How to use SQLite database with Tableau on Windows

Tableau is an amazing dashboarding and data analysis tool that I’d recommend anyone from a casual user of data to make decisions to a data scientist in the Big4 to try. 

SQLite is a basic database that most data specialist should know, but if you’re just starting out learning about databases or are learning SQL, than this is a great database to start with. You can create it locally with minimal setup, upload, download, and create tables using many popular languages, like Python or R, and can use it to take that project to the next level.

Below is a guide on how to connect Tableau and SQLite so you can start exploring your data and generate some visual insights.

The first step is installing Tableau Desktop (later you can use different products from Tableau, like Tableau Prep). Go to https://www.tableau.com/products/desktop/download and download a free trial, or sign up and download then go through the default install steps.

If you do not have a SQLite database ready, you can download an example by following this link, http://download.vive.net/Northwind.zip. Unzip the file. There should be a file called "Northwind.sl3" available now, this is the database we’ll be using in the steps later.

Tableau doesn’t come with pre-installed drivers for SQLite so we have to download those separately, What we want is the ODBC (Open DataBase Connectivity) drivers for SQLite available here, http://www.ch-werner.de/sqliteodbc/. 

If you’re using a 64-bit install of Tableau, download sqliteodbc_w64.exe

If you’re using a 32-bit install of Tableau, download sqliteodbc.exe

Once you have downloaded the driver, run it and follow the install process, make sure you select “SQLite 2 Drivers” on the “Choose Components” page.

From here, you pretty much done, now all you need to do is

1. Open Tableau Desktop
2. Under “To a Server” in the blue panel on the left, click “More…”
3. Select “Other Databases (ODBC)”
4. Select “Driver” and on the drop down select “SQLite3 ODBC Driver”
5. Click “Connect”
6. A new window should pop up, select Browse.
7. Navigate to the "Northwind.sl3" file we downloaded earlier (or your own SQLite database) and select open. Leave everything else as is. You can explore those options on your own.
8. Now click sign in on the “Other Databases (ODBC)” window.
9. That’s it, you should now be able to drag in tables from the database, plot them, explore the database and continue on you learning journey. (Hint: click on the little magnifying glass in the search box to see all the tables)

I hope this article helped you discover something new and is useful. If you have any suggestions please don’t hesitate to leave a comment. 

If you’d like to get in touch with me to explain any projects or just have a chat about data science, you can contact me on LinkedIn or by email.