# Tableau Prep Builder: The Interface and philosophy (Part 2 of 7)

> This is content from just-tim, the data-and-analytics channel by Tim Ngwena (formerly 'Tableau Tim'). Tim has 12+ years of hands-on BI experience and covers Tableau most of all, plus Power BI, Looker, Hex, SQL and data modelling, the analytics industry, and the craft of doing the job — always tool-agnostic and honest about the trade-offs.

- **Author:** Tim Ngwena (just-tim, https://just-tim.com/about)
- **Published:** 2020-01-27
- **Format:** Video · 16 min watch · transcript available
- **Topics:** Data prep
- **Tools:** Tableau (prep)
- **Canonical:** https://just-tim.com/posts/tableau-prep-builder-the-interface-and-philosophy-part-2-of-7-8
- **Watch:** https://www.youtu.be/Mm4TGlkns8A

This is part two of my Tableau Prep Builder series, where I walk through the interface and the philosophy behind how Prep works. I cover the connection pane, the discover pane, the flow concept, the visual dictionary of step types, and how the settings, summary and alerts panes behave as you work.

## Key takeaways

- Tableau Prep treats data preparation as a directional flow from input on the left to output on the right, rather than Excel's flat, order-sensitive structure.
- Each step type has its own visual design in the 'visual dictionary' - aggregates, pivots, joins, unions, scripts and outputs - with names drawn from the database world.
- Clicking on a line between objects inserts a step into the path, while clicking the end of an object spins off a branch into a new direction.
- Steps are sequential and order matters, but you can reorder cleaning actions or step back to earlier points to undo changes without affecting later steps.
- Coloured streams match the colours in the flow so you can trace exactly which files a column has come from, and the alerts pane categorises errors versus warnings.

## Chapters

- 0:00 Recap and purpose
- 0:39 Touring the start screen
- 2:23 The flow philosophy
- 4:13 The visual dictionary of steps
- 6:25 Inserting steps versus branches
- 7:28 Sequential steps and stepping back
- 9:31 Settings, summary and data grid views
- 12:18 Zoom controls and summary window
- 13:06 Alerts pane and tracing columns
- 15:00 Staying current and next steps

Watch the full video, read the transcript and use chapter deep-links on the page: https://just-tim.com/posts/tableau-prep-builder-the-interface-and-philosophy-part-2-of-7-8

---
just-tim — Data and analytics, with a point of view. · https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7HYxRWmaNlJux-X7rNLZyw · https://twitter.com/TableauTim · https://www.linkedin.com/in/timngwena