How to Use Tableau Accelerators

Building a dashboard from scratch can be daunting, even for seasoned analysts. Tableau Accelerators offer a powerful shortcut, providing pre-built, expert-designed dashboards that you can connect to your own data. This guide walks you through what Accelerators are, how to find the perfect one, and the exact steps to connect your data and customize it for your business needs.

What Are Tableau Accelerators, Exactly?

Tableau Accelerators are plug-and-play dashboards built by experts to address common business scenarios. Think of them as sophisticated templates. Instead of starting with a blank canvas and painstakingly building every chart, KPI, and filter, you start with a fully functional workbook designed using industry best practices.

Their key value is speed and learning. They help you:

• Save Time: Drastically reduce development time by starting with an 80% finished product instead of a 0% blank slate.
• Answer Immediate Questions: Get instant insights for common business questions like sales performance, marketing campaign ROI, or financial health.
• Learn Best Practices: By deconstructing an Accelerator, you can see how expert analysts structure their layouts, create calculations, and design user-friendly interactions.
• Explore New Data: When connecting a new data source for the first time, an Accelerator provides a great framework for understanding what's possible and what metrics are most important.

An accelerator isn't a final, locked-in solution. It's a launchpad. You get a professional-grade dashboard structure, which you then tailor to your specific metrics, branding, and business logic.

How to Find the Right Accelerator on the Tableau Exchange

The central hub for all official and partner-built Accelerators is the Tableau Exchange. Navigating it effectively is the first step to finding a dashboard that fits your use case.

Step 1: Go to the Tableau Exchange

You can find it by simply searching for "Tableau Exchange" or navigating directly to exchange.tableau.com/accelerators. This is the official marketplace for all kinds of Tableau extensions, connectors, and, most importantly, Accelerators.

Step 2: Filter and Search for Your Needs

The Exchange provides several powerful filters on the left-hand side to help you narrow down the options from hundreds of choices. You can find Accelerators by:

• Department or Function: This is often the most useful filter. You can select common business units like Marketing, Sales, Finance, Human Resources, or Supply Chain.
• Industry: If you're in a specific vertical, such as Financial Services, Healthcare, Retail, or Manufacturing, this filter will surface dashboards with relevant industry KPIs.
• Data Source: Look for Accelerators built specifically for popular platforms like Salesforce, Google Analytics, Shopify, Marketo, or ServiceNow. These are designed to work seamlessly with the data structure of those applications.

You can also use the search bar to look for specific keywords, like "Customer Lifetime Value," "Sales Funnel," or "Campaign Performance" to find highly relevant options.

Step 3: Check the Required Data Fields

This is a crucial step that many people skip. Once you click on an Accelerator, you'll see a detailed page with a description, screenshots, and several tabs. Click on the "Required Data" or "Data Mappings" tab.

This section lists every single data field the accelerator expects to function correctly. Before you download, quickly scan this list and confirm you have corresponding fields in your own data set. For example, if the accelerator requires "Order Date," "Product Category," and "Sales Amount," you need to ensure your data source contains that information, even if your fields are named slightly differently (e.g., "Purchase_Date," "Category," and "Revenue"). This simple check will save you a lot of trouble later.

A Step-by-Step Guide to Using a Tableau Accelerator

Once you've found the perfect Accelerator, it's time to bring it to life with your own data. The process involves downloading the file, connecting your data, and mapping your fields to the template's fields.

Step 1: Download and Open the Accelerator

On the accelerator's page in the Tableau Exchange, click the "Download" button. This will save a .twbx file to your computer. A .twbx file is a Tableau Packaged Workbook, meaning it contains the dashboard structure, any calculated fields, and, in this case, a sample dataset.

Double-click the downloaded file to open it in your Tableau Desktop application. You will immediately see the complete dashboard populated with the sample data.

