K12 Tableau User Group 23 Sep 2026

0:00 David Ogden: September '23, and we're here at the Tableau User Group today. K-12, welcome back. Many of you have been back in schools for weeks, uh, unlike those in college who may just be starting out their new quarter. Uh, we're glad you're here today to learn more about table calculations and level of detail.

0:20 Oh, get myself going here. Well, this K-12 User Group is made up of now 710 registered community members. That is fantastic. We've got four more events after this lined up for '26, '27, and we've got two leaders, but we could use two more. One more, two more, three more. That could be you. So let us tell you about who we are. My name is David Ogden.

0:46 I am, uh, from the Renton School District, and I'm their proud assessment facilitator. We're about a… We're a medium-sized school, uh, district, about 13,000 students. Uh, we've been using Tableau for, uh, more than a decade now, or just about a decade. Uh, we started back in- with 9.3, and now we're using the server. I was fortunate enough this year to be nominated as a Tableau Ambassador.

1:09 Uh, and not only am I a Tableau Ambassador, I also coach football, so, uh, and have a pastry map here, uh, of Seattle. Our absent today, uh, TUG leader is Stephanie Henry. She's absent today 'cause she's off on a client call. Uh, she's been a longtime Tableau user as well, worked at the Cherry Creek School District, loves dogs, and loves going to live concerts.

1:34 But fortunately, uh, we all have, uh, instead of Stephanie, we have an excellent, uh, what do we call, uh, uh, Olivia? Should we call her a stand-in? Not a replacement. Uh, but what do you… What would you like to be called, Olivia?

1:51 Olivia Dachtler: I'll never replace Stephanie. You can call me a guest. A happy guest.

1:55 David Ogden: A happy guest host. Perfect.

1:58 So Olivia's our guest host today.

2:00 Olivia Dachtler: Yes.

2:00 David Ogden: And she'll take it from here.

2:02 Olivia Dachtler: All right. Thank you, David. Um, as David said, my name's Olivia. I am a senior consultant with Plante Moran, and Stephanie is my lovely boss that I could never, never replace here. Um, I started using Tableau at the University of Iowa, and my first Tableau Conference was 2024, and I also have not missed one since then, but that is entirely less impressive than Stephanie's 10 years.

2:28 Um, go Hawks. I love that. We do have a split, uh, panel here today. I'm sure you'll hear about it plenty.

2:35 Um, and my fun fact is that I am a beginner ceramicist, and I spend most of my free time outside of Tableau and outside of work playing with expensive mud. Wow, I lo- I never get so many go Hawks. This is the best thing.

2:51 Okay. And as David said, we are looking for one or two more co-leads. So if you're interested, um, and enthusiastic about your K-12 journey with Tableau, feel free to reach out to us. We would be happy to get you connected, um, and would love to grow the community here.

3:09 All right. We also have some upcoming K-12 TUG events. Um, in November, we have the Tableau Cloud Administrator and AI Agent in Tableau session.

3:20 In February, we do not have a focus yet, so if you have any interest in different, um, focus areas, let us know, and we're happy to work those into our schedule. And then I'm sure we're all looking forward to May 2027, our Tableau Conference, and all of our networking events.

3:37 All right. And I'm sure you've also heard, um, we are all a part of the Data Fam. This is where you can connect with, um, new features, find ways to use Tableau, and really feel a community that Tableau has to offer.

3:54 And getting even more granular, we also have the K-12 Data Fam. These links are great resources, specifically for our K-12 Tableau users. Um, they are super helpful for us.

4:06 And more helpful resources, we have the Tableau Neighborhood. Um, this is, uh, another community that you can join as well, um, as a part of the Trailhead Salesforce.

4:19 And learning opportunities. Tableau just came out with the Tableau Learning Hub. Um, so this is where you can find Trailhead challenges, certification prep, and learn with the Tableau community.

4:32 And within there, you can, uh, use these free training videos. Um, this is great for our new users that are just looking for some quick answers, um, quick videos, all with four minutes or less of training time, um, really to help you jumpstart your Tableau career.

4:48 David Ogden: Yes, Tableau Public. If you haven't been on Tableau Public, it's a great place to share your stuff, and it's free. Did you hear that? Free. Yes, free. Uh, just like many things now, Tableau is getting bigger and bigger, so they're starting to let, uh, bring out things that are free. You can get free desktop now. Uh, you can use Tableau, uh, uh, for free in the public.

5:09 Uh, and from there, you can find out lovely public K-12 sample dashboards. Yes, public K-12 sample dashboards. They're now there on a Tableau Public page. Uh, so many of us, uh, in the K-12 world, uh, have seen lots of Superstore things. Everybody's talking about profit and return on investments, and these sorts of things, which makes sense to our financial friends who are working in business office, but doesn't as make sense to us who are working on the student side.

5:41 So these new dashboards, uh, full of data that's not real, but it has good opportunity for you to take a look at them, some good templates for you to use. And with Tableau Public, you can download these templates and also, uh, practice with them as well. So, uh, view them, play them, download, revise them. It's a great place, uh, to learn using Tableau Public And you can sign up for the Viz of the Day.

6:05 The Viz of the Day are these inspirational visualizations using data, uh, from all sorts of things, uh, whether they're about food, whether about sports, whether about, um, uh, current events, uh, or history. There's some great vizs there. And today, September 23rd, happens to be International Day of Sign Languages. So happy International Day of Sign Languages to you all.

6:30 We have these two vizs taken from Tableau Public. Let's try, uh, practicing your typing skills here because we want to hear from you in the chat, make sure that you're here. So this is your chance to practice. What would you prefer? Would you like to have the New Zealand Sign Language? Do you know New Zealand Sign Language? Did you know it exists?

6:48 Or do you like the American Sign Language? Type into the chat, NZSL or ASL.

6:55 Got some ASL for the wins here. Nice. Thank you. Keep practicing.

7:01 It does sound like a new skill to pick up, Olivia. Yes, New Zealand is a good one. I hadn't heard of it before myself. Uh, so this is one of the fun things. You can learn more, uh, about, uh, things when you're on Tableau Public. But guess what? It's not just International Day of Sign Languages, it is also Educational Technology Day.

7:20 Educational technology. You see these two ones, you can do cool things with maps, cool things with colors, uh, representing my local area, city of Seattle, with technology access and adaptation, as well as the top 100 STEM high schools according to…

7:37 What's that one say down there?

7:39 Where's the, where's the data coming from?

7:43 Oh, US News & World Report. There we go. Uh, US News & World Report, top STEM high schools.

7:48 So what do you think?

7:51 Do you like the technology dashboard or you like the STEM dashboard? Let us know.

7:56 Continue to practice your typing skills and your chat. "STEM," says Luke and Fabiola. Terrific.

8:04 Got some map friends. Do like the, those particular ones.

8:09 STEM is overwhelming right now.

8:12 Any love for Seattle?

8:16 Olivia says, "Let's get Iowa on that list." We got a lot of Iowa fans here. That's right. Okay. So ecnet- Educational Technology Day, International Sign Language Day, and guess what?

8:26 Also my favorite, National Baker Day. Yes, I do have a map of pastries and donuts on my LinkedIn page. If you go to it, you can find some of the best pastry and donut places in the city of Seattle, if you're ever for a visit.

8:41 But I do love a cookie. In fact, my, uh, avatar is actually Cookie Monster. Uh, so, uh, when I am not being David Ogden, I do like to eat lots of cookies, but I also love the show The Great British Bake Off. So, uh, yes, now Claire says now she's hungry. Uh, so l- one more chance here.

