# How to Connect to Different Data Sources in Tableau: A beginner's guide

> This is content from just-tim, the data-and-analytics channel by Tim Ngwena (formerly 'Tableau Tim'). Tim has 12+ years of hands-on BI experience and covers Tableau most of all, plus Power BI, Looker, Hex, SQL and data modelling, the analytics industry, and the craft of doing the job — always tool-agnostic and honest about the trade-offs.

- **Author:** Tim Ngwena (just-tim, https://just-tim.com/about)
- **Published:** 2023-02-05
- **Format:** Video · 39 min watch · transcript available
- **Topics:** Data prep, Data visualisation
- **Tools:** Excel (named ranges); Snowflake (schemas, warehouses); SQL; Tableau (connections, data modelling, extracts)
- **Canonical:** https://just-tim.com/posts/how-to-connect-to-different-data-sources-in-tableau-a-beginners-guide
- **Watch:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fv2Cnf9uTg0

I've pulled a section from my Tableau Desktop crash course to walk you through connecting to data in Tableau. I cover CSV and text files, Excel workbooks with named ranges, a Snowflake database connection, and how to use Tableau extracts to snapshot and optimise your data.

## Key takeaways

- The connection pane groups data by type, and the file dialog tells you exactly which file extensions Tableau expects for each option, with non-matching files greyed out.
- The connection interface has three parts: the connection list on the left, the data modelling window at the top, and the data preview at the bottom where you can set field data types and fix dates.
- Excel connections expose individual sheets and named ranges (shown with a green tag icon), letting you pull out sectioned data from a busy workbook.
- Database connections like Snowflake follow that platform's own terminology (warehouse, schema) and add custom SQL plus parameter options, though custom SQL can slow down live connections.
- Extracts take an optimised, filterable snapshot of your data that runs faster and smaller; save as a packaged workbook (.twbx) to bundle extracts and assets into one file before deleting the loose extract files.

## Chapters

- 0:23 The connection pane and file types
- 4:06 Finding data on Kaggle
- 5:51 The connection interface explained
- 9:42 Data types and metadata
- 14:44 Connecting to Excel files
- 19:36 Named ranges in Excel
- 22:24 Data prep in the connection window
- 23:50 Connecting to a Snowflake database
- 28:27 Working with Tableau extracts
- 34:26 Saving workbooks: TWB vs TWBX

Watch the full video, read the transcript and use chapter deep-links on the page: https://just-tim.com/posts/how-to-connect-to-different-data-sources-in-tableau-a-beginners-guide

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just-tim — Data and analytics, with a point of view. · https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7HYxRWmaNlJux-X7rNLZyw · https://twitter.com/TableauTim · https://www.linkedin.com/in/timngwena