Tableau Joins And Blends Tutorial | When Should I Use Joins In Tableau

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I get this question a lot and I completely understand why. Data Blending in itself is very difficult to understand at first because it can be quite an abstract thing. For me, being a highly visual-based learner, I couldn't really see it in my head which caused a lot of frustration. However, as I kept practising with it, it definitely got easier and I begin to see its applications.

In theory, think of it as the step right before a standard join takes place. Prior to a join, they are two distinct data sets. After they join they combine into one. In blending this doesn't happen at the beginning of your analysis, i.e. when you first load the data into Tableau. Instead, it triggers as you create the visualization and depending on what you're visualizing and the type of data you're using you'll get different results. This is both a good and a bad thing. For newbies, it's horrible because it feels the results are random and unpredictable. For experienced users, the world is your oyster.

This affords you several benefits the primary one being that you can preserve granularity between data sets which is a major issue in standard joins. Duplicates can be terrible and cause all sorts of havoc. Therefore, you need to do some significant checks and validation to ensure it doesn't happen....unless you want it to. In blends, granularity is preserved!

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[dataspeaks]

Hi Jellyman, But you are using relationship that is not a blending rite?

[mostafa]

Great video but i am still not sure is when to use either one. specifically what the queues we need to pick up to decide between blend and joint. or we just have to test both to see which will provide the most accurate VIz and results. a bit tedious and time-consuming with the validation. maybe go with blend all the time when working with two data sets or databases. what do you think

[I_Follow_Jesus]

Do you have anything on blends for older versions of Tableau? I'm a new Business Analyst and new to Tableau. I'm working with very large data sets that have already been curated by my IT department. My job is to add functionally to existing reports. My reports on Tableau server were created prior to relationships in Tableau. I'm having to work with a lot of data blends at the worksheet level. Still wrapping my head around blends, order of operations and level of detail.