26 Ways to Enhance Tables in Tableau If you develop dashboards and work with data visualizations regularly, then you probably find yourself loathing the moment you are asked for a table of data. You probably think to yourself: “why do … Read More
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Live Stream – Power BI Power Hour: Build an Amazing Report from Start to Finish
During this webinar, Spencer Baucke will walk you through precisely how to create a compelling business intelligence report in Power BI in under 60 minutes. … Read More

Live Stream – MLOps Explained: Turn Data Science Models into Sustainable, Scalable Solutions
During this one-hour webinar, learn how to future-proof your data science solutions by improving your machine learning operations (MLOps) with Data Science Lead, Elizabeth Dinevski. … Read More

A Business Analyst’s Journey: From Evening Hobby to Full-Time Career
Welcome to our “Journey to Tessellation” series, in which we’re sharing the exciting, unconventional, and innovative career paths behind our entire team of consultants. Read on to discover how Zac Zinda, one of our newest consultants, switched career paths from teaching and the mortgage industry into data analytics. … Read More

Live Stream: Master the Most Powerful Predictive Tool in Alteryx: Optimization
Join this 1-hour webinar with John Emery to learn how to best use the Optimization Tool in Alteryx to uncover powerful predictive analytics via optimal solution calculations. … Read More

How to Create YTD Calculations in Tableau
How to Create YTD Calculations in Tableau One of the most commonly requested items in Tableau dashboarding is to show your metrics as Year to Date (YTD), Prior Year to Date (PYTD), and Year over Year change (YoY). Although seemingly … Read More
Top 5 Power BI Basics
The Top 5 Basics Power BI Beginners Need to Know As someone just beginning their Power BI journey, I have been inundated with tips, tricks, and essentials from Power BI experts. There’s a lot to learn, and a lot to … Read More

Live Stream: Learn the Essentials of Natural Language Processing (NLP) with Python
Join this step-by-step tutorial on how to use natural language processing (NLP) to assess the similarity of text documents with data scientist, Ankit Prasad. … Read More
OAuth with Snowflake and Alteryx
Using OAuth with Snowflake in Alteryx Snowflake and Alteryx are two of my favorite tools. Many organizations choose to authenticate to their roles with Snowflake using OAuth, which isn’t always immediately straightforward when connecting via Alteryx and some other tools. … Read More

An Introduction to Tableau Sets
A tableau tutorial introduction on how to create three common list scenarios with Sets in Tableau: Top, Bottom, and Other. … Read More

From Worksheets to Workflows: My Career Change into Data Analytics
From Worksheets to Workflows: My Career Change into Data Analytics Welcome to our “Journey to Tessellation” series, in which we’re sharing the exciting, unconventional, and innovative career paths behind our entire team of consultants. Read on to discover how Jacob … Read More

Letter #1: Analytic PenPals featuring Alteryx and Tableau developers. Why do people use Alteryx?
Join Autumn Battani, Tableau Expert, and Jacob Kahn, Alteryx Expert, on their pen pal adventure exploring the tools of the others expertise. Autumn and Jacob are ready to share their letters with the public in hopes that the exploration of data processing and data visualization inspires readers to take the next step in their data game. … Read More

Mastering Time Series Analysis & Forecasting in Alteryx
Mastering Time Series Analysis and Forecasting in Alteryx For those of you that missed my free webinar last week, “How to Create a Time Series Forecast in Alteryx,” (which you can watch the recording of here) I’ve written up a … Read More

Live Stream: How to Choose the Best Projects for Your Data Analytics Portfolio
Join this 1-hour webinar to learn how to easily build an impressive, award-winning portfolio for data analytics or data science that will help you land your dream job with Jacob Kahn! … Read More

Live Stream: Transform Your Business Intelligence with Tableau Map Layers
Learn how to use map layers in Tableau 2020.4 to make dynamic, multi-layered data visualizations with Zen Master, Luke Stanke, and Data Viz Expert, Spencer Baucke. … Read More

A Comparison of Clustering Text vs Non-Text data
A Comparison of Clustering Text vs Non-Text Data Over the last few months I have been focused on doing various flavors of unsupervised learning on text data. I’m eager to share with you some of the fundamental differences that exist … Read More

3 Advantages to Time Series Analysis and Forecasting
3 Advantages to Time Series Analysis and Forecasting A time series is a collection of observations in chronological order. These could be daily stock closing prices, weekly inventory figures, annual sales, or countless other things. Time series analysis, then, is … Read More

