Last month I passed the Tableau Certified Data Analyst exam. Even though the exam is not especially difficult, it is very important to prepare for it several days before the examination. If you are about to sit the exam and are running out of time, this post will help you to prioritise topics and resources that were very helpful to me during my preparation journey.
You Tube Videos
This series of videos provides a great summary not only of the topics covered in the exam but also of how each topic will be tested. This is done with a very pragmatic approach, in which most important contents are highlighted and mock questions about them are answered. I recommend pausing the videos and trying to answer the mock questions yourself.
Tableau Data Analyst Mock Exam
This mock exam presents questions exactly in the same style as the real examination. Pay attention in particular to the first 25 questions, since in my certification there were several questions very similar to those.
Use Tableau Official Documentation and Tableau Desktop To Understand Key Functions
It is very important that you really understand what date and table calculation functions do. In order to achieve that, I recommend testing them in Tableau with a sample dataset to observe their behaviour and how they differ from each other. Another important aspect is to know what happens in a table calculation when you change, for example, from "across" to "down" in the configurations. Below I suggest some functions that are worth revisiting:
- DATE
- DATEADD
- DATEDIFF
- DATENAME
- DATEPARSE
- DATEPART
- DATETRUNC
- MONTH
- TODAY
- WEEK
- YEAR
- FIRST
- INDEX
- LAST
- RANK
- RANK_DENSE
- RANK_MODIFIED
- RANK_PERCENTILE
- RANK_UNIQUE
As an example, to see how the function FIRST() works, you could use the sample Superstore to create a table and show FIRST() as labels in each cell of a table. After that, edit the table calculation and change the computation method to see how it changes.
Those are my main tips for your last hours of preparation. I hope you enjoy and have fun preparing for the exam. Good luck!