If you’re not familiar with Tableau Public, you can find out more here

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I’ve recently been working on a project which encourages creative SME’s to explore data as a way of improving their business. I’ll blog more about the project at a later date, but I wanted to share on particular element of the project that I thought may be useful.

After discussions with one company, we decided a series of maps would help them plot future business growth. One map would contain their current activities and would be used on their website.

Factors to Consider

• the SME could not be expected to pay for the full version of Tableau
• the map should be publishable on the web
• the client has no experience of Tableau
• the client wanted to be able to update the spreadsheet and the map with minimal effort

Solution

1. Create Tableau Public account using their email address (you won’t be able to change email later). You’ll have to get access or ask them to click on the confirmation link when it arrives
2. Locate your spreadsheet and save in a specific dropbox folder
3. Login to Tableau Public with their login details and create your visualisation
4. Save to the web
5. (If you create any shapes or images, you will also have to copy these into a Dropbox folder)
6. Send the person a link to Dropbox folder
7. Ask them to download Tableau Public and login with the details you used above
8. They should be able to access the workbook that you have created
9. Ask them to move the spreadsheet file onto their computer.
10. (if applicable: ask them to drag the Shapes folder into their Shapes Tableau folder
11. They will need to update the link to the file,  from within the workbook. Hit f5 and Tableau will walk you through replacing the original file location with the new one.
12. The workbook should now work as normal