New Tableau Data Analyst Certification format and how to deal with it

Are you taking the Tableau Data Analyst Certification exam soon and were scared that some of the requirements have changed? Don’t be! Our newly certified Tableau Data Analyst Lana Mitrofanova has written down the most important tips and changes that are now in the certification.

Lana Mitrofanová

25. November 2024

On 31th of October, Salesforce changed the Data Analyst Certification format. And if you didn’t wake up one morning and didn’t find it out with the morning coffee trying to register for the Exam, that is good. Because I did.

But panic aside! Everything that you already learned is still very useful, you just maybe need to add only a couple of more pieces of information (or maybe you already have it).

I took this Exam twice, in the old and new form. So, let’s take what you can expect from the new format!

New Guide had been published several weeks ago and there is what changed there:

How it was promised on the exam page, there are now 60 multiple-choice/multiple-select questions and 5 non-scored questions. What does “non-scored question” mean, ask you? So, according to Trailblazer Community, those 5 questions are randomly placed in the test to gather data on question performance. “The duration of each exam has been evaluated and adjusted to accommodate the inclusion of the unscored questions. These five questions will be in addition to the 60 scored questions on your exam, and will have no impact whatsoever on your score.”

But! No practical part anymore. That is also mean way less technical problems during the exam

Current Exam Time limit is 105 minutes (includes 3 minutes for reviewing the NDA), what is for this type of questions is just right.
The passing score is counting in % now and was reduced from 75% to 65%.
The core of the Exam Domains is staying the same. But the content is slightly different (including the using term and more general language*):
- Domain 1: Connect to and Transform Data. Content added: Connect to published data sources from a Tableau Cloud site, Create data source filter, Tableau prep – Determine which output type to use.
- Domain 2: Explore and Analyze Data. This domain has the most new content.
  - There was one topic added “Write basic spatial calculations” and the topic about LOD disappeared from a chapter, but only because now it has its own chapter.
  - Create Level of Detail (LOD) calculations added and includes FIXED, INCLUDE, EXCLUDE and nested LODs.
  - To the Create table calculations topic were added: Windows average, Index, Rank and Application of the quick table calculations (like Compute using). Month to date and Year over year disappeared.
  - Topic Set parameters to dynamically refresh was added to the Parameters chapter.
  - Create a predictive model is not anymore in the chapter.
- Domain 3: Create Content now contains a couple of more topics like Create show/hide buttons for dashboard objects and a bit more about the Dashboard creation.
- Domain 4: Publish and Manage Content on Tableau Server and Tableau Cloud. To this domain several topics were added about Tableau Prep: Publish a data source from Desktop or Prep and Publish a flow. And several more like Create and save custom views, Understand user roles and permissions, Customize and distribute a published workbook.
Salesforce also announced more preparation materials. Now students have not only Tableau eLearning, but also 1 or 2 days webinars with Tableau professionals like

* For example: “Connect to spreadsheets” change to “Connect to files”)

A little from the personal experience from taking both Exam versions.

I will start with the good news: the Exam itself looks a bit easier.

Let’s take a closer look at some parts.

First big change is that after technical control you don’t have any instructions about how to work with the Exam and what to expect. The previous version contains 5 minutes instructions. On one hand it is not that necessary anymore based on the question format, on another hand it was more emotionally comfortable to have instructions of how to use the program (review questions system, can I or can not go back (hint: yes, you can) on the questions and so on).

I had 65 questions. I used 1 hour 10 minutes on answering and about 20 minutes on reviewing the questions I wasn’t sure about.

Question format looked way easier than before.

No more interactive questions.

Here are several topics I had on my Exam (but that doesn’t mean that you will have exactly the same topics).

Bold topics had more than 1 question.

Tableau Prep Conductor
Tableau Prep String values Grouping (Pronunciation, Common Characters, Spelling)
Custom split, Trim space
Tableau Prep data sampling
Data interpreter
Filtering options (string, date, Int)
Data blend
JOINs in Prep and Desktop
LODs and Nested LODs

Primary Functions (LOOKUP, RUNNING_SUM, WINDOW_AVG)
Helper Functions (INDEX, FIRST, LAST, SIZE)
Ranks
Date functions
Aggregation functions, Sorting
Quick table calculations
Sets and Bins
Maps
Reference lines and bands
Compute using and their calc.

Performance Extract Improvement: Workbook optimizer
Toggle instruction (overlay)
Hide / show button
Data source filter, Extract filter, Filtering across data source
Data Governance (Data + Content)
Print and export content
Publish workbook and flow
Tableau Cloud content management
Parameter, Forecasting

And one more good new feature to the end. Now you will see the result of your Exam right away after finishing it. So, now you don’t need to wait and worry for several hours. But there is also a small con: in the previous format the result had a table with domains and short evaluation of your knowledge on each domain. Now the only information you will have about your Exam is your general score in %.

I hope this information will help you on your way to the Tableau Data Analyst certification, good luck!