Having an experience of more than 15 years in databases and BI technologies, I was very pretty sure to pass Tableau Desktop Certified Associate exam in my first attempt. But I am brave enough to admit that I was failed in my first attempt of Tableau certification exam which I passed in my later attempt.
In this article, I am going to share guideline and tips to pass the Tableau Certification Exam which I followed after my failure. In the end of this article, you will find the mistakes which I did and so you can avoid.
This article is intended for all those who are preparation for certification exam.
Even If you are working in Tableau from long time and you feel yourself expert in Tableau Desktop, don’t be overconfident since tableau certification exams are very well defined and questions are spread across all topics. It is a fact that during our work experience, we don’t get a chance to implement every concept and every option so even you have worked a lot but it’s not necessary that you have explored each and every option of Tableau so please don’t’ be overconfident with Tableau Certification Exams and give enough time for preparation.
Once you made your mind to appear in the tableau certification exam, you must do the following things in following sequence
Tableau has provided very clear details about Tableau certification exam by providing the preparation guides for every exam. You can go to respective certification page. In order to reach to certification page, simply google ‘Tableau Certification’ as shown below
It will take you to the main page of the certification as follows
You can download the exam preparation guide as mention in the screen shot below
This preparation guide contains the complete information about exam procedure, exam time duration, type of question, passing criteria, and few sample questions as well. Most important thing which you should focus in this exam preparation guide is weightage of each section and exam topics.
You can assess which areas you are stronger and which topics need your attention to improve. From here, you can draw a line of action which you can follow to pass the Tableau certification exam.
Tableau has provided very detailed material for Tableau desktop which is equally good for Both Desktop Associate and Desktop Specialist exam. Though this book is very lengthy but going through this book will give surely boost your knowledge. You can get this book from Tableau resources section on the same page which we opened earlier. Resources section looks like this
You can click the Tableau Product Help link which will open the tableau help page, click the small arrow on Tableau Desktop and Web authoring as shown in the figure below
It will open a section where you can get the tableau help book in both PDF and HTML version.
Once you have this help book, you can search the topics which you want to study and enhance your knowledge as per exam preparation guide. This book contains more than three thousand pages and contains every topic in much depth. Check out the Tableau Virtual Conference here.
Tableau book has a style to give summary in form of bullet points at the end of each main topic. One must go through these summary points for all main topics, since these points can be used in theory question which I shall discuss in more detail in later section.
When I took my first attempt, I was not aware of this book or I did not had a chance to open this valuable stuff.
On the same page, you will get the link for free training videos, which is also very much valuable from exam point of view
Watch all video and specially focus on the fact points mentioned in these videos since these fact points are good candidates for theory based question.
As it is mentioned earlier that Tableau exams contains theoretical as well as practical questions requiring the solution using Tableau. Most of the people who fail are those who mainly focus on practical questions neglecting the share of theoretical based questions.
When we talk about theory, it can come from any section as per given topics in the exam perp guide. It emphasizes the importance of thorough study for Tableau Help book. There is an overall summary at the end of each topic in Tableau help book, this section contains the points discussed in form of bullets. These points are very important to grasp.
Since the Tableau help book is very lengthy so one gets tired to think how to scan this lengthy book. Here is what you can do
Consider every topic important since anything can be asked in the Tableau certification exam
There are some sites which offer free practice questions for your initial assessment, these questions can be helpful to give you an idea to gauge your level of preparation.
You can get the section wise free questions which could give you a quick hint for each section of your certification.
Initially you can start from free assessment quizzes and later you can go for full practice exams which give the real like experience and provides step by step solution for all questions. It is recommended for all those who are appearing it for the first time.
Following is a list of some sites offering such practice tests:
I strongly believe on the following quote
No Regrets in Life, Just lessons learned.
When I first registered the Tableau Desktop Associate Certification exam, I was very confident to get it done, but I missed the exam with 5 marks only and then I realized my following mistakes and learned following lessons.
I had went through exam preparation guide but more than that I had relied mostly on the topics mentioned by my tableau instructor later I realized that I had simply ignored some topics which came in theory question. Nothing wrong with instructor, he did his best job by identifying the important topics but it was my mistake to ignore the less important topics at all.
Lesson Learned is to focus on exam preparation guide topics and align your efforts accordingly.
I had mostly focused only on the practice questions and had not given the enough time to theoretical section. That’s why there were many questions which were totally new to me. Later on when I checked, all questions were from the topics mentioned in the exam preparation guide.
Lesson learned is to give due importance to theory as well
Though my instructor had mentioned me about the resources link on Tableau web site, but I had never opened the tableau help book until my first failed attempt. During my first attempt, I had mostly relied on Tableau free training video and tableau kit which comes along Tableau formal training.
Lesson learned is to go through the Tableau provided help book which I have already mentioned earlier.
I had not taken enough practice and mock tests to check my readiness for exam. Since I have been working in Tableau from long time, probably it gave me over confidence to get through it with no effort which proved me wrong.
So the lesson learned is to take at least one or two practice tests which will be a good preparation for your real exam.
Tableau certification is an open book exam where you are allowed to google and can open the public knowledge base of Tableau and even help book can be accessed during the exam. It means you can search the theoretical questions’ answer from Tableau knowledge base as well. I never used google in my first attempt since it did not come into my mind that it’s an open books exam. But definitely there is time limit so be very careful about the time while searching anything on google. Secondly you can open only the public knowledge base of Tableau, don’t open the private blogs, proctor will note if you go to private blogs or your own self online knowledge repository.
Lesson learned is to use google to get answer from tableau public knowledge base to find the hint for the answer of question.
Either you are a beginner in Tableau or experienced professional, don’t be over confident, give thorough attention to exam format, exam topics mentioned in the exam preparation guide and must consult the Tableau help books and free training videos. Once you have gone through all the stuff, go for self-evaluation by taking some free assessment quizzes and full practice test. If you want some videos for your Tableau certification, Check out the Tableau Certification Preparation Training Videos for their preparation for the real exam. And once done, go to attempt the real exam.
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