9:01 Cookies or Great British, British Bake Off? Do you like the Bread Day, the Cake Day, the Choux Pastry Day? Are you just like, "Give me the cookies"?

9:12 Lots of Cookie Monsters, yes.

9:15 Ooh, get some closer one. GBBO, I didn't even think of that. Terrific acronym. That's right.

9:22 Cookies, lots of cookies. Ah, there are more Cookie Monsters out there like me. I really appreciate that. Uh, and the Bake Off, by those who've been watching the Bake Off, you probably also have a favorite winner, uh, or at least, uh, somebody that you enjoyed, uh, following. Uh, I remember, um, the German fellow whose name I don't remember, but he was always very good.

9:44 He loved things to bake.

9:46 Uh, had a fun accent.

9:48 New season starts this week. Thank you, Paula. Didn't know that.

9:52 And now it's the opportunity, now that you have, uh, practiced typing, tell us what's up with you. We are a community, we care. So tell us any success that you had. Did you get a promotion? Any recent achievements going on in your place?

10:06 Uh, do you have a Tableau opportunity further?

10:09 Is it your birthday?

10:11 New, uh, parent, new grandparent, new uncle?

10:14 What's going on?

10:17 Sometimes they take a while to type.

10:20 I'll tell you one exciting thing for me is, uh, yesterday in a meeting, more of my principals demonstrated their fluency in Tableau. We've been using Tableau for a while, but now it's really fun, uh, to see how well our principals are using the tool, uh, to make decisions. This particular context was we're using a grade distributions. We are working on fighting, uh, uh, Fs, uh, uh, in, um, our school district, uh, especially for freshmen, trying to own that freshman success band.

10:51 And they just use, uh, these dashboards that we've created, uh, to help identify which teachers are generating more Fs, how to talk with those teachers, uh, and all sorts of great things going on. And Claire, she just updated her public-facing dashboard for her district. So go visit that also on Tableau Public. Thank you, Claire, for sharing that.

11:09 That's terrific.

11:11 Well, keep on typing, keep on sharing. Uh, we're here for you, and we love to have this community grow, and we love that you're here today.

11:20 So because you're here today, you also have the opportunity to win a fabulous prize. So here at the K-12 TUG, we like to do giveaways, and we do giveaways of $25 gift cards. We'll do that at the end of each speaker. So you'll hear from Mike today. And after the end of that, what we do is we spin the wheel of fortune, uh, and whoever's name it lands on, uh, gets a $25 gift card.

11:45 But if you're not eligible to win the gift card, uh, because of state laws, local laws, board of education policy, let us know and we'll just take your name out. Uh, but if you are eligible and it needs to be a little less than 25, then we can do that too. Uh, and so just let us know. Uh, but we hope you stay around, uh, and we hope you're a winner today.

12:07 Over to you, Olivia

12:11 Olivia Dachtler: Thanks, David.

12:13 Okay, so now it is time for our K-12 community spotlight this week. This week we have a guest near and dear to my scholastic career. Please welcome Mike Guanci, who is the Associate Executive Director of Government Relations and School Finance for the Iowa School Board Association. That is a mouthful. Welcome, Mike. Thank you for joining us today.

12:37 Mike Guanci: Thank you. Yeah, it is. Does not fit on a single business card. Thankfully-… we don't do business cards anymore, so. Um, but, um, but I appreciate, uh, being asked to come in and, and happy to share with what we're doing.

12:50 Olivia Dachtler: Perfect. Um, before we jump into the interview questions, I know we have a few dashboards up. Would you like to share your screen and walk through those, or we can share those?

12:59 Mike Guanci: Yeah, I'd love to.

13:00 Okay. So, um, just kind of give you, uh, just an overview. So we are an association of school boards, um, and so our members are school board members, um, and superintendents and SBOs, um, HR professionals, uh, basically anybody within an admin. If the school district and all school districts in Iowa are members, then they are automatically a member.

13:23 Um, so my job is to primarily teach school finance, um, to people who, uh, are new to the profession or new to being a board member.

13:34 Um, but also to advocate on behalf of school districts. And so the two dashboards that I'm kind of showing you are some of our public facing stuff. Um, we do a lot of internal stuff as well, but on the public facing side, so, uh, last year we had some, um, legislation that would have impacted school districts' ability to invest unused funds. Um, as, uh, everybody across the country, uh, recognizes the, um, lack of, of education funding, um, districts being able to raise their own money by doing investments, um, is highly critical.

14:12 So this would had a real, would have had a real impact on our dis- on our districts.

14:17 So we did put together a little bit of an information, um, and part, and it helped along with our advocacy efforts at our local state house about just how much interest revenue, um, districts receive. Um, and it can be healthy. So this is a district in Inc- in Iowa, kind of a larger district for Iowa.

14:35 Um, and so in this case, um, you know, we're kind of looking at what is essentially their general fund.

14:41 Um, and overall, they made over $4.5 million in additional income. Um, and that would have been cut in down to about 25% had the legislation passed. Thankfully, it didn't.

14:56 Um, but this was helpful for districts, for school board members to be able to learn about the kind of funding that they receive, where it goes to, or where they're getting that interest income. Capital projects is a big one, um, with their bonding dollars. They, uh, you know, you don't use it all at once.

15:13 So, uh, it helps the taxpayer by investing the money. Um, in this case, this is a district that received an additional $1.2 million.

15:21 Ultimately, that lowers taxes, um, on the back end, um, when you have a large geo bond, uh, project. So, um, but this was just helpful for districts to be able to go through and, um, they could find their own districts and then also just get a sense of it normalizing it and putting it on a per pupil amount as well.

15:41 Um, one, another dashboard that we just released the other day, um, so we are currently, uh, and especially probably pretty good with Education Technology Day. Um, thanks, David.

15:53 Uh, so all that technology has to get paid for somehow.

15:57 Um, fortunately, we have a great system with the federal government on E-Rate. Um, and E-Rate is just a great way for those, those federal dollars that aren't even tax dollars, um, to be able to help districts afford internet connections and, um, internal connections, things like that, just stuff that really makes districts work. Um, also for security, uh, purposes as well.

16:23 It's super important. Right now there is a threat to all that E-Rate funding. Um, and so we have a couple of our, um, staff is actually in Washington, DC lobbying this week. So I wanted to build a dashboard for them to be able to share, um, uh, with congressional leaders and with staffers, um, and at the, uh, National COSBA, um, uh, advocacy event going on as well.

16:49 So this is a dashboard I put together, um, pretty much over this weekend. So it's still, it's still a little bit in the working stages. I got to clean a few things up on it, but it allows members, if they learn more about it, um, to be able to click on learn what E-Rate is.

17:05 Um, and again, it's moving just a touch slow right now 'cause I got to clean something up on it. But kind of goes through the benefits, why, you know, why it's under threat, and then how that they can advocate, um, on behalf of their districts.

17:20 Um, so it brings it that, my goal with this is that sort of storytelling element to bring, able to bring everything together so they can learn about it.

17:27 Um, they can also play around through the map. They can look at total funding. So each of these districts, you can see how much funding they received. It all sums up over there. And then it just allows you to play through it. So, um, if you wanna again normalize it down to a per pupil level, sometimes that makes a little more sense. We can kind of see especially some of our smaller districts, um, you know, this is about, uh, this was, you know, over $60, you know, per pupil, um, of additional funding.

17:54 It was really important for those districts, so.

17:57 Uh, and then also what the discount rate is, and the discount rate again is just kind of that. This is, you know, if you have a 90% discount rate, then the federal government covers 90% of those costs and you only pay 10%.

