What is Tableau certification?
Tableau certifications or certificates consist of a bundle of product exam qualifications designed to help professional test their skills, upskill and get certified/recognized as key experts. These certificates are available for both business professional using Tableau Desktop to analyze data, as well as for the IT professional charged with administering the Tableau server on-premises or hosted in the public cloud.
The Tableau certifications can be categorized as follows.
Tableau Certificates for Business professionals
Tableau Desktop Specialists
The Tableau Desktop Specialist exam is designed for those having foundational skills and understanding of the Tableau Desktop and with at least 3 months experience in using Tableau Desktop.
Skills measured
Tableau Desktop Specialist exam measures students understanding in connecting and preparing data, managing data properties as well as modifying data connections, creating basic charts, organizing data, and applying filters, Tableau concepts, applying analytics, working with aggregations, creating dashboards, and sharing insights.
Exam time limit: 60 minutes
Exam passing score: 70 %
Exam fee: $100
Title expiry date: The Tableau Desktop Specialist title does not have an expiry date.
Sample certificate
Tableau Desktop Certified Associate
Formally known as the Tableau Desktop Qualified Associate, this exam is for those who have comprehensive understanding of the Tableau Desktop functionality and with at least five months experience using the Tableau Desktop.
Skills measured
The Tableau Desktop Certified Associate exam evaluates students understanding on the following: Connecting and preparing data, organizing data, and applying filters, chart types, analysis skills, Tableau calculations, mapping skills and dashboarding skills.
Exam time limit: 2 hours
Exam passing score: 75%
Exam fee: $250
Title expiry date: The Tableau Desktop Certified Associate title is valid for two years, after which you can renew it by retaking the exam again.
Sample certificate
Tableau Desktop Certified Professional
This exam is intended for those with advanced knowledge and skills in Tableau Desktop and the ability to apply visual analytics methodologies to help people see and understand data. To sit for this exam, you are recommended to have at least 12 months of dedicated and practical experience using the Tableau Desktop.
To be eligible for the Tableau Desktop Certified Professional exam, you MUST be an active Tableau Desktop Certified Associate or an active Tableau Desktop Certified Professional. Once you earn your Tableau Desktop Certified Professional title, you are not required to renew your Tableau Desktop Certified Associate title once it reaches expiration.
Skills measured
Visual best practices
Advance calculations
Advanced techniques for creating innovative analysis and dashboards.
Best practices for sharing information and insights with others.
Exam time limit: 3 hours
Exam passing score: Pass/Failed based on a detail scoring rubric and Tableau Desktop best practices.
Exam fee: $600
Title expiry date: The Tableau Desktop Certified Professional title is valid for three years.
Sample certificate
Tableau Certifications for IT professionals
Tableau Server Certified Associate
The Tableau server certified associate exam is intended for those who have comprehensive understanding of the Tableau server functionality in a single-machine environment and with approximately 4-6 months of experience.
Skills measured
Understanding of Tableau server user experience and topology
Tableau server installation and configuration
Tableau server administration
Tableau server troubleshooting
Understanding of Tableau server migration and upgrading
Exam time limit: 90 Minutes
Exam passing score: 75%
Exam fee: $250
Title expiry date: The title is valid for two years.
Sample certificate
Tableau Server Certified Professional
The Tableau server certified professional exam is designed for those who have comprehensive understanding of Tableau server functionality in a single-machine and enterprise configuration. This exam recommends at least nine months of hands-on Tableau server experience.
To be eligible for this exam, you must be an active Tableau Server Certified Associate.
Skills measured.
Tableau server architecture and planning
Tableau server preparation (versions, hardware, and software requirements)
Tableau server installation and configuration
Maintenance and administration
Tableau migration and upgrade
Exam time limit: Seven hours Exam passing score: Pass/Fail based on a detailed scoring rubric and Tableau Server best practices.
Exam fee: $800
Title expiry date: The title is valid for three years.
Sample certificate
Is Tableau certification worth it?
This is a common question for majority of Tableau students. But before I can respond to this, let me say one truth I know. In any industry or work, the most important thing is not your certificate but the ability to deliver on assignments/tasks (your skills). You may have the certificate, but your skills fail to match the task at hand. And this is the reason why these certificates are valid for a certain period.
Is it worth it? From own experience I will say yes, its worthy it. For instance, the frequency of new assignments increased significantly right after I got my Tableau Certification. Did I acquire new Tableau skills? No! What I did is letting the world know my skills by getting certified.
But what about others? Here have sampled a few of responses by students on benefits of being Tableau certified as shared on the Tableau website.
This is what they say…
“Being certified has helped me design complicated dashboards more quickly and confidently under pressure.”
“Being certified has propelled my career and personal brand, boost my resume, and validated my skills with clients.”
“Being certified has helped me improve the skills of the entire team so work done by any individual on the team remains consistent and accurate.”
Since the Tableau Certification can help, it’s safe to say they are indeed worth it.
Tableau careers and salary
Data analytics opportunities have been on the rise recently and with lots of organizations (both small and large) collecting data on daily today basis – these trends are projected to keep on rising as the demand for organization to interpret these data sets increases. And therefore, acquiring data analytics skills presents enormous opportunities in these data centric institutions.
And some of the opportunities you can enjoy as a Tableau expert include, business analysts, data analysts, BI consultant, Tableau developer, data visualization expert, reporting analysts etc.
Analytics professionals are well remunerated in the market. For instance, according to Glassdoor the average base pay of an analytics consultant is $89,162 per year in United States, while the average base pay of other analytics professions in United States are as tabulated in the table below.
Beginner resources (starting preparations)
There are several ways you can learn Tableau. You can learn it faster or slowly.
The fastest way to learn Tableau is using curated content (content that has been organized in a certain way to help you easily learn and apply knowledge) – this could be something like a training course, coaching etc.
The second way you can learn Tableau is through research – either you can google different blog contents on Tableau, watch YouTube videos etc. – the downside of this option is that it will take you more time as you’ll be learning randomly, and you do not have a proper platform to apply your knowledge.
Learn Tableau Faster
Learn Tableau Desktop quickly through.
Tableau certification training
Tableau certification trainings are by-far one of the best approaches I would recommend for anybody interested in learning Tableau. These trainings come in different shapes and with different features such as quizzes, practice exams, projects etc.
Some of the online course platforms you can learn from include Udemy, Edureka, Datacom, Simplilearn etc. Or you can simply search Tableau Online courses on Google.
Tableau certification practice test (certification dumps)
The Tableau certification practice test will be helpful for those preparing for Tableau Desktop certification exams.
So, let’s say you have taken an online course that does not have enough practice tests, or you have learned Tableau on your own through research – in that case you’ll need to try Tableau practice test (basically to help you prepare for your Tableau certification exams by learning how exam is set and the different approaches you can take to solve different challenges) before sitting for the main Tableau exam.
Learn through research.
There are a lot of good resources out there on Tableau that you can rely on if this is the mode of study you would like to use.
I have shared below, some of the great one you can try.
Tableau knowledge base
This site contains tones of questions and answers on different Tableau features as well as detail product guides.
This site should be on your top list if you need to learn Tableau on your own.
Tableau blogs
Tableau blogs is another alternative to learn Tableau. A good example of a Tableau blog is this one you are reading now.
To access great content on Tableau authored by different blogs – simply search any subject of interest on Google or YouTube and based on google search engine recommendation you’ll see some of the great sites you can follow to learn more.
What next?
Already certified? Now what!!
If you are already certified, you can follow different inspiration groups available online to help you learn more and inspire your data visualization skills.
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Thank you for reading.
