Tableau connects to data stored in a wide variety of files and databases. This includes flat files, such as Excel documents, spatial files, and text files; relational databases, such as SQL Server and Oracle; cloud-based data sources, such as Google Analytics and Amazon Redshift; and OLAP data sources, such as Microsoft Analysis Services. With very few exceptions, the process of analysis and creating visualizations will be the same, no matter what data source you use.
We'll cover details of connecting to different types of data sources in Chapter 2, Working with Data in Tableau. And we'll cover data spanning a wide variety of industries in other chapters. For now, we'll connect to a text file, specifically, a comma-separated values file (.csv). The data is a variation of the sample that ships with Tableau: Superstore, a fictional retail chain...