Live Stream: How to Create a Time Series Forecast in Alteryx
Join this one-hour data analytics webinar to learn time series forecasting in Alteryx. In this step-by-step Alteryx tutorial, you’ll explore the possibilities of forecasting in Alteryx with John Emery. … Read More

Creating a Measures Table in Power BI
Creating a Measures Table in Power BI When navigating through your data model in Power BI Desktop, it’s easy to get lost, especially if you have a data model with several tables and a multitude of measures. In order to … Read More

3 Reasons Why You Should Change Careers into Data Analytics in 2021
At this point in your career, I’m guessing you are probably curious about the world of data analytics. Perhaps you feel stuck in your current job during the pandemic and want to know how feasible a career switch into data analytics is. … Read More

Live Stream: How to Switch Careers into Data Analytics in 2021
Live Stream: How to Switch Careers into Data Analytics in 2021 February 23rd, 2021, 8AM PST | 10AM CST | 11AM EST Learn career path advice to switch careers to data science or data analytics in 2021. Feeling stuck in … Read More

Live Stream: Thought Leader Masterclass Preview: Tableau Advanced Calculations
Live Stream: Thought Leader Masterclass Preview: Tableau Advanced Calculations March 3rd, 2021, 12:30PM PST | 1:30PM CST | 3:30PM EST Throughout 2021, Data Coach will release six exclusive masterclasses instructed by renowned thought leaders in Tableau, Alteryx, Power BI, and … Read More

Alteryx 2021.1
Alteryx 2021.1 What’s New? In the following, we’ll examine some of our favorite features that in the newest release of Alteryx – let’s get into it! Power to the Process in 2021.1 We have our first NEW release of … Read More

Import v Direct Query: Here’s What You Need to Know
Import v Direct Query: Here’s What You Need to Know One of the first things any Power BI developer needs to know is whether to check that Import or Direct Query box while connecting to data in Power BI Desktop. … Read More

Using the Optimization Tool in Alteryx
Using the Optimization Tool in Alteryx As any user can attest, Alteryx is a fantastic and powerful tool. With well over 100 pre-built tools you can quickly and easily clean messy data, perform calculations, or analyze spatial information. Because Alteryx … Read More

Circular Bar Charts: Why You Should Make Them But Never Share Them
Circular Bar Charts: Why You Should Make Them But Never Share Them It’s time to deep dive into a data visualization foundation: Bar charts! In this article, we will deep dive into the allure of Circular Bar Charts and help … Read More

Managing User Feedback
Managing User Feedback Performing technically is only part of the battle of professional dashboard building; another important piece is managing user feedback. The goal is to have the dashboards be as efficient and useful as possible and gathering input can … Read More
Live Stream: Taking the Guesswork out of Sales Forecasting
Live Stream: Taking The Guesswork Out of Sales Forecasting February 16th, 2020, 12PM PST | 2PM CST | 3PM EST In this webinar, you will learn how to leverage cutting-edge data science techniques to create a powerful and accurate forecast … Read More

A Beginners Tableau Tutorial: How to Get Started
A Beginners Tableau Tutorial: How to Get Started Are you thinking of getting started with Tableau? Maybe people at your organization have already been using Tableau and you’ve recently been encouraged to get on board. Or perhaps you are looking … Read More

How to Build a Ranked Small Multiple Bar Chart in Tableau
How to Build a Ranked Small Multiple Bar Chart in Tableau I like big bar charts…and I can not lie. Thank you to all three of you who laughed at my corny joke. But for real, I think bar charts … Read More

How to Publish to Tableau Online with Alteryx
How to Publish to Tableau Online from Alteryx Designer In my several years of supporting Alteryx Server and Tableau Server, one of the most frequent questions I get from Alteryx users is: “How do I publish to Tableau Server?” The … Read More

Tessellation Achieves Alteryx Premier Partner Status
Tessellation Achieves Premier Partnership Status We are very excited to announce that Tessellation has been named an Alteryx Premier Partner for 2021! What is a Premier Partner? Premier Status is the highest achievement level for Alteryx partners. Premier Partners add … Read More

Dynamic Rows and Columns in Tableau
Dynamic Rows & Columns in Tableau Recently Luke Stanke and myself held a webinar discussing some cool ways to enhance P&L statements and other financial reporting. This blog post contains detailed instructions on how to use some of the techniques … Read More

Underrated Tableau Features
Underrated Tableau Features There are a lot of resources available to read about the shining stars of Tableau, the showstoppers. This is not that blog. This is the blog for the underdogs, the little things that people often overlook that … Read More

