart, product-wise total sales are displayed in lighter color and overlapping sales in darker color represent the sales for the selected state. This gives us an idea of how the state is performing. The right graph gives the percentage of sales contribution of the selected state for each product. This simple dashboard is packed with so much information!
Tableau Certifications in Depth
Tableau provides a variety of certifications. A lot of changes were made to the certifications offered recently. Let us take a look at the requirements, fees and the structure of the Tableau certifications.
Tableau Desktop Specialist: This knowledge-based exam is for those who have foundational skills and understanding of Tableau Desktop. Earlier, this exam had a mix of theory and hands-on questions, but now the format has changed.
| Certifies that you understand Tableau Desktop and its core functionalities. | |
| Cost | $100 |
| Title validity | No Expiration |
| Wait Period between Attempts |
4 months |
| Required Prerequisites |
None |
| Suggested Product Experience |
3+ months |
| Delivery Platform | Testing center and online delivery are both available. Provider: Pearson VUE |
| Exam Format | Time Limit: 60 minutes + Extra time for set up Number of Questions: 45 (40 scored, 5 unscored) Question Format: Multiple choice, multiple response. Only theory, no hands-on. Passing Scaled Score: 750 Exam items are written at a recall or understand/apply level. No access to the Tableau Platform, the internet, or any other outside application. |
| Skills Measured | Connecting to & Preparing Data (25%), Exploring & Analyzing Data (35%), Sharing Insights (25%), Understanding Tableau Concepts (15%), Timeliness |
Tableau Desktop Certified Associate: This exam is for those who have a comprehensive understanding of functionality in Tableau Desktop. Note: This exam is retiring on September 30, 2021.
| Certifies that you are a Tableau Desktop expert and comprehensively understand its functionalities. |
|
| Cost | $250 |
| Title validity | 2 years |
| Wait Period between Attempts |
4+ months |
| Required Prerequisites |
None |
| Suggested Product Experience |
5 months |
| Delivery Platform | Proctor monitored Windows Virtual Machine containing Tableau Desktop. |
| Exam Format | Time Limit: 2 hours + Extra time for set up Number of Questions: 36 Question Format: Multiple choice, multiple response, true/false and hands-on. Scoring: Automatically scored; point value varies per question type with hands-on worth more. Passing Score: 75% |
| Skills Measured | Data Connections (17%), Organizing & Simplifying Data (10%), Field & Chart Types (15%), Calculations (18%), Mapping (13%), Analytics (15%), Dashboards (12%), Timeliness |
Tableau Certified Data Analyst: This is a newly launched exam, currently in beta. The Beta will be available from 8 September 2021 through 6 October 2021. A Tableau Data Analyst enables stakeholders to make business decisions by understanding the business problem, identifying data to explore for analysis, and delivering actionable insights.
| Certifies that you can analyze data pertaining to the business problem and create meaningful visualizations to answer key business questions. | |
| Cost | $190 during beta |
| Title validity | 2 years |
| Wait Period between Attempts |
Four months |
| Required Prerequisites |
None |
| Suggested Product Experience |
6+ months |
| Delivery Platform | Testing center and online delivery are both available. Provider: Pearson VUE |
| Exam Format | Time Limit: 150 minutes + Extra time for set up Number of Questions: 50 knowledge-based, 1 hands-on lab with 11 items. Total 70 items. Question Format: Multiple choice, Multiple response, Active screen, Build list, Display, Drag and drop, Hot area, Hands-on lab, Splitter bar Passing Scaled Score: 750 3 sections: knowledge-based, hands-on and knowledge-based. No access to Tableau Platform for section 1 and 3. Access to .pdf version of Tableau help during section 2 only. Access to the internet, or any other outside application is prohibited during the entire exam. |
| Skills Measured | Connect to and Transform Data (24%), Explore and Analyze Data (41%), Create Content (26%), Publish and Manage Content on Tableau Server and Tableau Online (9%), Timeliness |
Tableau Server Certified Associate: This exam is for those who have a comprehensive understanding of Tableau Server functionality in a single-machine environment.
| Certifies that you understand Tableau Server functionality in a single-machine environment. |
|
| Cost | $250 |
| Title validity | 2 years |
| Wait Period between Attempts |
4 months |
| Required Prerequisites | None |
| Suggested Product Experience |
4 – 6 months |
| Delivery Platform | Testing center and online delivery are both available. Provider: Pearson VUE |
| Exam Format | Time Limit: 90 minutes + Extra time for set up Number of Questions: 55 (50 scored; 5 unscored) Question Format: Multiple choice, multiple response. Only theory, no hands-on. Passing Scaled Score: 750 Exam items are written at a recall or understand/apply level. The exam is administered without access to the Tableau Platform, the internet, or any other outside application. |
| Skills Measured | Preparation (20%), Installation & Configuration (26%), Administration (36%), Troubleshooting (12%), Migration & Upgrade (6%), Timeliness |
Tableau Partner Certifications
These certifications are exclusively for Tableau Partners and validate the credibility of the partner in either analytics consulting or solutions architect proficiencies to both internal and external stakeholders. The Tableau Certified Associate Consultant & the Tableau Certified Associate Architect exams prove skills beyond technical knowledge. They show how you can help customers to progress along their path to becoming a data-driven organization. They are knowledge-based exams.
Tableau Certified Associate Consultant: A Tableau Certified Associate Consultant is highly skilled at working with business professionals to develop and share dashboards to derive the data-driven insights. This certification exam is geared towards individuals with 6-12 months of Tableau-specific experience and an advanced proficiency in dashboard design and analytics.
Tableau Certified Associate Architect: A Tableau Certified Associate Architect is highly skilled at working with Enterprise IT professionals to deploy, scale, and maintain Tableau Server. This certification exam validates a candidate’s ability to architect and deploy secure, scalable solutions. It is geared towards individuals with 12+ months of Tableau-specific experience and an advanced proficiency in cloud and on-premise deployment, business intelligence, and security.
Note: Tableau Desktop Certified Professional has expired.
You can learn more about Business Analysis and Analytics at our Blog.
References: Tableau Certifications, Tableau Partner Certifications
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