Skill Level

Medium

Accessing the Tool

Tableau Public can be downloaded for free on the Tableau public page

General How-To

See Tableau’s resources section for step-by-step tutorial videos, including initial data setup.

Tips for Creating Effective Displays

• Get comfortable with Tableau’s “shelves” system, a drag-and-drop interface for variables. Moving elements to different shelves can dramatically change the display; experiment until you find a good fit. See figure 9 below for an example of different graphics automatically created from one data source in Tableau.
• Tableau has background data layers from census data, such as U.S. population and other demographics, which can be automatically overlaid in any map visual.
• Tableau autogenerates categories like “measure names” that can be dragged into the Details shelf to create custom labels.
• Experiment with the Color shelf for your data, which includes categorical and gradient features in attractive (and not-Excel!) themes.

Limitations

• For the free Tableau Public software, any saved workbooks are available online to the public—so do not use it for confidential data!
• For very large data sets or private data services, Tableau requires the purchase of a Tableau plan.
• When embedding this application, be aware that applications headings may appear that could be distracting for users.

Figure 11: Same data, six ways in Tableau: Percentage of Students Using Free or Reduced-Price Lunch, 1969-1985

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One of the most powerful features of Google Fusion Tables is its ability to manage and filter large data sets (up to 100MB per set — enough for hundreds of thousands of rows.) Your users can filter data according to their needs, and you can make charts and maps interactive and searchable. You can easily embed any visualizations or tables in your website or can share elements privately with other users. Figure 10 shows three ways to display data within Google Fusion.

Skill Level

Beginner-Medium

Accessing the Tool

Google Fusion Tables is available free through Google Tools.

General How-To

Here’s a step-by-step set of instructions for Google Fusion Tables.

Tips for Creating Effective Displays

• Make sure you’ve set up your data so each row is a single data point, including any geographical information (exact address including city and zip code) and any details you’d want in your data windows.
• Include a link in each row if you want users to be able to click on data windows and land on program and service websites.

Limitations

• Google drive supports the storing of up to 1GB of data per user. Each data import can be up to 2 million cells per spreadsheet.
• Google Fusion is an experimental application with limited user flexibility. When using this application, be aware that you may not be able to control the scale of your axes or the format of numbers.

Figure 12: LEA Performance on Indicator 1: Graduation Rate, 2014 (shown three ways in Google Fusion Tables)

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