Make a plan. Told it before, will tell again. To myself too, for sure. But what if the plan goes out the window? Do not panic. Take a deep breath and ask question. What is the data about? Do I understand the industry? If not, do some research, you'll be surprised how much a good article can help when it comes to looking for insights in desert of numbers.

If you have your questions, it will be easier to find the correct dataset or correct table to answer them. This will reduce the time you spend in Alteryx or Prep. Feel free to completely ignore certain fields and just focus on the ones that compliments of what you trying to answer.

When the data is ready to roll in Tableau draw a quick sketch of how you'd like to visualize it. Excalidraw is really good for that.

Once you have rough idea how your dashboard is going to look like, you can start building your charts. Be flexible though, if you see more insights while you're building the charts, or you think a line chart works better obviously you can change it but keep that in mind that most of the time the analysis matters more than how the dashboard looks.  Dashboard week is about quick plan and quick execution.

Peter Hajnal DS | 33