Tableau - Data Joining

Data joining is a very common requirement in any data analysis. You may need to join data from multiple sources or join data from different tables in a single source. Tableau provides the feature to join the table by using the data pane available under Edit Data Source in the Data menu.

Creating a Join

Consider the data source ‘Sample superstore’ to create a join between Orders and Returns table. For this, go to the Data menu and choose the option Edit Data Source. Next, drag the two tables, Orders and Returns to the data pane. Depending on the field name and datatype, Tableau will automatically create a join which can be changed later.

The following screenshot shows the creation of an inner join between Orders and Returns using the Field Order ID.

Editing a Join Type

The type of join which the table creates automatically can be changed manually. For this, click the middle of the two circles showing the join. A popup window appears below which shows the four types of joins available. Also Tableau automatically greys out some types of joins, which it finds irrelevant on the basis of data present in the data source.

In the following screenshot, you can see the inner and left outer join as the available joins.

Editing Join Fields

You can also change the fields forming the join condition by clicking the Data Source option available in the join popup window. While selecting the field, you can also search for the field you are looking for using a search text box.