As someone who works with and seeks to understand data, you will find yourself working within the cycle of analytics. This cycle might be illustrated as follows:

Tableau allows you to jump to any step of the cycle, move freely between steps, and iterate through the cycle very rapidly. With Tableau, you have the ability to do the following:

• Data discovery: You can very easily explore a dataset using Tableau and begin to understand what data you have visually.
• Data preparation: Tableau allows you to connect to data from many different sources and, if necessary, create a structure that works best for your analysis. Most of the time, this is as easy as pointing Tableau to a database or opening a file, but Tableau gives you the tools to bring together even complex and messy data from multiple sources.

• Data analysis: Tableau makes it easy to visualize the data, so you can see and understand trends, outliers, and relationships. In addition to this, Tableau has an ever-growing set of analytical functions that allow you dive deep into understanding complex relationships, patterns, and correlations in the data.
• Data storytelling: Tableau allows you to build fully interactive dashboards and stories with your visualizations and insights so that you can share the data story with others.

All of this is done visually. Data visualization is the heart of Tableau. You can iterate through countless ways of visualizing the data to ask and answer questions, raise new questions, and gain new insights. And you'll accomplish this as a flow of thought.