Tableau Prep's innovative paradigm of hands-on data cleansing and shaping with instant feedback greatly extends the Tableau platform and gives you incredible control over your data. In this chapter, we considered the overall interface and how it allows you to iteratively and rapidly build out a logical flow to clean and shape data for the desired analysis or visualization.

Through an intricate, yet practical, example that was woven throughout this chapter, we explored every major transformation in Tableau Prep, from inputs to unions, joins, aggregates and pivots, to outputs. Along the way, we also examined other transformations and capabilities such as calculations, splits, merges, and grouping of values. This gives you a foundation for molding and shaping data in any way you need.

In the next chapter, we'll once again return to Tableau Desktop to explore some advanced techniques and visualization types!