There are a couple ways we can connect to data in Excel … today I want to show you one that many people overlook.  You can simply drag an icon for a file that Tableau recognizes (Microsoft Access, Microsoft Excel or a Text File like a .csv or .txt) from your desktop or Windows explorer directly onto your Tableau desktop and Tableau will open the ‘Connect To Data’ window and auto-map the full path to your file for you.  Check out the video for a quick run through of how this works.