18:09 Um, so it just goes through all the information, but it also just allows, you know, if you really want to explore it, um, I love being able to use the filtering. It's kind of one of my favorite things with Tableau and with doing the dashboards is to be able to just, everything talks to one another. So I just wanna see who, who had those internal broadband services.

18:28 Now I can see which districts Um, and I can pinpoint down to that, and especially it helps with our advocacy efforts because we can talk to Van Buren County School District and say, "Hey, you should talk to your legislators about this." Um, so, uh, that's just kind of like two examples that we're doing, um, on a public facing and what, what I wanted to be able to share today, um, for everybody.

18:54 Olivia Dachtler: Thank you. I, I love that, that you were able to use Tableau in your lobbying at the Capitol. That is such an amazing use of Tableau, and really shows how we can, can use the tools that are provided to us. So thank you. Thank you for sharing those.

19:10 Mike Guanci: Yep.

19:10 Olivia Dachtler: Um-

19:11 Mike Guanci: Yep. I'll stop there

19:12 Olivia Dachtler: … Mike, are you ready to, to jump into your interview?

19:15 Mike Guanci: Sure. Let's do it.

19:16 Olivia Dachtler: All right. Gonna drill you with really hard questions. Are you ready?

19:20 Mike Guanci: Love it.

19:22 Olivia Dachtler: All right. Perfect.

19:24 So when did you first learn about Tableau?

19:27 Mike Guanci: Well, um, so actually in college. So, um, I… Not an Iowa native, um, uh, this was a discussion before everybody came on, but I did, uh, I took a… I had a different life and career. I used to be a tour manager and a sound engineer for touring bands.

19:44 Um, then kind of wound up in Iowa, uh, more accidental than anything else, just sort of stayed. So after my, uh, gap decade, I, uh, went to Iowa State, um, and did a lot of GIS work in community and regional planning.

19:57 Um, but within the GIS work, I also learned about Tableau there. Um, but I really started using it at the, uh, the state. So I got, uh, a job working for the Iowa Legislature working on school finance issues.

20:11 Um, and I wanted to be able to start explaining it and showing it, and so that's really where I picked up Tableau, was able to start a small Tableau team within the Iowa Legislature.

20:21 Um, and I'm proud to say that a lot of those b- uh, tools and everything, they're still keeping going and still using today.

20:30 Olivia Dachtler: Awesome. And did you, did you bring that, that tool in?

20:35 They, they hadn't been using Tableau before?

20:37 Mike Guanci: Correct. Yeah.

20:38 Olivia Dachtler: Wow.

20:38 Mike Guanci: So at the legislature, the whole Iowa Legislature, we brought it in for them. Um, now there's a small Tableau team there. Lots of, uh… Well, not lots. There's a few creators, but, um, almost everybody on the, uh, analysis staff, the fiscal analysis staff, um, has a creator license over there. So-

20:56 Olivia Dachtler: Wow

20:56 Mike Guanci: … um, yeah, so it was r- it's just great to be able to grow that. My goal, again, you know, just kind of leading to the other questions, is, is to do that here as well.

21:04 Olivia Dachtler: Yes, absolutely. Um, so now at your current organization, how is Tableau used? We saw those dashboards that you were sharing. Are there other staff members that use it in other ways?

21:16 Mike Guanci: Yeah, not at the moment. So I am the only Tableau user. Um, we hope to increase that. My goal is to bring on, uh, some of our other school finance directors and people into an Explorer license options. I'll create some stuff for them. Right now I'm just getting them used to it.

21:31 Um, so realistically what the biggest thing I use it for is internally. Um, so I use a lot of data modeling. Um, I am one of only a few people in the state that know the school aid formula.

21:44 Um, and so we use it for that. Um, we use it for projecting. Um, my biggest thing is I get a lots of questions from districts. I love it when they have questions about data, or they wanna do some analysis.

21:56 Um, you know, I, I, I write whatever question they have in the title, um, on the, on the worksheet page, and go to work.

22:04 Olivia Dachtler: Awesome.

22:05 Yeah, it sounds like that's a great initiative there to get it to be more widely used at your, your current organization.

22:12 Mike Guanci: Mm-hmm.

22:12 Olivia Dachtler: So I think that's a great goal.

22:15 Um, okay. I think we kind of heard about the interaction and your favorite feature there. What are your other favorite features of, of Tableau?

22:24 Mike Guanci: Um, honestly just being able to drill down in the data. Um, so as long as you can think of it logically and it works, um, you don't get caught up in the LODs, uh, then it's… I love just being able to drill down in the data. I love being able to present the data. Um, I, I'm… It's, it's great to take a massive, massive data set, like, you know, uh, salaries.

22:48 We collect all the salary data for each individual teacher and staff member, um, and all lots of data points to that. So you can imagine it's goes down a lot, of rows. You know, it's, it's a huge flat files when you have them, but to be able to pull all that together and just simplify it, and getting it into a visualization that people can understand, that's my favorite feature.

23:08 Um, a- and, and just having those tools for storytelling.

23:12 Olivia Dachtler: Yeah. I would have to agree. Being able to, to dispel such large amounts of information into a visual that makes it digestible for end users, it's really what drew me into, into this career and, and being able to make data accessible for all of our users. I love that.

23:29 Um, on the other side, what is one of your challenges with Tableau?

23:33 Mike Guanci: Uh, always level of detail. It's, if something… It's, it's, it's the same thing every time, and I always have to tell myself, "Why isn't it aggregating correctly? Um, why can't I do this? Why is it, why is the numbers not making sense?" Um, my biggest struggle is always level of detail. I always have to go back to that chart and just remind myself that-

23:55 Olivia Dachtler: Mm-hmm

23:55 Mike Guanci: … it doesn't work that way.

23:57 Olivia Dachtler: Yep. I am the same way. I think I've got it down, and I go to use it in a new use case, and I'm starting from ground zero. Um, luckily, at the end of this session, we have our professional LOD expert, David, to, to walk us through an activity with it. So maybe, Mike, after this, you and I will never have to look at the LOD chart ever again.

24:16 Mike Guanci: That would be amazing. That would be amazing. That puts a lot, that's put a lots of pressure on David though.

24:20 Olivia Dachtler: Yeah. No pressure.

24:23 Um, okay. So what are your goals or next steps for your use of Tableau? We kind of heard you want to expand the use within your organization. Is there, are there other areas outside of finance that you're interested in getting involved? What, what is the future? Of Tableau look like?

24:39 Mike Guanci: Well, um, I would love, like professionally, um, I, and, and within the organization, um, we do, there's a lot of legacy work here, um, with Excel workbooks. Um, people have just downloaded Excel workbooks, and it's just they've had sort of dashboards in there and be able to present the data. So we're trying to get more of this, um, ver- like interactive, um, and online.

25:04 So Tableau Public is kind of very helpful for us, especially because we can just iframe it into our website. Um, it looks great.

25:12 Um, so we can include the branding. Um, I know that there's options. We've had some good conversations, um, with some of the new licensing i- um, concepts that, that Tableau's been rolling out, so we're excited to see if we can just make some of that work.

25:26 Um, but I always love, like, and then on the personal side, I'm, you know, um, I, I love the whole concept of the data art and stuff like that, and I, that's something I kinda wanna play around with more. So, so I kind of just, I like it both professionally and, and-

25:40 Olivia Dachtler: Mm-hmm

25:41 Mike Guanci: …

25:41 nerd out on the-

25:43 Olivia Dachtler: Yes

25:43 Mike Guanci: … on the personal side.

