Guide to Tableau Certified Data Analyst Certification Exam

Updated as per my latest experience and exam format.

I am ecstatic on passing my Tableau Certified Data Analyst Certification scoring 92% and thought of documenting my experience. The test has a certain kind of aura around it and a feel of tough challenge. But with some strategic planning you can pass the test with flying colors!

Also Read: Practice for the Tableau Desktop Specialist Certification

What is the Tableau Certified Data Analyst Certification Exam?

The Tableau Certified Data Analyst Certification Exam is one of the advanced tests offered by Tableau that evaluates your skills on complex analytical tasks. This certification confirms you are aware of most of the logical functionalities provided by Tableau and can use them when needed.

What is the cost of the Tableau Certified Data Analyst Certification Exam?

The cost of the Tableau Certified Data Analyst Certification Exam is $199. The certification is no doubt expensive, so proper practice and preparation helps to pass the test in a single attempt.

What is the validity of the Tableau Certified Data Analyst Certificate?

The Tableau Certified Data Analyst Certificate expires every 2 years. This is because Tableau keeps upgrading the product frequently and many of the functionalities and features get newer with time. Once expired, it can be renewed again of course.

Where is the Official Exam Guide of the Tableau Certified Data Analyst Certification Exam?

You can download the Official Exam Guide of the Tableau Certified Data Analyst Certification Exam here. I would recommend to go through all the topics mentioned in the guide and also take some time to solve the sample problems. These problems will give you a good idea of the actual exam.

How to prepare Tableau Certified Data Analyst Certification Exam?

Preparing for the Tableau Certified Data Analyst Certification Exam is indeed a tricky question and there is no easy answer. It is recommended for you to be working in Tableau for at least 5–6 months with hands-on experience before taking the test. I broke down my preparation resources into the below:

1. Conceptual Skill Building Textual Resource (Free)

I repeatedly went through the Official Tableau Help Guide whenever some topics came to my head or I got stuck somewhere. Also it comes handy as referring the Help Guide is allowed in some sections of the exam.

2. Conceptual Skill Building Video Resource (Free)

The Official Tableau Tutorial Videos are really good and covers every topic. But I needed to make sure I do hands-on along the way else it is often not that effective. Grasping of any concept in Tableau only comes with hands-on practice.

3. Practical Skill Building Exam Resource (Free)

The Tableau Certified Data Analyst Practice Exams here and at Tableau Practice Test proved sufficient for me. The questions were very similar to the actual exam I found later and the good thing was a variety in the datasets. It is important to remember the Super Store dataset will not be provided in the exam, so it is crucial you practice a lot to have a wide exposure to different datasets and scenarios.

What are some Sample Questions of the Tableau Certified Data Analyst Certification Exam?

The questions in this Exam require you to be comfortable with handling various analytical scenarios. There are 59 knowledge-based and 11 hands-on questions, however it is better to prepare with more hands-on while preparing for the exam. You might not be required to calculate a Barbell Chart like the below, but you may very well be required to identify the difference between the 2 dots by any means you seem suitable.

Let’s take a look at an example below.

The above problem tests your skills on combining datasets, building a chart and performing an analysis for a specific scenario. Let’s take a look at another question below.

The above question evaluates your knowledge on preparing and processing data. Let’s see another sample below on a comparatively easier topic.

Being thorough with Box and Whisker Charts is crucial as it is one the charts that gets confusing under different scenarios. Let’s take a look at another example.

The above questions requires you to be comfortable with the geographic charts and data types along with analyzing the requested data. Such questions are pretty common nowadays.

How to Pass the Tableau Certified Data Analyst Certification Exam?

Passing the Tableau Certified Data Analyst Certification Exam requires few months of diligent learning and practice. I have been working in Tableau for past 4 years but on seeing the questions I realized I needed to brush up some of my calculation skills on Level of Detail Expressions.

Having a tight budget, I focused on free resources. I completed all the Official Tableau Tutorial Videos. For practice exams weeks prior to the exam I practiced at Learn Tableau and Tableau Practice Test. And ultimately of course I had the Official Tableau Help Guide to show me the way any time I got stuck. I found my skills gradually sharpening and finally I decided to take the test.

What are some tips to pass Tableau Certified Data Analyst Certification Exam?

1. The first thing I would recommend is not to do selective study. If you know you are weak in any area be sure that there might be some questions from that topic, so get working on it.
2. Practice as much as you can to get to know your weak areas. It is only by practice that we get exposed to a variety of scenarios and can understand where we lack and where we are good at.
3. During the actual exam, try to solve the questions you are comfortable with first, and flag the ones you want to come back to later. This will give you more confidence later in the exam.
4. You cannot search online during the main exam, so try to practice a lot and remember the key concepts and mouse clicks which would help you during the actual exam. You can also approach to solve the questions by option elimination techniques.
5. Know your chart types well. Especially when it comes to histograms and box and whisker plots. I had to spend some time digging up few information on these which could have easily been learnt earlier.
6. Be comfortable with joins and blends. There are a lot of questions on these topics and without these you will not be even able to start analyzing the dataset or get the view ready.

Where to find Tableau Certified Data Analyst Certification Exam Dumps?

Well, I did not especially search for dumps anywhere so will not be able to provide the perfect answer. But I made sure I took sufficient practice for well known sources. I would advise against looking for dumps instead practice from proven genuine sources of practice tests.

What if you fail the Tableau Certified Data Analyst Certification Exam?

You can appear for the Tableau Certified Data Analyst Certification Exam again if you fail in the first attempt. There is no limit to the number of tests that you can take.

How to succeed on the Tableau Certified Data Analyst Certification Exam day?

1. Make sure you are aware of all the rules of the exam from the links above.
2. Be alone in a room with no miscellaneous items around you. Monitors are not allowed, except in special cases as mentioned in the links above.
3. Your proctor will guide you through the setup and connectivity tests and once your setup looks good you will be connected to a virtual machine.
4. The setup arrangement can take some time based on your connectivity and laptop setup, this time will not be counted as part of the exam.
5. You might observe a few milliseconds lag while working on the virtual machine but that is normal.
6. It is advisable to use clean workbooks to answer any questions to avoid mixing logics with the prior question.
7. For answers having more than once correct answer, I took some time to figure out every correct answer to avoid losing out points.
8. All the datasets and software will be available within the virtual machine when you login to your session.
9. Since you cannot search online during the exam, it is crucial that you have your fundamentals strong. You can also solve the questions by eliminating the wrong answers if in doubt.
10. If you face any issues during the exam feel free to reach out to the Proctor. I found her extremely helpful and she even helped me for couple of navigation issues during the early stages of the exam.
11. You can submit your answers early if you are done, I finished the exam within 130 minutes and scored 92%.
12. The results will be broken down into category and sent to you over email. It will not contain the question-wise breakdown of scores though. It will only show the categories on which you attempted the test and the percentage score you achieved in each of those categories.
13. The Official Tableau Certificate will be available to you within the same day usually. If not you can reach out to Pearson VUE from their website above. Now you can enjoy and share your success story in LinkedIn, Twitter or any other platform!