Hey there! I hope you are safe and sound in these testing times. I took my Tableau exam today and I am proud to say that I am now a Certified Tableau Desktop Specialist!
Click here to read more about this exam.
I wanted to share my experience of the exam prep and process. So if you’re planning to take this exam, read on!
The whole prep took about 10 days.
Prep Resources:
For concepts I took this course by Emin Cengay. It also contains 2 full length practice tests with video solution and explanations.
For more practice tests I used this course by Lukas Halim. It contains 3 full length practice tests with solution.
For quizzes I used Lukas Halim’s LearningTableau website.
Some topics you must know thoroughly for the exam (click to view):
Join vs Blend (theory and hands on)
Discrete field vs Continuous field
Static Set vs Dynamic Set
Measure vs Dimension
Tableau file formats
About the exam:
Exam is for a duration of 60 minutes and 30 questions: all are MCQs with about 7–8 hands-on questions (you have to create the chart and find the value asked in the question and select that option accordingly). You can navigate to any question using the question list and flag any question for review. You will be taking the test on a Virtual Machine and cannot use Ctrl key and Esc key. You are allowed to use Google to find answers for questions but its not as easy as you think!
Tip: It’s better to use the tableau documentation site to find answers as content is clearly written here.
During the exam:
You’ll be asked to connect to a proctor who will monitor you through a webcam with mic for the entire duration of the exam. You have to show your govt. ID proof through the webcam and show a 360 degree view of your room. Once you start the test, answer the easiest questions first because 60 minutes is not enough. Do not waste a moment during the exam.
Some problems I faced during the test were time lag in the virtual machine’s reaction to my mouse movement. Also, navigating between test window and Chrome and Tableau software was a big pain because it was hard to fit all 3 windows on the screen and also because of the lag.
At the end of the exam, your score instantly appears on the screen with your result. You will get a mail from Tableau soon after, with the e-certificate and badge which you can share on Linkedin. View my badge here.
You can also view my dashboards that I have published over time on my Tableau Public profile here.
So that was it! I hope my blog was helpful to you. Do clap if you found it useful.
