Tableau is one of the best data visualization tools in the market. The software helps us understand the complexity of data in every industry, especially IT, Finance, and even consumer discretionary.
Using Tableau or any other data visualization tool adeptly is crucial or even lucrative for anyone who wants to pursue a career in data science or business intelligence.
Tableau is not too challenging to learn. Still, new users can be overwhelmed by its numerous features.
Thus, taking an online Tableau course is a great choice. You will learn to use the software with the experts from the beginning. Within weeks, you will be able to use the advanced features of Tableau handily.
In this post, I will recommend the best online courses for those who want to master Tableau.
You might want to read over all of my selections to find a Tableau training course that best fits your learning style before deciding.
Affiliate Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. I will receive a small commission from a course provider or a learning platform if you purchase online courses through my links. I promise I will use this income to create better content for all visitors.
Things You Should Know
This post will be separated into two parts. The first part will recommend the best Tableau courses for beginners. The second part will discuss the best options for those who want to prepare for a Tableau certification.
Q&A About Tableau Courses
Q1: What are the prerequisites?
A: There are no prerequisites to learn Tableau. You don’t need to know Python, data science, or machine learning. You will only need a decent computer to start learning Tableau online.
Q2: Should I learn Tableau, PowerBI, or QlikSense?
A: All of them are powerful data visualization software, and they are not too tough to master. You can choose one on your own or even learn all three.
Q3: How long does it take to learn Tableau?
A: Quality online Tableau training courses could help you master Tableau in months. You could make it even faster by taking some fast-paced classes. However, you still need to spend several hours a week practicing on your own.
Q4: Is Tableau certification worth it?
A: Yes, if you want to be a Tableau expert or showcase your data visualization skills. However, the exam fees are pricey. Each Tableau certification exam will cost $100-$800.
If you are a beginner but you want to become Tableau certified, that is still possible. You can directly choose the Tableau certification course below to start learning.
Q5: Do you need a paid version of Tableau to take the course?
A: No. Most courses only need a Tableau Public. However, you can get a Tableau desktop by starting a 14-day free trial from the Tableau website for a better learning experience.
Course Length Issues
Udemy duration of the course is not comparable to Coursera’s because Udemy counts only the videos’ exact length.
In contrast, Coursera’s duration is the approximate time that a learner should spend to complete the course, including doing projects, assignments, reading the articles, and many more.
Best Tableau Courses for Beginners
1. Data Visualization with Tableau Specialization
University of California, Davis, in collaboration with Tableau, offers this specialization on Coursera. You will learn to use Tableau with Desiree Abbott and three other experienced business intelligence consultants.
Course Content
This specialization comprises five minor courses:
- Fundamentals of Visualization – You will use Tableau to understand the concepts of data visualization. The instructors will introduce the Tableau interface and other basic features and tools. You will be able to prepare and import your data for visualization.
- Essential Design Principles – You will learn how to select the best designs for different data types and apply various design principles to use in Tableau. Furthermore, you will learn to put the right element in the right place to improve your visualization.
- Visual Analytics – The third course will drill deeper into more advanced features such as charting, dates, tables, mapping, and how to use these features to visualize your data
- Creating Dashboard and Storytelling – You will learn how to convey great stories from your data to your audience. You will create a dashboard and use advanced functions such as actions and parameters to guide user interactions. In the end, the instructor will give you a task to create a narrative for a business meeting.
- Capstone Project – You will use the knowledge you learned from all four courses to craft a data story on Tableau. You will mostly do it on your own, but your instructors are there to help you as well.
According to the course details, you should spend 3 hours a week on the course for six months.
Course Fees: A monthly payment of $49 to access the entire specialization. You can audit the course for free, but your instructors will not grade your assignments, and you also won’t get a certificate of completion.
Comments and Tips
This specialization is unarguably one of the best Tableau courses available online. Each minor course is well-structured so that you will learn step-by-step with experts from the very beginning.
Furthermore, as a specialization that teaches only Tableau, the content in the course is highly detailed. Those who desire in-depth training would indeed like this course.
However, this specialization may not be suitable for a fast learner. You can’t also learn too fast in a Coursera specialization since there might be no peer review, and even the quizzes may not be available.
As UC Davis recommends you spend six months on it, this may be too slow for many learners to complete the course. The specialization will also cost almost $300 if you take it for six months, which is tens of times more expensive than Udemy courses.
