Home
Blog
Data Science
Tableau Interview Questions & Answers – [Updated 2024]

Tableau Interview Questions & Answers – [Updated 2024]

Q: 1. What roles do you think you have to perform as a Tableau developer?

The demand of the Tableau developers is significantly increasing and so are their responsibilities. Below are the roles and responsibilities of a Tableau developer. A Tableau Developer is supposed to work on business problems and come up with technical solutions. They can use the visualizations to get an innovative solution. The professional is expected to have enough expertise to work with storage tools. Online analytical processing is where the developer protects the data of the organization within itself. They are also responsible to write queries and take regular tests to analyze the solution and repeat the same process throughout the development. The developer is expected to have an entire life cycle development experience in the applications.

Q: 2. Why is Power BI considered to be a tough competitor of Tableau?

Just like Tableau, Power BI is another BI giant that is dominating the business intelligence tools industry since 2011. Below are some points that justify the reasons for its popularity and why it is a tough competitor of Tableau. Power BI works very efficiently in integration with services of Microsoft like Azure, Excel, and SQL at a very effective cost. It offers a simple and user-friendly UI that takes no time to start working with building reports. With Power BI, you get many amazing features like data discovery and data preparations in your pocket.

Q: 3. Tell us about the wide range of products provided by Tableau?

Tableau comes with a wide range of various useful resources which is one of the prominent reasons for its popularity. Their resources are as follows: Tableau Desktop enables you to create queries for your data and lets you use them without writing a single line of code. It gathers data from different sources and lets you create a customized dashboard. Once you have made your dashboard, you can use the Tableau server to share your work with your organization. It can be installed on Windows and Linux. Tableau Reader is a free desktop feature that can be used to open and view data visualization. Tableau Public is a special free feature that is used to store your data visualizations in the form of worksheets and workbooks on the server.

By Devesh Kamboj

Updated on Nov 22, 2022 | 7 min read | 6.4k views

Data visualization is a hot and upcoming career in the computer science field. A part of the data science branch, data visualization is one of the last steps carried out to distill the findings gleaned from data into charts, graphs, and other visual delights.

It is a highly creative career path. If you have an eye for visual aesthetics and a flair for technical, you are no longer relegated to animations or graphic designing. You can be a part of the core computer science field and also leverage your artistic talents.

If you are a big ‘yes!’ to this career opportunity, then the questions below will help you get started by preparing you for the interview round.

Q 1) What is Tableau?

A 1) Tableau is a data visualization and business intelligence software. It is used to create a visual representation of data and has interactive, shareable dashboards.

Q 2) What is the Tableau Data Server?

A 2) The Tableau Server is the connecting line between the data and Tableau users. Using Tableau Data Server allows one to preserve database connections, upload data extracts, share data extracts, reuse field metadata, and reuse calculations. Thus, any changes made can be saved and shared with others. These changes can include those made to the parameters, definitions, aliases, data set, calculated fields. Overall, the dataset becomes secure and centrally managed.

Explore our Popular Data Science Online courses

Executive Post Graduate Programme in Data Science from IIITB	Professional Certificate Program in Data Science for Business Decision Making	Master of Science in Data Science from University of Arizona
Advanced Certificate Programme in Data Science from IIITB	Professional Certificate Program in Data Science and Business Analytics from University of Maryland	Data Science Online Certifications

Q 3) What are the different Tableau files available?

A 3) Workbooks: they hold at least 1 worksheet or dashboard

Packaged workbooks: it consists of a workbook along with background images and supporting local file data

Bookmarks: it is an easy way to quickly share your work since it contains a single spreadsheet

Data connection files: a small XML file with various connection information

Data extraction files: these are a local copy of a subset or entire data source

Q 4) What are the different available Tableau products?

A 4) These are:

Tableau Desktop

Using Tableau Desktop, you can directly connect to data from your data warehouse. Queries can be performed without writing a single line of code and pictures of data are translated into optimized queries.

Tableau Reader

Whatever visualizations are built in Tableau Desktop can be viewed here. Data can be drilled down or filtered, but it cannot be modified or used to perform any kind of interaction.

