Design and Troubleshoot Calculations and Workbooks40% of the exam
Debugging calculation errors, addressing and limitations
Diagnose calculations that error or silently return the wrong value: string-to-date conversion, date functions that roll over or follow ISO years, table calculations computed in the wrong direction or partition, and the documented limits of LOD expressions, fiscal dates and cube data sources.
Troubleshoot advanced calculations.
~7 min read · 8 practice questions ·
What the exam expects
- Fix string-to-date conversions by choosing between DATE, DATEPARSE and MAKEDATE from the shape of the input.
- Explain date results that look wrong but follow documented rules, such as MAKEDATE rollover and ISO-8601 year boundaries.
- Repair a table calculation whose direction or partition is wrong by changing Compute Using or the Specific Dimensions checkboxes.
- Recognise LOD limitations (table calculations or ATTR inside, blending, floating-point comparisons) and data source limits (cubes, fiscal dates) before rewriting a formula.
Key terms:
- Date literal: a constant date written between # symbols, such as #August 22, 2005#.
- Rollover: MAKEDATE turning an impossible day into a later valid date instead of an error.
- Partition: the subset of the view a table calculation restarts on.
- Multidimensional (cube) data source: a cube connection, which help lists as not supporting LOD expressions.
Key facts
DATE
- Detail
- Recognizes many standard formats without a pattern
DATEPARSE pattern
- Detail
- Must match the string exactly
MAKEDATE out-of-range day
- Detail
- Adjusted into a date,
MAKEDATE(2020,4,31) = May 1, 2020
MAKEDATETIME
- Detail
- Only for MySQL-compatible connections
ISO-8601 year start
- Detail
- Between December 29 and January 4
TOTAL
- Detail
- Total of the expression in the partition
All dimensions checked
- Detail
- The entire table is in scope
LOD on cubes
- Detail
- Not supported
Fiscal dates
- Detail
- Relational data sources only
Floating-point sums
- Detail
- Can be off at very fine precision; use ROUND
Sources for this section (7)
- Date Functionshelp.tableau.com (opens in a new tab)
- ISO-8601 Week-Based Calendarhelp.tableau.com (opens in a new tab)
- Table Calculation Functionshelp.tableau.com (opens in a new tab)
- Transform Values with Table Calculationshelp.tableau.com (opens in a new tab)
- How Level of Detail Expressions Work in Tableauhelp.tableau.com (opens in a new tab)
- Fiscal Dateshelp.tableau.com (opens in a new tab)
- Aggregate Functions in Tableauhelp.tableau.com (opens in a new tab)
- When does DATEPARSE fail on a source where it worked as an extract?
- Why might a SUM of values that should cancel out show -1.42e-14?
- Which function tests whether a string is a valid date before conversion?
- When is MAKEDATE certain to be available?
The questions are free to read. Answers with their sources and self-grading are included with the pack.
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