You can try this course for free by starting a 7-day trial
2. Data Visualization and Communication with Tableau
This Tableau course by Duke University is a reliable, shorter alternative to the first course. The course instructor is Daniel Egger, a professor at the Pratt School of Engineering.
Course Content
- Fundamentals of data visualization and its importance to data analysis and the business world
- Graphs, Date Hierarchies, trend lines, box plots
- Write calculations and equations and build dynamic dashboards in Tableau.
- Format data charts to create a data story
- Design presentations for your data story and learn how to use various tools for optimizing visualizations
- Final Project: You will create a 5-minute presentation to present a proposal to your clients. You will need all the Tableau skills you learned to finish this project.
The instructor recommends spending around 25 hours to complete this course.
As this Tableau course is part of Excel to MySQL: Analytic Techniques for Business Specialization, you will enroll in the specialization immediately if you choose to take this course.
You can take other courses in the specialization as well, but this is unnecessary.
Comments and Tips
In general, this course is a compressed version of UC Davis’ specialization. For those who want to learn Tableau at a faster pace, this course is probably your perfect option. You will be able to finish it in a month or so.
Despite being a short course, students still get comprehensive learning on the software, including hands-on experience using Tableau.
If you are not interested in other courses in specialization, you can cancel the subscription right away after completing this course.
In my opinion, you should get full access because experts will evaluate your final project, so you understand your strengths and weaknesses.
You can then use this feedback to improve your Tableau skills even further. A certificate of completion from Duke is a plus.
The monthly payment for this course is $49. Again, you can audit the course for free or get the full experience by starting your 7-day free trial.
3. Tableau 2020 A-Z
This series of online Tableau courses was created by Kirill Eremenko, an experienced data scientist passionate about teaching. He is now ready to deliver professional Tableau training to you.
Kirill’s course is Tableau Training for Data Science. Thus, if you plan to work in this industry, this series is probably your first choice. As of January 2021, the series is the most popular Tableau course in Udemy, with almost 300,000 students in total.
The curriculum comprises two parts that you have to buy separately. You can start learning immediately after purchasing, as the first course in the series requires no background knowledge.
Note: You will use Tableau Desktop 2020 for both courses.
3.1) Hands-On Tableau Training For Data Science (Part I)
Part I of the course will help you navigate through Tableau software and perform basic tasks. Below is a summary of what you will learn.
- Tableau Basics: Creating bar charts and calculated fields, Adding colors and labels, Formatting
- Working on data extraction and time series
- Aggregation, Granularity and Filters
- Create a map, scatterplot and a dashboard, and then add filters and highlights to them
- Joining, Blending and data relationships
- Creating table calculations, treemap charts and storylines
- and many more
The duration of the videos is 9 hours, while the course’s rating is 4.6/5.0.
3.2) Tableau 20 Advanced Training: Master Tableau in Data Science (Part II)
If you want to be a Tableau master, this advanced training course by Kirill Eremenko is the online course you want to consider. You will learn more advanced techniques that help improve the quality of your data visualizations.
Compared to Part I, Part II is more project-based. There will be a real-life data source for each lesson. You will then use Tableau to visualize and perform data analysis.
Below is what you will learn in the course:
- Deep Drive on Groups and Sets (Static and dynamic Sets, Combining and Controlling Sets)
- Advanced Table Calculations and related techniques
- Data Preparation and Data Analysis in Tableau (Building box plots, dealing with big data, filtering, advanced time-series blending and forecasting)
- Creating animations in Tableau
- Level of Detail Calculations (Include, Exclude, Fixed)
- Advanced Mapping Techniques
- and many more
Part II is 10 hours long. The rating for the course is 4.6/5.0
Comments and Tips
This series is probably one of the best Tableau courses online, whether you are taking it for data science or not.
What I particularly like is how Kirill structures both courses.
In Part I, he starts with the basic features of Tableau software to help you become familiar with all the tools. Then, the difficulty level will increase in Part II. You will learn how to create data visualizations for real-life data by using many sophisticated techniques.
The structure will allow new learners to proceed step-by-step without getting lost in the course.
The only thing that I did not like about this course is that I have to purchase both parts to access the entire curriculum, which costs more money.
Still, the courses are more affordable than the specializations on Coursera. If you are looking for an excellent online Tableau course with full lifetime access, please make sure you check these two.
4. Maven Analytics’ Tableau Courses
If you aim for a Business Intelligence career, a course with an expert in this particular field is always favorable.