25:44 Olivia Dachtler: Yes. Make the fun dashboards that maybe nobody would ever use, but I'm really interested in the different types of pastries that everybody loves and-

25:52 Mike Guanci: Yeah

25:53 Olivia Dachtler: … and those special days, like David showed us.

25:55 David Ogden: Well, Mike, then I came back off mute because I said you might be, uh, someone who wants to do Iron Viz or try s- try your skills.

26:02 Mike Guanci: I know. That's, that's-

26:03 David Ogden: It sounds, it sounds like a challenge, but the data art is a way to start.

26:07 Mike Guanci: I know. It's true. It's, it's, it's, uh… They're so good, though. They're just so good.

26:11 David Ogden: Yeah.

26:11 Mike Guanci: It's just, like, it's scary how good they are and how quick they are on some of that stuff.

26:15 Olivia Dachtler: Yeah. Um,

26:27 so-

26:28 David Ogden: Amazing, amazing. And we were lucky enough to have Bo, uh, McCready have be o- one of our guest, uh, persons on, on here when we did our show and tell. He gave great feedback.

26:38 Uh, but, uh, thank you, Mike. Let's give a round of applause in the chat. Uh, it was really interesting. I'm so glad. I, I… Do, do you wanna tell us what band you were the, uh, manager for or the-

26:49 Mike Guanci: Oh, it was multiple, multiple. So I was… If you, if you were s- into in- independent music and indie rock in, you know, the late '90s into the 2000s and getting into, like, you know, uh, mid, you know, just after the 2010s, then I likely probably worked with a band that you'd liked-

27:09 David Ogden: Nice

27:09 Mike Guanci: … those kind of things. So-

27:10 David Ogden: Nice. Well, I'm sure there's some good stories there. We'll have to do it another time, but I do, I do think, uh, that's a terrific, terrific thing. But for now, of course, we have our first wheel.

27:23 So now we get to spin the wheel, and we will find out who our first winner is of that $25 gift prize. All we do is we love data, and we click to spin. Here it goes.

27:37 Going around, and around, and around, and it stops on…

27:44 Oh, there we go. Aaron Smith. Aaron Smith, you are the winner today, so we're so happy, uh, for you. Uh, Olivia's gonna jot that name down. Uh, I'm gonna remove it from here so that we don't have you as a double winner. No offense, but we just want one winner at a time.

28:04 We'll go back to the slides. Again, thank you, Mike. We really appreciate all the great work, uh, that you've done.

28:11 And now to the meat of the presentation. Yes, no pressure. Thanks a lot, guys. Uh, let me do full disclosure here. Uh, I am a lifetime intermediate Tableau user, and that is my goal, to always be just good enough. So know that in level of detail and table calcs, I'm glad to hear that they are a constant challenge, uh, for you and for me. This particular, uh, go-through presentation, whatever you wanna call it, is really for the early beginning levers, levels, but you may find, uh, that there's some new stuff for you here today as well.

28:51 So knowing this, I'd like, uh, that Tableau has both the level of detail calcs and the table calcs. You can sometimes do the same, uh, information with either one, so that's why I picked this, uh, Adam Grant quote here. Uh, always multiple paths, and the same starting point can lead to different endings as well. Uh, so hopefully try to provide some clarity today around table calculations and around level of detail calculations.

29:18 So first I like to start, because I'm an educator, about our why. Like, why do we use Tableau in the first place? Well, for me, uh, and for Tableau, uh, I grabbed these quotes f- straight from, uh, their own, uh, documentation. We really wanna help people understand, uh, their data. That's why you're a member of this user group as well. You are interested in K-12, uh, data, and you wanna help people understand, and you wanna use that information to help drive change.

29:46 Like I was mentioning before, we saw it, uh, yesterday in my own, among my own principals, uh, and group, how they're really exploring that data to look to find out how we can reduce the number of F's, uh, that freshmen have. And I mentioned Bo earlier. This is one of his, uh, Tableau Public, uh, visualizations. Uh, he was also in education, uh, before he, uh, got k- kept going, and now is a famous, uh, Tableau visionary, uh, more than just an ambassador, a wonderful man himself.

30:17 Uh, but why do we wanna use it? We gotta keep that in mind. And also, how does, how are we gonna use it? Well, for Tableau, they have this great thing called VisQL. That is the, kind of the software that drives it all. It allows you simply to drag and drop things to visually express your data. Now, look at this beautiful thing that Bo did as well.

30:37 It looks complicated, uh, but you can do it, and it's kind of built this intuitive interface. If you haven't used the product yet, uh, dig in. Again, there's free versions. You got Tableau Public. But it tries to build this interface that makes it easy to see what's going on.

30:53 But sometimes it's not so easy. So our shared what is, how am I supposed to make something like bulk? How am I supposed to do that?

31:02 Give me a break. Uh, so in this presentation, we do have some presumed level of knowledge. We just have some background knowledge that we believe that you will have, uh, for this. We hope that you know, uh, what the dimensions are and the measures are. Uh, Tableau tries to make it more intuitive by giving them different colors. Uh, they call it a pill because of the shape.

31:22 Uh, we hope you know what the term aggregate means. We hope you know what the term calculated field means, and we hope you know what, when I say what we're in the visualizations.

31:33 Now, for this particular, uh, demonstration, I need your feedback. So give me a sense of if I'm going too fast, too slow, just right, type it in there. Are these things, things that you know? "Good to go," says Claire. Just right. I feel I can do. Good. You know, keep it going. So just keep giving me a little bit of feedback.

31:55 Thank you.

31:56 So now is the opportunity where you can download an o- your own copy of the workbook I'm about to go through and follow along.

32:03 Now, you can always re-watch this later if you're not, uh, able to download it. Uh, but go ahead to that tiny URL.

32:11 TinyURL K12TUGSeptember23, and you'll find a Tableau workbook. Now, it is in a Google shared drive, but it should be open to everybody. I don't think you'll need a Google, um, a Google account to see it. I shared it regardless. So if you're able to see it, and there is– Yeah, Michael, thank you for dropping in the actual full URL, so you can just click in the chat there.

32:42 Let me know about your success or challenges. We have time.

32:46 And what you get will look something like this. "Got it," says Luke. Good.

32:55 One success.

32:57 So far, two success. Any challenges yet?

33:01 Looking good? Okay. So here we go. Uh, terrific. Good, good. Thanks for that feedback. Glad you got it. Glad it's working. So here we are. So you're gonna have it, and you've opened it, and you're gonna be able to follow along in some of the things, uh, that I do. So again, if you need access to it, you said, "Wait a minute. What's that thing again?" There's, uh, up– Scroll up in the chat.

33:22 Uh, Mike has put the direct link, or it's tinyurl/K12TUGSept September 23.

33:31 So Tab- uh, Tableau has this calculation. And funny, they have this Tableau calculations. And funny, it didn't start that way, right? So Tableau, uh, started in, what, I think 2007 or 2006, something like that. Uh, but they didn't introduce actually the table calculations until 2008 with Tableau 2.0. They've been improving on it with additional types of calculations, and they continued its refinement.

33:56 Uh, but it is really one of the key, uh, features, what they say are key, uh, elements, uh, for, uh, Tableau. You can find it in a different ways. You can find the calculations on the measure pill itself, or you can open up a functions list and, and find it there. So, for example, when we go back to here, uh, we can go into here, and on our measure pill, we can find down here Add Table Calculations, or you can create, uh, a…

34:27 You can create a calculated field

34:33 and find it in the calculations over here.

34:38 Table Calculations. Right? So you can do it those ways. Go ahead and practice that just so you have a sense of knowing how to find it either way.