Step 2: Connect to Your Data Source

Now, you need to swap out the sample data for your own. Navigate to the "Data Source" tab at the bottom left of the Tableau window. At the top left, you will see the current connection to the sample data (often an Excel or text file).

Click the "Add" button to create a new data source connection. Find and connect to your actual data, whether it's in a database, a cloud application like Salesforce, or a spreadsheet like Excel or Google Sheets.

Step 3: Replace the Sample Data

Once your real data source is added, you will see two connections in the Data Source pane. Go to the top menu and select Data > Replace Data Source.

A small window will pop up. In the "Current" field, select the sample data source. In the "Replacement" field, select the new data source you just added. Click "OK."

At this point, Tableau will try to replace the old fields with the new ones. It does this by looking for fields with the exact same name. If it finds matches, some of your charts might update correctly right away. However, it's very likely that some things will break, which brings us to the most important step.

Step 4: Map Your Fields to the Template

Go back to one of the dashboard sheets. You will likely see some "red pills" in the Columns, Rows, or Marks cards, and some of your charts may be blank. A red pill signifies a broken or non-existent field. This is perfectly normal!

Tableau doesn't know that your [Revenue] field should replace the sample's [Sales] field. You need to tell it. Find the red, invalid field in the Data Pane on the left (it will have a red exclamation mark next to it).

Right-click the invalid field and select "Replace References." A window will appear. From this list, find and select your corresponding field from your own data source.

For example, you would find the broken [Sales] field, right-click, select "Replace References," and then pick your [Revenue] field from the list. The red pill will be replaced by your field, and the charts using that measure will correctly populate with your data.

Repeat this process for all red/invalid fields until your dashboard is fully functional with your own data.

Customizing Your Accelerator to Fit Your Business

Getting your data connected is the biggest hurdle. Now comes the fun part: tailoring the dashboard to look and feel like it was custom-built for your company.

Adjust Branding, Colors, and Logos

An Accelerator is a great starting point, but it probably doesn't match your company's style guide. You can easily customize the aesthetics:

• Colors: In the top menu, go to Format > Workbook. A formatting pane will open on the left, where you can change the fonts and color palettes used across the entire dashboard.
• Logos and Text: Most Accelerators include a placeholder for a logo and a generic title. These are just text and image objects on a dashboard. Double-click any title to edit the text or right-click an image object to replace it with your company logo.

Modify KPIs and Calculations

Your business likely defines key performance indicators (KPIs) differently than a generic template. Don't be afraid to dive into the calculated fields.

Go to the Data Pane and find a calculation you want to change (usually identifiable by the "= #" icon). Right-click on it and select "Edit" to see how it's constructed. You can adjust the formula to match your business logic. For instance, an Accelerator might define a "high-value order" as IF SUM([Sales]) > 1000 THEN 'High' ELSE 'Low' END. You can easily edit this calculation to change the threshold from $1,000 to $500 to match your own definition.

Add and Remove Visualizations

Just because a chart is in the accelerator doesn't mean you need it. If a visualization isn't relevant to your team, simply remove it from the dashboard layout.

Conversely, you can use the accelerator as a foundation to add more analysis. Create new worksheets with your own charts answering deeper questions, and then drag them onto the existing dashboard canvas. Treat the accelerator as a home base for your analysis, adding new rooms as your needs evolve.

Final Thoughts

Tableau Accelerators are an incredibly efficient way to jumpstart your analytics projects, providing well-designed dashboards that guide you with best practices. By finding the right template, carefully mapping your data fields, and customizing the final product, you can deliver valuable insights in a fraction of the time it would take to build from scratch.

Accelerators are great for speeding up the dashboarding process in Tableau, but getting that initial setup right still requires some hands-on work. For teams that want to get answers even faster without juggling data mappings and configuration, we built Graphed. You connect your data sources like Google Analytics or Salesforce in a few clicks, and then simply ask in plain English for the dashboard you need. We build your report in seconds, letting you go straight from question to a real-time dashboard without any manual setup.