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Visualize Data Using Tableau or Power BI

Next, see how the reflection that you created in the previous module accelerates queries that power dashboards in Tableau or Power BI without any additional changes to the data or the reflection.

note

This module focuses on Tableau and Power BI. For a complete list of client tools that Dremio supports, see Connecting from Client Applications.

To quickly get started with Dremio in Tableau or Power BI:

  1. Click This is the icon that represents the Datasets page. in the side navigation bar and locate the my_folder.nyc_trips table.

  2. Hover over the table until the metadata card appears, then click the Tableau or Power BI button on the card.

    This will download a Tableau .tds or a Power BI .pbids file with a live connection to this table.

  3. When the file download has completed, open the file and authenticate to Dremio when prompted. Once authenticated, you’ll see the columns of the dataset appear in the tool.

  4. To see the reflection you created in the last module in action, follow the steps for the tool you picked:

    • Tableau
      1. Add Pickup Datetime into the Columns shelf and select Day as the granularity.
      2. Add SUM(Passenger Count) into the Rows shelf and select Average as the aggregation.
    • Power BI
      1. Select line chart for the type of visual, add pickup_datetime to the report under X-axis, and select Month for granularity.
      2. Add passenger_count under Y-axis and select Average for aggregation.

    As a result of the reflection that was created in the previous module, the updates to the visualization load almost instantaneously every time, giving the user a truly interactive experience and allowing them to ask business quesstions at the speed of thought.

    The single aggregation reflection on the base table accelerates queries on the tables created on top of the table regardless of the tool they’re triggered from.

  5. In the Dremio Console, navigate to the Jobs page to see the jobs that were generated by the changes you made in your BI tool. These jobs are indicated by JDBC Client for Tableau or ODBC Client for Power BI in the Query Type column.

note

As shown in this module, you can download the .tds or .pbids for a single dataset for quick analysis or visualizations in your BI tool. To create visualizations across your entire catalog, create a connection to Dremio from your tool.

Next: Update Data in a Table​