34:49 As you're practicing that, just know, uh, here's a bit how it works. So it creates calculations, uh, creates things that are only currently in the visualization, right? So if you haven't dragged it in, then it's not there. It ignores anything that are, uh, measures or dimensions that are filtered out also. So it has no impact, right? Uh, so it's out, uh, if it's– uh, it won't impact your, uh, screen if it's filtered.

35:15 Uh, it will impact if you drag any of those, uh, other things in there.

35:20 So right now, just kind of outlining what we have here, I have dragged and dropped, uh, some, uh, actions into Data Query. So basically what I did is I dragged and dropped those particular, uh, dimensions, the special education dimension and the OSPI, uh, program. A little bit about this database, so this database or this, the data set. This data set was, uh, created and then faked up a bit, uh, by our own senior survey.

35:50 So OSPI is the, uh, Washington State Department of Education, and they divide their C– they divide their kind of CTE and/or, um, uh, career technical education pathways into seven different sets here. So these are just, like, the bulk names of those sets. Uh, and then special education. Uh, false is you're not special education. I could have done an alias and made that false equals, uh, not special education and true equals yes special education.

36:20 But there we have it, and these are, uh, nine hundred and eighty-seven people who responded, uh, to this survey. And here's what they're, uh, when they said what they want to do, uh, here's the area that they said their careers would be in.

36:37 So I dragged the careers. I dragged the special education. You can see some certain things from here. And then if I just double-click, uh, on the, uh, measure over there, the, the– that's actually the number of rows, uh, that has a, uh, what's it say there? Yeah, a generated field that counts the number of records, uh, there. And that's what I've used, uh, as the measure.

36:59 Now, as you're looking at your own copy here, you can see, uh, that it's really only calculating what's currently in the visualization. So it's only using the information that you've dragged or dropped, I've dragged or dropped. You now can yourself drag or drop different things in there, and you'll see how that is working. It's only in the visualization.

37:20 So now if we were to add a table calculation, when we add a table calculation, it's only going to be in the viz. But wait, David, what have you done? What is this other stuff that's in there? Well, I have highlighted a couple of things, uh, for you, uh, just because, uh, I have found them useful in my own working around. Uh, one of these things are the ideas of totaling.

37:44 So you can total rows and you can total, uh, columns. So that is found in your Analysis, uh, tab over here. Uh, I'll switch to it so you can see on your own screen. If you go to Analysis, and you can find on here, you can do the totals. Where is my totals? Here. You can see that I've added the totals, uh, here for rows, uh, and for… Oops.

38:12 Come on, stay there, there. Rows and for columns. These areas right here, you can total those, you can do other things with that. And then also, I have shown in the worksheet the summary. Let's see. Where is my summary?

38:27 Show summary. Right here. That's where you can show the summary. When, when you click Show Summary, it does show on the

38:38 right side. But this is fun, 'cause you could actually drag the summary over so you can see a little better, and put it over there. Dragging and dropping that summary. That's how that one got over there.

38:52 So far so good?

38:54 A little feedback helps.

38:56 With you, says Michael. Thank you. Good.

38:59 Some learning about the summary. I learned about it recently, Claire, so I thought it was pretty cool too. Yeah, the summary just kind of gives you a table calculation-ish, uh, like view of what's there. Good. Thanks for that feedback, really helpful. So here it is again. Uh, if, uh, you forget about it and you need it in the future, you'll have access to these slides as well.

39:20 So because I was, uh, kind of a literature guy, I was a French major, I like to, uh, kind of diagram all these things, right? So table calculations to review is only calculating things that are in, uh, the visualization. These arrows here show how you can get to a calculation. We'll do the table calculations in a second, get your chance to practice, but just to summarize, uh, when you add a table calculations, you have to use all the dimensions.

39:45 And table calculations work in a couple of ways, right? So the calculation there is what they call the partitioning or the partitioning or the scoping. That's what you're gonna calculate, either by rows or the, by columns. You can calculate that. And then the addressing, they call it, but also it's directional. Like which way do you wanna start? Do you wanna start left or right?

40:03 Do you wanna start top to bottom or top and left, top and right, top and right? So these are the things you have to think about when you're, uh, doing that partitioning, uh, and scoping. So as we move on here, uh, you'll see go ahead and try these out, right? So you'll have in your own, uh, a thing, you're gonna add a table calculation. You're gonna click on that Add Table Calculation, and all of a sudden, uh, you'll see if you keep the, uh, button on that says, uh, "Help me with the calculation assistance," you'll see this nice yellow line that shows up that helps you see which way you're calculating.

40:37 Am I calculating across or down? Uh, what am I calculating right now? That's really kind of what, uh, this is happening here.

40:46 So we're trying to find out which way we're calculating.

40:50 Give it a try.

40:52 For those that aren't able to look at it right away, we'll show you here. So we're gonna go, let's see if I can, uh, get here. I gotta use this screen over here. So I'm gonna add my table calculation.

41:09 Table calculation comes up, it automatically computes across, so doing that, that's kinda cool. But if I wanted to switch it to down, that's pretty cool. Look over here also, I can change its percent from percent of total. I'm gonna use percent of total because for me, that's kind of the best way I can understand this data. What is the percent of the total?

41:29 I can see that here in, if I go down, the percent of the total is 100% on my columns all the way across. If I, uh, on each, uh, column, if I'm doing it in the rows, it looks that way.

41:42 And so if I do it for a particular cell, it does it that way, right? So just kind of, uh, play around with it, uh, so you can f- see how these are working, uh, for yourself.

41:54 I give you this time now just to play.

41:57 As you're playing around, try these as well.

42:03 If you're in table calculations, how do you get rid of it?

42:06 So, uh, you can edit the table calculations, you can delete the table calculations. It's in the same spot where it used to be, uh, that you could add. So that has now changed, uh, so you can now add it.

42:20 And you're finished playing around, let me know.

42:23 Oh, how do you remove it? Yeah, once you get the triangle icon, yeah, good, good point. Thank you. So to remove it, I'll go back here. It's in the same spot that you saw before where you added it. So now when you see the table calculation, you can click on the caret. You can see I can edit or I can clear. So if I hit Clear, boop, it goes away. The table calculation goes away.

42:45 And when it goes away, I can add it again.

42:51 And if it's there and I close it here, it's still there.

42:55 And if I like, "I don't like that, I want to edit it," I can edit the table calculation right there.

43:02 Yeah, sometimes it's right there, Mike. Yeah, glad it was able to help. Okay, so thanks for trying those out.

43:10 Some other things to know, you can try out these as well. So you have to use all the dimensions of the detail, right? So it's every- always gonna be in there. Now, drag in a new dimension, like gender, and then see what happens.

43:23 What you're seeing that happens is that you have to use all the dimensions of the detail, right? It's always gonna use a table calculation. It's always gonna calculate when you're with that additional detail.

43:35 That's what's going on.

43:37 So that's one of the main things. So here we go. I'm taking gender for an example.

43:41 I've got my table calculation here. Oh, I don't like that one, so I'm gonna change it first back to percent of total 'cause I like that the most, but when I drag in gender here…

43:54 Whoa. If I can drag in gender.

44:01 It's calculating again, but now it's got calculations for males and females, and now because I have more of these, I can do it the pane, so it adds a couple other things. How many in this pane is the percent of the total? And that pane, as you can see, is just these little pieces here. These are the panes.

44:24 That's what's happening there. Again, if I do a table cross, uh, do it that way, table down goes that way.

44:33 Go ahead and keep playing around with it just so you can see how it's working.

