# Tableau Prep Explained in under 10 mins!

> 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:** 2020-10-16
- **Format:** Video · 10 min watch · transcript available
- **Topics:** Data prep, Data visualisation
- **Tools:** Excel (xlookup); SQL (joins); Tableau (prep, server)
- **Canonical:** https://just-tim.com/posts/tableau-prep-explained-in-under-10-mins
- **Watch:** https://youtu.be/1tpgs5hCr2o

This is a sketch note explainer walking through Tableau Prep Builder and how it makes data preparation visual for everyday business users. I cover what data prep actually means, why existing tools like Excel, SQL and Alteryx fall short for many people, then demonstrate a live flow joining two lists, cleaning the data and exporting the result.

## Key takeaways

- Tableau Prep treats data prep as a journey from inputs to outputs, with cleansing, joins, unions, pivots and aggregations codified as visual steps
- Compared to VLOOKUPs in Excel or SQL joins, Prep keeps everything visual and shows matched versus unmatched rows with colour coding at each step
- A typical flow connects files, adds clean steps to check data, drags one step onto another to create a join, builds calculated fields, removes unneeded columns and outputs to CSV, database or Tableau Server
- You can name and add descriptions to steps so flows are well documented for others, and fuzzy matching makes grouping a one-click operation
- From 2020.3 you can write Prep output to databases, and with the Data Management add-on and Prep Conductor you can schedule and govern flows on Tableau Server or Online

## Chapters

- 0:00 Introduction and visual data prep
- 1:02 What data prep actually means
- 2:21 Existing tools and their limits
- 2:48 Comparing two lists: Excel and SQL
- 3:56 How Tableau Prep is different
- 4:52 Live demo: building a flow
- 6:58 Advanced features and sharing
- 8:13 Closing thoughts and resources

Watch the full video, read the transcript and use chapter deep-links on the page: https://just-tim.com/posts/tableau-prep-explained-in-under-10-mins

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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