Get Started with Explain Data
Use Explain Data in your flow of analysis as you are exploring the marks in a viz. Explain Data runs automatically when the Data Guide pane is open and updates based on the current selection (dashboard, sheet, or mark).
Use Explain Data | Author Workbooks and Control Access |
These are the basic steps to run Explain Data in Tableau Desktop, Tableau Cloud, and Tableau Server:
- Open a dashboard or sheet in a workbook.
- In the view toolbar, select Data Guide
to open the Data Guide pane.
- If you open a dashboard, Explain Data will analyze it for outliers.
If you select a sheet in the dashboard, Explain Data analyzes the marks in that sheet for outliers.
If you select a mark in the dashboard, Explain Data specifically analyzes that mark for explanations.
The marks that are being explained are highlighted in the viz as you select corresponding explanations.
Optionally, you can select a mark in a viz, hover the cursor over the mark. In the tooltip menu, select Data Guide .
In Tableau Public, select the lightbulb in the tooltip menu to run Explain Data.
Possible explanations for the value of the analyzed mark are displayed in the Data Guide pane. Select different explanation names to expand the details and start exploring.
If you see Detected Outliers with a note to contact the owner of the viz, it is because you need permission to see these types of explanations. Select the owner name to go to their Tableau content page with their email address. Contact the owner to ask them to give you Explain Data permissions for the workbook or view.
If you are the owner of the workbook, for more information on setting permissions, see Control who can use Explain Data and what they can see.
Tips for using Explain Data
- Multiple marks can't be selected for comparison with each other.
- The view must contain marks that are aggregated using SUM, AVG, COUNT, COUNTD, or AGG (a calculated field).
- When Explain Data cannot analyze the type of mark selected, a message is displayed to indicate why. For more information, see Situations where Explain Data is not available.
- The data you analyze must be drawn from a single, primary data source. Explain Data does not work with blended or cube data sources.
- For information on what characteristics make a data source more interesting for use with Explain Data, see Requirements and Considerations for Using Explain Data.
In the Data Guide pane, select an explanation name to see more details.
Select an explanation to expand or contract its details.
Scroll to see more explanation details.
Hover over charts in the explanations to see details on different data points. Select the Open
icon to see a larger version of the visualization.
Creators or Explorers who open the view for editing can select the Open
icon to open the visualization as a new worksheet and explore the data further.
Note: Creators and Explorers who have editing permissions can also control Explain Data Settings. For more information, see Control Access to Explain Data.
- Hover over a Help icon
to see tooltip help for an explanation. Select the Help icon
to keep the tooltip open. Select a Learn More link to open the related help topic.
- Run Explain Data on a dashboard, sheet, or mark.
- In the Data Guide pane, under Explore underlying values for, select a target measure name.
- Select the number-of-fields link at the bottom of the pane.
Authors have the option to open Explain Data Settings to control which fields are included in the analysis. For more information, see Change fields used for statistical analysis(Link opens in a new window).
The following terms and concepts appear frequently in explanations. You may find it helpful to become acquainted with their meaning in the context of using Explain Data.