Tableau Public

This is a free Tableau software. You can create your visualizations here, but you’ll need to save the workbook or worksheets in the Tableau Server where they can be viewed by anyone.

Tableau Server

Great for enterprise needs. Through this web-based server, you can create whatever dashboards you create on Tableau Desktop.

Top Data Science Skills to Learn to upskill

SL. No	Top Data Science Skills to Learn
1	Data Analysis Online Courses	Inferential Statistics Online Courses
2	Hypothesis Testing Online Courses	Logistic Regression Online Courses
3	Linear Regression Courses	Linear Algebra for Analysis Online Courses

Tableau Online

A hosted version of Tableau Server, Tableau Online improves the quality and speed of business intelligence.

Q 5) Which are the different data types in Tableau?

A 5)

Date and time
Text/ string
Boolean
Date
Number- whole and decimal
Geographical values

Q 6) What is the maximum number of tables you can join in Tableau?

A 6) 32

Q 7) What are the different types of joins in Tableau?

A 7) They are the same as in SQL and include:

Right join
Left join
Inner join
Full outer join

Q 8) What are the different types of connections you can make with the dataset in Tableau?

A 8) Connection with your dataset can either be made live or we can extract the data to Tableau, too.

If we choose the live option, then we can make use of the data set’s storage and computational power. All new queries will go to the database and will be shown as new or updated data.

On the other hand, if we choose to extract data onto Tableau, the extracted data is used by the data engine anywhere without any connection. The extract is basically a static snapshot.

Liverpool John Moores University

MS in Data Science

Dual Credentials

Master's Degree18 Months

View Program

IIIT Bangalore

Post Graduate Certificate in Data Science & AI (Executive)

Placement Assistance

Certification8-8.5 Months

View Program

Read our popular Data Science Articles

Data Science Career Path: A Comprehensive Career Guide	Data Science Career Growth: The Future of Work is here	Why is Data Science Important? 8 Ways Data Science Brings Value to the Business
Relevance of Data Science for Managers	The Ultimate Data Science Cheat Sheet Every Data Scientists Should Have	How to Become a Data Scientist
Career in Data Science	Data Science Top 10 Careers in 2025	Business Intelligence vs Data Science: What are the differences?

Q 9) What are shelves?

A 9) Shelves are named areas to the left an top of the view. When you place a field on a shelf, a view a built. Certain shelves are possible only with certain mark types.

Q 10) What is the difference between a heat map and a tree map?

A 10) Using heat maps, we can compare two different measures together. It can be used for comparing categories with color and size.

A tree map performs the same function, albeit, in a different way since it illustrates hierarchical data and part-to-whole relationships. This is a more powerful visualization method.

Q 11) What is the difference between joining and blending?

A 11) The term joining is used when data is combined from the same data sources. Example: from 2 sheets in Excel.

The term blending, on the other hand, is used when data sources are different. Example: a sheet in Excel and a table from Oracle.

Q 12) What are the limitations in Tableau?

A 12)

Can’t define the width and columns individually
Parameters don’t accept multiple sections
For a worksheet view, you can’t control the display, selection, and sorting of columns in the view data option

Q 13) What is forecasting in Tableau?

A 13) In Tableau, forecasting means to predict the value of a measure. Although there are various methods for forecasting, in Tableau, we can only use exponential smoothing.

upGrad’s Exclusive Data Science Webinar for you –

Watch our Webinar on The Future of Consumer Data in an Open Data Economy

Q 14) Which file contains extracts and background images along with an XML document?

A 14) A .twbx file which is a zipped archive of a .twb file and other external files like the ones mentioned above. A .twb file is an XML document, which does not contain any data but does contain all the selections and layout made in the Tableau workbook.

The above list of questions is not exhaustive but is meant to be a starting point for your interview practice. The best preparation you can do is to refine your Tableau skills do that you know the ins and outs of this amazing business intelligence software. Then, no matter the question asked- you will be 200% ready.

Learn data science courses from the World’s top Universities. Earn Executive PG Programs, Advanced Certificate Programs, or Masters Programs to fast-track your career.