Code-free Sentiment Analysis for Business
What is Sentiment Analysis? “This is the worst!” cried Reginald. Cynthia, his long-time business partner, hurried into the room. “Is everything alright?” she asked. Reginald, usually an exuberant man, sighed and said “we lost the Smithfield account. I don’t know … Read More

YTD Flags in Power Query
YTD Flags in Power Query Dates tables are an integral part of any comprehensive data model. Dates tables allow you to normalize a variety of different date fields and perform calculations and filtering on all of those different fields at … Read More

Beyond Dual Axis: Using Multiple Map Layers to create next-level visualizations in Tableau
Beyond Dual Axis: How to Use Map Layers in Tableau 2020.4 to Build Next-Level Visualizations Tableau’s 2020.4 will be its boldest release yet. And while many people are sleeping on the release, a few people have already started to realize … Read More

Mapping Lines with Endpoints in Tableau
Mapping Lines with Endpoints in Tableau Tableau offers its users a vast array of geospatial tools for mapping and other geospatial analysis including buffer calcs, distance calculations, and the ability to drill down into different levels of geospatial granularity with a click of the … Read More

Toggling Views with Bookmarks in Power BI
Toggling Views with Bookmarks in Power BI Bookmarks are one of my favorite features in Power BI because they allow for a lot of great customization options for user experience. In this blog, I am going to show you how … Read More

Alteryx 2020.4
Alteryx 2020.4 What’s New? In the following, we’ll examine some of our favorite features that in the newest release of Alteryx – let’s get into it! Alteryx Designer We’re at the last main release for Alteryx in 2020, and while … Read More

Switching Metrics in Power BI
Switching Metrics in Power BI To avoid having multiple tabs with the same charts, but different metrics, you have to get a little creative in Power BI. This blog will walk you through how to enable this toggle functionality in … Read More

Building an Executive Dashboard in Tableau
Building an Executive Dashboard in Tableau Over the course of 2020, I’ve put out more than 25 blog posts. If you had taken the time to read and learn from each blog you would be able to create a one-of-a-kind … Read More

Connecting Jira to Snowflake using Fivetran
Connecting Jira to Snowflake with Fivetran This post is a continuation of the series that examines the simplification of data integration leveraging Fivetran and Snowflake. Fivetran nearly eliminates the development time required to ingest data from a vast number of … Read More

Alteryx Server 101: Organizing Content in the Alteryx Gallery
Alteryx Server 101: Organizing Content in the Alteryx Gallery Just got Alteryx Server at your organization? Get ready for some serious time saving when you automate your work! Server is a fantastic product, but the Gallery has a whole language … Read More

KPI Design Ideas for Tableau
KPI Design Ideas Here are 15 ideas and sources of inspiration for designing your KPIs for Tableau For a very long while I’ve been collecting KPI design ideas. Specifically, I wanted to include. For all the examples I am using … Read More

What-if Analysis in Power BI
https://www.tessellationtech.io/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/2020-09-29-17-48-11_Trim.mp4 What-if Analysis in Power BI Leveraging parameters in Power BI can take your scenario planning to the next level. In the example below, we are using mock model output of a linear regression model to perform a what-if analysis … Read More

Alteryx Server: Workflow Credentials
Alteryx Gallery Workflow Credentials Picture this: your company just got Alteryx Server. You are dazzled by the idea of scheduling your workflows and sharing your analytic apps. You publish your perfectly-working workflow, which utilizes an excel file hosted on a … Read More

Fact of Fact Analysis Using Power Query
Fact of Fact Analysis in Power Query Building a data model in Power BI can be extremely easy. When primary keys match foreign keys one to one and when tables are built with a star schema in mind, things go … Read More

Optimizing Power BI Reports
Optimizing Power BI Reports Building performant reports is important in gaining trust with stakeholders and ensuring user adoption. Here are some practical and easy tips on how to optimize your Power BI reports! These tips will be broken down into … Read More

Custom Sorting in Power BI
Custom Sorting in Power BI Building charts in Power BI is really easy, but implementing specific features within that chart can be difficult. One of the most common requirements that I’ve had to work on being a Power BI consultant … Read More

Tableau Isotype Plots
Isotype Plots in Tableau What are Isotype Plots? Isotype plots are a blend of visual language that emphasizes quantitative data with symbolism that is often associated with descriptive imagery. If you wanted to simplify it its very similar to a … Read More