44:38 That, for me, has helped with my understanding.

44:42 So in the interest of time, we'll keep moving on, right? Table calculations. Oh, I can't remember if I shared my noise here or my sound, so let me, let me unshare and share again just to make sure I shared my sound. Uh, table calculations, uh, are important, uh, but they're not always easy.

45:00 So, uh, last week or a couple weeks ago, we had our own, um, uh, joint, uh, coordinated co- uh, co-led, um, event, uh, with a higher education group, the California, uh, Community College Group. Uh, we had a presenter who talked about all sorts of good stuff, and when he talked about, uh, table calculations, uh, this is what they said.

45:27 Andy Kriebel: And, uh, you know, feel free to put your hand up if this is you. You probably, uh, and it's not to be embarrassed, but, uh, how many of you go through and you just kind of hunt and peck until you figure something out and you get a value? Does anybody ever do that?

45:41 Hands up if you do. It's okay.

45:44 Uh, yes.

45:46 And that's how most people do it.

45:49 David Ogden: That is how most people do it. That's Andy Kriebel, uh, demonstrating how most people do it. Uh, he is like a Tableau Hall of Famer, and so if you've just been hunting and pecking around, you are in the, you are in a good group, uh, with us. So we hope you got that so far, table calculations down. Give me a little feedback. Let me know how it's going for you 'cause we're gonna move on now to level of detail.

46:12 Are you ready?

46:13 Thumbs up for those who've got the thumbs going. Appreciate that you're all still here, hoping that you're understanding.

46:21 Good. So now we'll hope to clarify not just table calculations, but level of detail.

46:27 Again, very beginning basic level. Now, what has always confused me also is when whenever people tell me how to do a level of detail or describe how to do a level of detail, often they're also parroting back to me what they've read and understood from Tableau's own kind of, uh, documentation.

46:50 I've been a- a- always hard-pressed, and so I was really happy to hear Olivia and Mike say, "Oh, yeah, I always gotta fi- try to figure out again, what is going on here?" So again, this is relatively beginning level. Uh, if you already know table calculations, you can type in the way that, that you understand it. That'll be great, help each other out.

47:07 But level of detail basically helps you control what's calculated with data that may or may not be in the view pane, right? Those dimensions that you may have in there, may not. So we had table calculations. Those only work with the things that are in the view, right? You have to put it in the view in order to have a table calculation, uh, control it.

47:27 But with a level of detail, introduced in 2015, Tableau 9, right? So seven generations after table calculation, and still here and really popular. Uh, in fact, it, uh, even though it wasn't till 2020 that it became part of the, uh, exam as a core competency, before 2015, it was not possible to create these level of detail calculations other than the view level, and it become really popular, and so other people now do it as well besides Tableau.

47:55 So how it works. Well, so sometimes you just need something. You need a number on a worksheet that you calculate at a different level than what you automatically get, uh, from Tableau, right? Uh, it may be something that you wanna add, like I need to calculate at the student level while something is– I want to see at the district level. Uh, and Mike had some really good examples of that in his visualization, calculating, like, E-rates, uh, out in different counties, right?

48:23 He didn't always have the E-rates in the viz, but he had the counties in the viz on his map, right? Or maybe you might need to average a GPA per course, but displayed by different buildings in your district. Like, how many different buildings? What's the GPA at different buildings? And you don't wanna have to kind of rebuild your whole worksheet again, uh, or blend your data again.

48:43 So in other words, with level of detail, LOD, uh, calc, you can recalculate your data or dimension that is not in the view or potentially, uh, calculate in ways, uh, that aren't available in table calc. So that's the big idea here about why we have table calculations. Uh, what's in similar to ta-table calculations. So what's in is level of detail.

49:05 It's– can be in the view, but also it's things that may not be in the view, right? So you can have those things in the view like table calculations, but you can also bring in things, all those other lovely pills or, or dimensions on the other side of there that you can get into your calculation, but without having it display in the view.

49:25 So the impact will be on things that are in the view, but you also have more choices, in other words, of what you can have put in there. Now, this to me, even if I was standing at my side, I was like, "What, what really do you mean, David?" So let's take a look, and again, let's kind of diagram some things here. So it works as you can zoom in or zoom out of your data.

49:49 Each– All of your data has some sort of granularity to it, right? Uh, so you have things like, uh, a student, uh, and they live at an address, but that address may be multiple students, right? So, uh, if you just look at an address, uh, that may be multiple students at that address. You're not always there. So, so there's another level of granularity in your data, uh, there.

50:11 Uh, and so normally, again, uh, a worksheet has this level of detail. That is the things that are in the view, uh, whatever fields you put in there. But LOD to the rescue, you wanna show something else that's not in the view. Uh, you wanna show the number of kids in, uh, there, but you don't wanna show the student number in there. Uh, at that address, you can have the student number over here, but only calculate it, uh, in the view, uh, over there.

50:37 So that's one example. Uh, how to find it. Uh, it is, uh, calculated fields. So these are calculated fields. So you need to create a calculated field in order to create a level of detail. But the nice thing about Tableau is they do give you some hints these days, uh, in when you're calculating a field, if you click that little button, uh, that says, uh, over.

50:59 And so now, uh, we have in here– Let me go back to our Tableau, so you know that you're here. We have a couple of tabs. Oh, the chart calculations, I skipped over that, but you do get chart calculations as well that you can see.

51:12 Uh, and now we'll go into our level of detail here. We'll close this here. So now we're in our level of detail area, and we can get it by either going to Analysis, uh, and finding a calculated field here. We can click the Calculated Field. That's how you find it one way or the other way. Up at the top, this caret at the top of your, uh, data table, you can find Calculated Field there.

51:34 So those are two different ways, uh, to find the calculated field.

51:39 And basically, there are three different ones of them, uh, right? And they always have these things. So remember, the dimensions is gonna be in there in your calculation. Uh, I'll go through in a minute, uh, how to create these, but these dimensions are gonna be there. That's the blue pill. Your measures are gonna be a pill. That's the green pill.

51:57 And, uh, think about how you want it to be aggregated, right? What is your aggregation? An aggregation is gonna need a number of things. Are you going to count it?

52:07 Are you going to sum it? Are you gonna find the top value? Are you gonna find the bottom value of min-max? These are all the pieces, uh, that are in there. So far, so good?

52:17 In the chat. So far, at least one's good.

52:20 All good.

52:22 All right.

52:24 Now, some key terms here, right? So we've got to have this vocabulary. So this also helps me figure it out. So granularity. On the right side here, you see this database, right? So your data has got all sorts of connections to each other. So you've got to figure out what is the, the area of granularity. What is, uh, the lowest level? What is the highest level?

52:44 Uh, because the level of granularity will affect your calculations. And aggregate. What do you mean by aggregate? Well, aggregate is meaning bringing together lots of different things in your, uh, data and bringing it together so you can make a calculation. So that example there, we're gonna aggregate, uh, the numbers, the students there to find their average, uh, information about, uh, aggregation from individuals, right?

53:08 So, uh, can you aggregate it, then can you count it, is another way to say it. Can you calculate the average of city?

53:16 No, you can't. But you can count the numbers of cities, right? So some things you can aggregate, uh, some things you've not. Gotta be something that's countable. And the last thing to remember also, uh, LODs, that they always teach you when you go to the hands-on training or other trainings, is this order of operations. Things happen in an order. It's not gonna be part of this presentation, uh, but just know that, uh, there is more detail to go because things are happening in a certain order, uh, when they are calculated.

