Tableau Community Projects
If you’ve started your portfolio on Tableau Public and are having some difficulties in deciding what to create or how to get data, check out the following projects run by actual community members! These members create and lead projects that give you the opportunity to learn, practice, and apply your data skills across a variety of topics, products, and causes. Anyone can participate in these projects—including you!
Back 2 Viz Basics – Link
I actually run a Tableau community project called Back 2 Viz Basics (B2VB), and it’s perfect if you’re just starting out or looking to build consistency in your Tableau practice.
Every week, we release a new dataset and a specific chart type or topic to focus on. It’s designed to help you improve one concept at a time, and it’s great for growing your portfolio and confidence. We also include tips for beginners and creative prompts for more advanced users.
All the info you need to participate, including the current challenge, past prompts, data sources, and how to submit, is right here on this website. Join the project, share your work using the hashtag #B2VB, and become part of a growing community of learners and practitioners.
Makeover Monday - Link
This project was started by Andy Kriebel and Andy Cotgreave in 2016, run by Andy and Eva Murray from 2017-2019, and run by Eva and Charlie Hutcheson in 2020.
Every week Eva and Charlie upload a visualization to “makeover” and the corresponding data set. Almost all their datasets are clean and organized for easy import into Tableau. MakeoverMonday is an amazing way to start your portfolio and start practicing your skills in Tableau. They release the data on Sunday, and then you have a whole week to build a viz. You can choose to participate in their weekly webinar where their review vizzes submitted to them every Wednesday.
*To submit a viz to be reviewed, you must post a picture of your viz, a link to your viz, and the hashtag #MMVizReview on Twitter. Then you must sign up for the webinar (found on the website) at least 4 hours in advance. You must register in order to be on the review list. If your viz gets reviewed, make sure to iterate on their suggestions and post your updated viz!
You can use MakeoverMonday to build your portfolio, but you can also fully join the project and community by making a twitter account and using the hashtag when posting a picture and link to your viz. You’ll quickly find friends and feedback and participating weekly is a great way to see your progress and improvement over time! Even if you don’t want to actively participate in the project, MakeoverMonday has a huge supply of clean data that you can practice with.
Project Health Viz - Link
This project is run by Lindsay Betzendahl. She posts a health dataset once a month and you have one month to create a visualization on that dataset.
Here’s a quote from Lindsay from her blog on #ProjectHealthViz: “Healthcare is a huge topic around the world as costs of healthcare rise and various illness continue to see increased prevalence rates. We are all impacted by health. Health is part of being a living being. Therefore, I believe we all can be impacted by healthcare data and thus it can be interesting data to visualize.”
Her healthcare data sets are a great way to really expand your analysis skills using a structured dataset.
Workout Wednesday - Link
This project is run by Ann Jackson, Luke Stanke, and Lorna Eden. WorkoutWednesday is a more technical challenge project. Every week one of the team members will post a challenge and requirements. You will then have a week to recreate their challenge in Tableau before they post the solution. This is a great way to practice your technical skills. Even if you don’t participate, you can always learn more technical skills by downloading and reverse engineering their workbooks to learn the skill.
Sports Viz Sunday - Link
This project is run by James Smith, Spencer Baucke, and Simon Beaumont. They put out a monthly challenge and have a large sports data repository that you can use to create visualizations on everything sports related! Be sure to follow the hashtag on twitter and get connected with the great #SportsVizSunday community.
Iron Viz - Link
IronViz is a big international competition hosted by Tableau. People from all over the world compete in 3 feeders in order to compete live on stage at Tableau Conference. Throughout the year Tableau will publish a data set or a topic and you have a chance to create and submit a viz to win one of the feeders. If you win, you’ll compete live onstage and build a viz in front of 10k+ people in 20 minutes. It’s a big deal and fun competition!
Here’s links to the winning vizzes of the 3 feeders of 2019:
Agriculture - Josh Smith, Music - Lindsey Poulter, Migration - Hesham Eissa
Iron Quest - Link
This project is run by Sarah Bartlett. This is an awesome initiative if you want to participate in something similar to IronViz but without the pressure of performing live. Sarah runs this monthly and you can submit a viz to the tracker. *During the months that IronViz feeders are running, IronQuest does not run. If you choose to opt in for feedback Sarah gives you feedback at the end. It’s a great way to practice working with larger data sets or concepts if you ever want to build up to participating in IronViz.
Viz for Social Good - Link
This project is an amazing initiative that allows you to create visualizations for literal social good. It’s a very large and impactful initiative, run by board members and users across the globe, so check out the website to learn more information about how you can participate.
SWD Shallenge - Link
According to the Tableau Public page which summed it up: “The #SWDchallenge is a monthly challenge where you can practice and apply data visualization and storytelling skills. Participants have a week to find data, create and share their visual and related commentary. #SWDchallenge is organized by Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic and the team at storytelling with data. On Tableau Public you can find related vizzes with the hashtag #SWDchallenge.”
The SDG Viz Project - Link
This is a project that started in 2020, run by Brian Moore, Jacqui Moore, and Vinodh Kumar. This monthly project raises awareness on the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals by creating data visualizations and leveraging social media to promote the goals and help increase awareness of quality of life inequalities around the world. Check out the website linked above to learn more about the project and how you can get involved.