Unused Data Sources

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Rationale

The VIZYUL™ Unused Data Sources best practice rule fires when a workbook contains unused data sources.

Insight

Consider this, during the data discovery phase of designing a dashboard, often times data sources are added to a tableau workbook that don’t end up making the final cut.  Which means there are unused data sources in your workbook.

Unused data sources usually don’t negatively impact the time it takes tableau to render your dashboards, well, because it’s not used.  However, there are other areas where unused extracts can have an unfavorable impact of a tableau workbook.

Consider the case where a tableau user has finalized a dashboard and wants to share it with the team.  The author plans to save the workbook as a packaged tableau workbook.  If the unused data sources are extracts, each one increases the size of the packaged tableau workbook.  In this case, removing unused data sources can have a positive impact on the size of the overall workbook.

Action

  • Consider removing unused data sources from your workbook prior to publishing or giving access to your viewers.
  • Consider the additional resources below

Additional Resources

  • https://slalomdotcom.wordpress.com/2014/03/26/how-to-improve-the-performance-of-your-tableau-dashboards/
  • 3 Part Series on Understanding Tableau Data Extracts
    • http://www.tableau.com/about/blog/2014/7/understanding-tableau-data-extracts-part1
    • http://www.tableau.com/about/blog/2014/7/why-use-tableau-data-extracts-32187
    • http://www.tableau.com/tableau-data-extracts-part3