53:44 Uh, certain, uh, way the data comes in, the way the filters are applied, those are also things that will hit your level of detail. That itself, it could be a whole another presentation. So we're not gonna try to do everything at once.

53:58 So how to write these, uh, level of details. So there's a specific way to say it's a level of detail calculation, right? Level of detail calculations need these curly braces at the beginning and at the back. So you do need those curly braces, otherwise, you end up with an error, right? And so again, it's this, uh, kind of, uh, uh, not routine, it's a structured way of creating this calculation.

54:21 And the structured way is you have to have one of these three, uh, uh, level of detail calculations, either fixed, include or exclude. That's where you start it. Then you're gonna add this dimension, or you can have more than one dimension. So you're gonna fix it or include it or exclude it, these particular dimensions, one or more. And then the colon has to go in, and then you have your aggregated expression, right?

54:42 Your aggregate expression has to be something that is an aggregate, like a count, count distinct, sum, these sorts of things, averages. Those are your aggregated expression. So that's how you write it. Now, many of you have– may have already done this, had this practice with it. Uh, but the other thing that's hard is, sometimes is hard is how do you read it, right?

54:59 How do you explain it to yourself? So you can read this calculation. You would actually best read from right to left. So if you're familiar with Arabic or Hebrew, you read right to left anyways, but all– most of our English speakers, romance language, all these other, we, we, we read left to right, but you have to read it at right to left. So you calculate from right to left this expression, like count the rows in the senior survey.

55:25 For each row that has a distinct value in the dimension, right? It's not just any dimension, it's a distinct value. So an example is if you are counting, uh, receipts, uh, and that you're fixing on the cost of entry, and the cost of entry is five dollars, you only have one distinct value in that dimension. That's the five-dollar cost. But if you have multiple costs, like ten dollars, fifteen dollars, right, then you have different distinct values.

55:53 And if you just count those, you'll end up with a smaller number. If you sum those, you'll end up with the sum of those numbers as opposed to the count of those numbers. In the survey, we're just gonna work with count data 'cause we're counting rows. And know that gender, as we're working along, gender in my database has three distinct values: male, female, and non-binary, which we have with a B in our database.

56:17 So M, F, and B. Those, those are the three distinct values that you'll be seeing in this particular database. So we're gonna count it. So these three types of control, three flavors, three different LODs. One is fixed, and fixed is the one that people use the most because often they wanna fix on something in particular, uh, that will be in that calculation all the time.

56:41 So here's my diagram, my sentence diagram, and kind of different ways to think about it, uh, for you. Uh, so we have these, uh, terms up top, uh, that will– uh, all these three slides are gonna change those terms, and we're gonna go through 'em, right? So the fixed, uh, uses all, always, when, and regardless, right? So we're gonna always use, when we're fixed, these distinct values when making this aggregation, okay?

57:06 We're always gonna use these distinct values when making this aggregation. For example, we're gonna count all of the number of rows in the survey, 'cause that's what this is, always when a distinct value in the gender field appears regardless of what you add to the sheet. Okay? So now caution again applies here, uh, for you when you're using fixed because depending on your galar– granularity, if you don't pick the most granular, you end up with funky numbers.

57:31 But let's go now, uh, to our, uh, Tableau, um, sheet over here, and we've got this one. We're looking at the fixed sample.

57:40 Uh, so we're fixed here. Uh, we don't have, uh, gender in here, but this is counting the number of rows over here, counting the number of rows that have a distinct value, right? So these numbers are different. So here's one compared to there. So here's the actual number of non-special ed students at Metro High School who said they're interested in health science, male or female, or non-binary.

58:11 And this number here, nine eight seven, says that every single row had a, a value in here. Now, if you look at the one on top of it, nine eight one, the difference is six. And the difference is six is because in my data set, there are a total of six non-binary students. Right? So no non-binary students, in other words, uh, picked family and computer science at, uh, Metro High School.

58:40 But actually, it's all in the data set. So it doesn't really matter about Metro High School, right? We don't care about all these other pieces. True or false, true or false, it's always gonna be the same across. So I said that a little wrong, right? So always gonna be the same across.

58:53 All these numbers, the same, the same, the same.

58:57 So fixed is always, always when, regardless.

59:03 Include is a little different.

59:06 Include is leave in, right?

59:08 Leave in versus always use. Leave in these distinct values when making this aggregation. So leave in is count only the number of rows in the survey once, only once, that have a distinct value in the gender field based on what you add to the sheet. Right? So include is only that have based on what you have in the sheet.

59:34 And last but not least is exclude all.

59:39 Leave out these values.

59:42 So for example, count all of the number of the rows in the surveys, but don't use, right, leave out the st- distinct value of gender regardless of what you add.

59:52 So we're gonna go through this, uh, a little bit in diagram form. Okay?

59:58 So, so far, the diagram here.

1:00:01 As we said before, uh, this is what we've just looked at. You have at the top, you've got our columns now, uh, are over in the blue area. Those are our school name, our special education, and our measure values. And our measure values here, uh, are the numbers and the counts.

1:00:20 We've got also in here, we have our greens about where is these values showing up.

1:00:28 And here's what I just tried to draw before. The– So in the gray, the count of rows with a gender, there are nine hundred and eighty-seven total people who are in this data set. Of those, four hundred and seventy-three are marked male, five hundred and eight marked female, and six marked non-binary.

1:00:47 So those numbers now kind of hopefully make a little more sense to you to see which ones are counting which. Right? So one of those rows is really just doing a count of the rows with the information.

1:01:00 So that's the example that you can compare now. And that's how sometimes people use fixed, compare this to something else.

1:01:08 How are we doing now? Questions so far.

1:01:12 Lots of people still sticking around, so I, I appreciate that.

1:01:16 Still grokking it.

1:01:18 Good to go, says Tim.

1:01:20 Not quite as clear. Thank you, Michael. But Lena probably not to keep me going. Okay, good.

1:01:25 That's good.

1:01:27 Just diagramming it here.

1:01:29 And so if you now move to the chart in yours,

1:01:34 diagramming it here as well, you can see kind of what fixed is doing.

1:01:41 So in the diagram, you'll see that when there is a row here that has all of the genders, you'll see some red, you'll see some yel- uh, orangish, and you'll see a little bit of blue.

1:01:55 But when there's a row, 'cause we're fixed on gender, that has only these values, you're only gonna see male or you're only gonna see female, or sometimes you see male and female, but not binary. That's how this is working out.

1:02:09 So in your own one, you can sort around, you can look around and, and play around, uh, with it. So we've gone from this table,

1:02:18 same values in this chart.

1:02:22 Trying to see it in two ways. Hopefully, it helps clear some of the ideas about fixed. And so you're looking at your tables and charts, and I'm gonna go back to this one here.

1:02:33 So we are always using gender when counting where this field ap- when this field appears, regardless of what else you have in that view.

1:02:46 That's one way to think about fixed.

1:02:49 Now we'll go to the next one, which is about include and exclude. I put them on the same, uh, sheet simply to show that include and exclude, uh, are kind of two sides of the same coin.

1:03:03 So two sides of the same coin here, we've got– To distinguish, we've got the yellowish, which is the include, and the grayish, which is the kind of row that exclude, right? So in this one, you can see that when you're including the gender, it is actually the same as the general number, include and exclude.

1:03:26 Or should we include and the general number. It's the same number, right? So you've got on this sheet, seventy-four and seventy-four, fourteen, fourteen, fifty-two, fifty-two, all the way across the row for females, business and marketing are all the same. But when they're not there, when you disregard the gender, it's gonna add up all– it's gonna add up all the rows that are in there.

