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Updating data already used as a source
Posted August 28th, 2008 by Jeffrey Levy
I get a weekly Excel spreadsheet with update sales numbers, however it doesn't contain all of the previous weeks actiivty. Is there a way for Tableau to take an existing workbook used as a data source and remember the data in it so I could add the new data to it? Another option would be for me to copy/paste the spreadsheet for the new week as a new sheet in the original workbook - but then how do I have Tableau keep tabs each week of this additional data (week 1 there would be one sheet, week 2 there would be 2 sheets, etc. in that workbook)? I'd like to not have to change the calculations each week to take into account the new data.
Any suggestions?
Thanks!
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If you keep building your Excel workbook with multiple sheets that are essentially the same table, you'd have to keep updating your join condition for the Tableau Data Source with each addition. That's only one change (at the datasource level, not each calculation), but it's still a change each week.
If you can keep appending the new data in the same Excel sheet, then you wouldn't have to change anything in Tableau. I'm guessing you passed over this option because your data wasn't amenable to combination in this fashion - want to elaborate on why?
Hi Jeffrey,
It sounds like what you are asking for is a way to Union the data from each week into a single database that you can then explore with Tableau. While Tableau will not do what you're looking for you can do it pretty easily using Microsoft Access.
In Access you can create a new blank database and then import external data from your week 1 excel workbook. Then when you get your week 2 data you can import from excel again but this time in the import wizard choose to Append a copy of the records to the table. That will add the records to your existing week 1 table. Continue this process each time you get the updated weekly sales data.
After that you can connect to the Access database with Tableau and begin exploring. If you don't have Access you could plow your data into a MySQL database but that can get more complex depending on your scripting/database skills.
By the way, your second approach you mentioned wouldn't get you what you want either because Tableau supports relational joins but you're looking for a union. That means that you can add new columns from multiple sheets but you can't add additional rows.