In this online course, you will learn Tableau Desktop with Dustin Cabral, a Tableau developer and data visualization consultant with more than a decade of experience in his pocket.
4.1) Up & Running with Tableau Desktop – Tableau for Beginners (Part I)
This online course will give you practical and hands-on Tableau training. You should expect to complete many assignments throughout the class.
- Introduction to Tableau Desktop (Interface, Workflow, Basic Tools)
- Unions, Joins and Data Blending
- Sorting, Grouping and Filtering (Sets, Hierarchies, different types of filters)
- Data Visualization with the Marks Card (Mark types, stacking Marks, etc.)
- Calculated fields, Aggregation, Tableau functions, Table Calculations and Parameters
- Building interactive dashboards
- and many more
This course includes many interesting real-life data sources to analyze, including UFO sightings, real estate listings, and many more. You will also get a free 100-page Tableau e-book after you purchase the course.
4.2) Advanced Tableau for Business Intelligence (Part II)
After successfully getting started with Tableau, many users might stumble upon an ability to create professional-looking Tableau dashboards or reports. If that is the case, this course comes to the rescue.
Compared to Course 4.1, this one will cover more advanced Tableau content. You will learn advanced techniques and tools that professional business analysts use in Tableau to build professional-quality reports.
- Relationships (Contextual Joins and Smart Aggregation)
- Dynamic design and related tips
- Parameters and Set Actions
- Geospatial Mapping (Spatial functions, hierarchies, background maps)
- Dynamic Design
- Regular Expressions, Level of Detail (LOD), Cohort Analysis
- Predictive Analytics
- and many more
Similar to Course 4.1, there are many assignments and projects to complete throughout the course. Furthermore, you will get a free advanced Tableau Desktop e-book to help you learn more about advanced data analytics and data visualizations.
Comments and Tips
For those who like to learn by working on projects, these Tableau training courses are your top options. Despite its name, you can use a free Tableau Public to take this course without any issues.
In each lesson, Dustin will explain how to use each Tableau feature and concept and then give you multiple quizzes and exercises to complete. I like this learning process, as it is very difficult to forget what you have learned.
The length of each video course is 11 hours, which is concise but not excessively brief. Fast learners will appreciate the pace in the course.
In addition to the videos, Dustin will give you many high-quality, downloadable resources to help you start using Tableau Desktop.
In general, both are high-quality Tableau online courses, especially if you take them in order. It is a steal if you get each of these full lifetime access courses at $10, as both provide more than $100 in value to a future data scientist or business analyst like you.
Course Length: 11 Hours each
Ratings: 4.6/5.0 for the beginner course, 4.7/5.0 for the advanced course
Students: 2,900 and 1,900 students
5. Datacamp’s Tableau Courses
Datacamp is a provider of online training for data science. The courses are fundamentally different from other online courses I recommend because Datacamp does not rely much on videos for teaching.
You will get hands-on training by completing tasks according to instructions on the Datacamp platform. You can click on hints to help you if necessary.
Course Content, Pricing and Free Trial
Datacamp has 4 Tableau courses for learners. However, these courses are bite-sized. The duration of the courses is shorter than Udemy and Coursera.
- Introduction to Tableau – Start learning this analytics and BI tool from the start. You will get your hands dirty on its drag and drop interface and create a data visualization of various datasets.
- Analyzing Data in Tableau – Exploring data analytics and advanced data visualization with Tableau. You will expand your toolbox by using charts, sets, parameters, groups, and maps.
- Creating Dashboard in Tableau – Creating a powerful dashboard to customize data analytics. You can then ask questions and analyze data on your own.
- Connecting Data in Tableau – You will learn to connect Tableau to different data sources so that you can import and export data with ease.
All 330+ courses will be available on the Premium plan (starting at $12.42 per month), including Python for Data Science, R Programming, Scala, and many more.
You can sign in to try the first lesson of every course for free.
Comments and Tips
Datacamp’s platform is beginner-friendly. You don’t need to install any software. You can learn Tableau from real-life simulations on your browser and mobile app. Thus you can learn anywhere, anytime.
I also like how the lessons are gamified, so learners can be addicted and spend more time learning.
These courses will teach Tableau up to the intermediate level. However, you will not learn advanced features and usages.
You may need to take another Tableau Desktop course or read the documentation if you want to use advanced techniques.