1:03:48 So you have two zero five both for male and female because seventy-four and one thirty-one add up to two zero five, right? So it's disregarding it. It's excluding that separation by gender, even though you have gender right there in your view. It says, boop, forget about gender. Don't show me it. So this is also good when you're comparing things. Includes probably less frequently used.

1:04:13 Fixed is more often used because fixed often does the things you're trying to do, and include often is things that you can do in tip calculations, though you can do other things with these as you get more complicated. But exclude is one that you might use more.

1:04:26 And if we look at it here, now if we look at it in our view as the graph, you can kind of see what's going on. Now, the sum of the count exclude is eighty-two in this example, and it's eighty-two for each of those bars, male or female. Right? So the color is coloring it male or female, but this total number is still, uh, dividing it as two zero five versus two zero five.

1:04:54 Now, take a look at the bottom there. They all look kind of roughly the same length.

1:04:58 But if you take a look at the scale at the bottom, you'll see that the far right scale is– goes up to four hundred, while the other two scales go only up to two twenty.

1:05:08 So those are changing it whether you want to include the value, leave in gender information, or exclude that value, keep it out.

1:05:23 Claire says with us– Thank you, Claire. She finds LODs like this helpful for showing a denominator for a school district comparing when viewing maybe a grade level or class. Yes, these things can be very useful in the K-twelve realm.

1:05:37 So thanks, Share– Claire. You're anticipating. Share your ideas in the chat, how you think it might be helpful for others. You could be experienced, inexperienced. Think about your attendance. Think about GPAs, course loads, enrollment.

1:05:51 Give us an idea of how you might use an LOD in your situation, and type it in the chat.

1:06:00 Fixed by region or district. Okay. What would that help you show, uh, Bart? What's the question that you might– might help you answer?

1:06:08 It'll just help other people say, "Oh, I hadn't thought of that." 'Cause often we're trying to answer questions, help us understand.

1:06:15 The percent of the total. Yeah. Okay. Terrific.

1:06:18 Attendance, a student's count of absences per course with a completion of total absences across the schedule. That's great use. Thank you, Claire.

1:06:27 Some other ideas.

1:06:28 Just keep pounding them in. It's gonna be helpful for others.

1:06:33 With enrollment, sometimes you might find what is the first time the student enrolled. You could use a min, uh, fixed on the date of enrollment. What's the minimum, uh, time that you did there? Or the minimum, uh, fixed on the student rather. You could use a minimum calculation. Luke says he use it, uh, use it to show service minutes per student per service.

1:06:53 Nice.

1:06:54 So total service minutes, but fixed on the student.

1:06:58 Michael's doing this one nice. Of students without behavior referrals. Yeah, so they're not included in the behavior table in our sys. Great, Michael. These are some terrific ideas. And as you start thinking about it, you'll find more and more, uh, uses, uh, for LOD, and you can get better and better. I hope to get better and better as well.

1:07:19 So you can find more resources on this, uh, lots of different places. Again, these slides will be available, uh, to you. Uh, but there's some things, uh, straight from Tableau Help. The Tableau Help, you can just type in transform values with table calculations, or Tableau Help, table calculation types. That's get more information straight from Tableau.

1:07:38 You can watch things. Uh, Tableau in two minutes is a nice video service. Uh, one is how to use fixed level of detail. That's what I, I, I thought was helpful, and also an introduction to table calculations if you prefer the video. And then you can practice. There are a lot of, uh, Tableau, uh, public workbooks out there. The challenge workbook, one specific about LOD expressions, and all sorts of places, uh, to practice, uh, your own information.

1:08:02 Bart says he found another video. Click on that one. Lots of different places, uh, to, uh, improve your own understanding of LOD.

1:08:11 You can get frustrated. Just like table calculations, it's normal to be frustrated. It's normal to be frustrated with LOD. Just keep on working at it, and then when you're stuck, ask a friend. Many of you may be the only ones in your area that work with Tableau, but feel free to reach out in the community, uh, to us as leaders. We're here to help you, and that's what we wanna do, help you get better i- in your search of, uh, data art or all the things that you do that's Tableau.

1:08:41 I hope this was helpful. Thanks for walking along with me. We're now gonna go to the second card. Uh, congratulations again to Erin for winning the first one. We've taken her name out of the list. Some people have dropped off. They may not be winner, but you- may not be here, but you must be present to win. So we don't know who's out and who's in, so we might have to spin a couple of times, but hopefully on the first round we will get…

1:09:09 Who is it?

1:09:10 George. George, are you here?

1:09:12 Let us know, George. Are you still here?

1:09:16 Type in the chat, George.

1:09:18 No answer yet, so we'll remove him.

1:09:21 We'll go one more, maybe two more.

1:09:26 We've lost about 10 people.

1:09:28 We don't know who yet.

1:09:33 And Makena.

1:09:36 Makena, are you here?

1:09:38 Type in the chat.

1:09:40 We'll go again. We'll see. If we have more than one gift card, we can do two. If you're here and you're just slow to the chat, that's all right. We'll spin a couple of times.

1:09:51 We've got Erin so far. Who else is gonna be a winner?

1:09:56 Luke. Luke, are you still here? You've been typing before. Luke, are you around? Yes. Luke is our second winner. Terrific. All right. So Luke and Erin, congratulations to you. We are so glad, uh, that you are the winners today, and I will now hand it back to Olivia to close us out.

1:10:15 Olivia Dachtler: Thanks, David.

1:10:17 All right. So we just wanted to bring back up the upcoming events that we have for the K-12 TUG. Again, if you have any areas of focus that you're interested in, make sure you send those over to us, um, so we can make sure that we're, we're hitting all the topics that you're interested in.

1:10:35 And lastly, thanks to Plante Moran for being a K-12 TUG sponsor. Table- or, uh, Plante Moran offers Tableau professional services as well as other data analytics services.

1:10:48 And lastly, thank you to everybody who attended today. We really appreciate all of your, um, input and, uh, collaboration throughout the session, and thanks for being present and active listeners.

1:10:59 David Ogden: And I want to give a special shout-out to Mike, who had to leave already, but also to Olivia, not the replacement, the guest host. I think she did a great job. Thank you, Olivia. Give her great rounds of applause. We really appreciate you. She stepped in at the last minute 'cause Stephanie wasn't able to be here. But terrific, Olivia. Uh, you could also be, uh, if you want, a co-host or, uh, just the guest host.

1:11:25 Uh, you are a great guest host. We really appreciate. You did a wonderful job, uh, and thanks for stepping in. Go Hawks.

1:11:34 Though my nephew, he went to Iowa State, so I've worn the stripey overalls.

1:11:41 Olivia Dachtler: Ooh.

1:11:43 Oh. Black and gold looks so much better.

1:11:45 David Ogden: Black and go- well, come on, red and gold look good too.

1:11:49 Uh, but so we've ended a little bit early. We hope it was helpful for you. I got some nice feedback. Thank you for your nice feedback in there. Uh, let us know, uh, if you… Oh, Buckeyes. Come on. There we go, Bart. Some people from Ohio here as well. Uh, yes, they are a little higher in the AP poll than the other two teams, so, uh, Buckeyes, that's all right.

1:12:06 Uh, all in the Big 10. Was the Big 10, now it's the big, like, 25 or whatever it is. Uh, anyways, uh, but, uh, we really appreciate you being here. Uh, and, uh, if you do have feedback, feel free to contact me directly. Luke and Erin, you'll be getting your, uh, gift cards shortly.

1:12:23 And that's it for now. Until next time, have a great Tableau journey.

1:12:29 Olivia Dachtler: Thanks.