Taking the Tableau Data Analyst Certification
Friday, September 10th, 2021
Took the beta version of the Tableau Data Analyst Certification today with PearsonVue. If you haven’t seen it yet, here’s a link to the exam home page.
The only snag in the check-in process was that I received an error message when I was trying to start the exam, indicating I needed to shut down some background applications. I had no problem running the virtual machine – it was provisioned quickly with no help from the proctors.
It’s 70 questions, 13 of which are lab, so it takes a long time. I finished with just 30 minutes left.
All but one of the lab questions were very straightforward.
Tableau Server, Tableau Online, and Tableau Prep are mentioned in the curriculum, but in my opinion, it is not necessary to have access to these paid products to do well on the exam. This is a big deal because I worried that Tableau would be doing a SAS and telling those who want to learn the tool, “sorry, you can’t since you don’t have a license.” I think you can prepare very well for this exam using Tableau Public, though you should study a few Tableau Server/Tableau Online features (alerts, subscriptions, extract refreshes, publishing data sources).
The thing I hate about this exam format is that sometimes you feel you are being quizzed on GUI trivia. Part of the point of a GUI is that you don’t need to remember every detail! When you’re using Tableau, you work based on the context.
Make sure you know how to use the functions RANK, INDEX, FIRST, and LAST… I didn’t have much experience with any of those functions aside from RANK.
It’s annoying that you don’t find out whether you pass after you take the exam. Here’s what I see now on the Pearson site:
The delay is likely caused by the Lab is checked by a person rather than by an automated process… another reason to prefer the previous format.
I like the fact that they’re testing Tableau Server and Tableau Online. After all, in a corporate environment, you’ll often want to publish from Tableau Desktop to either Tableau Server or Tableau Online. But I wish they’d find a way to open up access to some sort of sandbox so that folks who don’t work for companies that use Tableau and don’t want to pony up for an $840 per year license had a way to experience the Tableau Server and Tableau Online features. Failing that, if only someone would record some great videos showing the features.
The Data Analyst exam is now out of beta, so if you take it now it’ll be shorter and you should get your results sooner.
Hope this review was helpful. If you’re preparing for the exam, be sure to do plenty of practice questions. I’ll post again when Pearson tells me whether I passed. I’m hustling to update my Udemy courses for the new Pearson Tableau certifications.
I went through the Domain objective from the exam page link. It looked almost similar ( apart from server and online things). Did you encountered anything that you felt different from previous test?
Three differences come to mind- (1) you want to be familiar with the most common Tableau functions used in calculations… you should know the difference between DATEPARSE and DATETRUNC without having to look them up. (2) You should have a better understanding of table calculations – for example, how to do a % difference relatively to various other positions in the text table – and you should know window functions, rank, index, etc. (3) Also, they are now testing on the current version, so you should understand logical vs physical layer.
Is there any reason to take this exam if you have the Desktop Specialist certification?
The data analyst exam covers more material and has you do some hands-on work with Tableau, so I’d say it’s the more advanced exam.
Hi Lucas!
The exam is in beta and results will come out within 90 days.
The beta exam is longer than when it becomes officially available, as they will be using the beta questions for future metrics.
Right, I see on the FAQ under “When will I know my score?” “Once we achieve our goal number exam administrations during the beta, psychometricians perform statistical analysis on the items, the test, the time it took candidates to take the exam, and make recommendations as to which items performed well and should be included on the final test. This process can take up to 90 days.” https://www.tableau.com/tableau-certification-faq
How would you compare the test to the specialist or associate exam?
It’s hard to say whether it’s more difficult given the scaled scoring. But I’d say the difficulty felt similar, except that the lab questions seemed possibly easier than the Associate other than one question I couldn’t solve.
Hi Lukas, Thank you for updating us. Please let us know about the final result. I am sure everything will be fine
Cheers
Adam
Thanks Adam!
Thanks Lukas for the update!
I think it was a big mistake for Tableau to get rid of the associate exam… Desktop Specialist is far too easy to speak to employers about anything.
They should’ve continued it until the Data Analyst is out of beta, and Data Analyst (a better title, I admit, in terms of non-Tableau users recognizing it) should be 90% associate exam material and simply 10% knowledge-based Server/Online. The latter varies by employer and is so quick to learn and almost expected that a new hire would learn those pieces on the job (because every company has different “stuff”).
I absolutely agree with you that it’s almost shameful on their part to be preparing to have their main certification require real-world use of enterprise-level/expensive software. And certification otherwise becomes worthless when its desktop specialist.
Hi Lukas,
Will your course be updated to reflect the New Data Analyst Certification?
Thanks
Yes, I plan to work on that once Tableau brings the exam out of beta.
Hey! Its been 4 months since i sat the exam and still havent heard anything back on the Beta Data Analyst result, has anyone else heard anything?
I just recently received my score.