Best Tableau Certification Courses
If you want to become a Tableau professional or a data scientist/data analyst with strong Tableau skills, getting a Tableau certification is always a great idea.
According to Tableau, the company now offers 5 product exams. Three of them are Tableau Desktop exams, while the other two are Tableau server exams.
All listed here are the courses for the Tableau Desktop Certified Associate Exam. Unfortunately, I still could not find any high-quality online courses for the server exams. If I can find any, I will update them below.
6. Tableau 2022 Certified Associate Exam Guide A-Z (w Datasets)
This course from Kirill Eremenko is a Tableau training for those who want to get a Tableau associate certification (in other words, a test prep course).
Kirill is very confident that this course will help you get an associate certification, so he gives every learner an exam guarantee. In other words, he will pay for your second exam attempt if you failed the first exam.
Course Content
This course is project-based test prep. Therefore, you will conduct data analysis and data visualization with Tableau. New datasets will be given at the beginning of the lesson.
- Chart Types (Bar Chart, Line Chart, Heatmaps, Treemaps, Scatterplot, Boxplots)
- Tableau Fundamentals (Discrete vs. Continuous Fields, Dimensions vs. Measures, Aggregation and Granularity)
- Datepart vs Datatrunc
- Filtering data
- Sorting and Building Hierarchies, Sets and Groups
- Data Analytics with Tableau
- Data Preparation (Unions and Joins, Data Blending, etc.)
- Mapping
- Creating interactive dashboard
- Deep Dive in Calculations (Table Calculations, LOD, etc.)
- Practice Exams and detailed solutions
- and many more
Comments and Tips
This exam guide is one of the best preparation courses for the Tableau certified associate exam and even among the best Tableau courses.
Compared to Kirill’s other courses, this one drills much deeper in detail. You will be taught both basic and advanced Tableau features and techniques in this one course! Thus, those who are not interested in taking the exam may consider buying this course as well.
Because the difficulty level starts at the beginner level, anyone can learn data visualization with Tableau step-by-step with ease. Learning Tableau online might not be more comfortable and economical.
Completing this course will undoubtedly upgrade your Tableau skills to those of data scientists.
Besides numerous assignments and use-cases, Kirill also gives detailed solutions to every question on two practice exams (more than 7 hours in total).
This approach is beneficial. Test-takers will develop test wisdom and pass the exam with ease. Furthermore, a few other online courses are giving video solutions to exam questions.
Combining this advantage with an exam guarantee, you can see this full lifetime access course is a must-buy (especially at a discount)
Course Length: 38 Hours
Ratings: 4.8/5.0
Students: 4,000+
7. Tableau for Beginners: Get CA Certified, Grow Your Career
If you are taking the certified associate exam next week but are still not ready, this course should be on the radar. This concise Tableau online training will help strengthen all Tableau key points and get you a certification.
You will learn from Lukas Halim, a data analyst with years of experience in the health insurance industry.
Course Content
As another project-based Tableau course, you should be prepared to jump into data visualization exercises on your own.
- Tableau Field and Chart Types (Measures vs. Dimensions, Discrete vs. Continuous, Bar Charts, Scatterplot, and many other chart types)
- Mapping, Filtering, Sets and Hierarchies
- Calculations and LOD
- Joins, Unions, Data Blending
- Creating a Tableau dashboard
- Data Analytics (Trendline and Forecasting)
- Practice problems for the exam
Comments and Tips
This 6-hour course is concise enough to help you revise every concept needed in the exam. Lukas also gave many hands-on exercises that you can jump into to test your Tableau skills.
Beginners can also take this course. However, I think the content is too short to clarify all Tableau usages. You might want a more comprehensive course to explain all uses of data visualization tools and features in Tableau.
Still, this course is helpful if you need a crash course or just don’t have enough time to learn the entire Tableau tool.
Course Length: 6 Hours
Ratings: 4.6/5.0
Students: 45,000+
Other Tableau Tutorial and Resources (Free and Paid)
Below are free and paid Tableau resources that might be useful for many.
- Tableau Tutorial – Tableau provides a detailed tutorial of Tableau Desktop to all users.
- Training Videos – Free training videos from Tableau official
- Tableau eLearning – You can take a Tableau online course from the company directly by paying $10 monthly to access 30+ hours of content (Tableau Desktop and Tableau Prep included)
- Linkedin Learning – The learning platform provides several online courses for Tableau. Some of them are outdated and a bit pricey, though ($29.99 per month.)
