Tableau-Desktop-Found Connecting to and Preparing Data Practice Question
You have a single data source connected to a SQL database. You want to see the total sum of sales for each region. Where should you drag the 'Region' and 'Sales' fields?
⚠ Common exam trap
Candidates often drag 'Sales' to the Rows shelf instead of the Text mark, which creates a bar chart or axis instead of the requested text-based summary.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Drag 'Region' to the Rows shelf and 'Sales' to the Text mark.
To see the total sum of sales for each region, you must place 'Region' on a shelf to create the visual headers (rows or columns) and 'Sales' on the marks card (text or label) to display the aggregated metric. This foundational movement of fields is the core mechanism of Tableau's drag-and-drop interface, which automatically aggregates measures based on the dimensions provided.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Drag 'Region' to the Filters shelf and 'Sales' to the Pages shelf.
Why it's wrong here
Placing 'Region' on the filter shelf would allow you to limit which regions are shown, but it would not create the headers needed to display sales for each region. The Pages shelf is for creating animations or multi-page views, not for standard aggregation display.
- ✓
Drag 'Region' to the Rows shelf and 'Sales' to the Text mark.
Why this is correct
Dragging 'Region' to Rows creates a vertical list of headers, and dragging 'Sales' to Text displays the aggregated numerical value next to each region. This is the simplest configuration to view a summary table of regional performance metrics in Tableau Desktop.
- ✗
Drag 'Region' to the Detail mark and 'Sales' to the Rows shelf.
Why it's wrong here
Putting 'Region' on Detail makes it part of the visualization's granularity but does not display it as a row header. Putting 'Sales' on Rows would create a bar chart, not the specific summary table requested, and wouldn't break down the data by region labels.
- ✗
Drag both fields to the Filters shelf.
Why it's wrong here
The Filters shelf is used to restrict the data included in the view, not to display the contents or aggregations of the data. Dragging both fields there would only allow you to filter the dataset, resulting in an empty visualization with no summary information displayed.
About these practice questions
One of 126 original Tableau-Desktop-Found practice questions on Courseiva, each with a full explanation and wrong-answer analysis — not exam dumps or protected exam content. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
JA
Written and reviewed by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
Last reviewed September 2026 · checked against the official Tableau (Salesforce) exam blueprint
This Tableau-Desktop-Found practice question is part of Courseiva's free Tableau (Salesforce) certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the Tableau-Desktop-Found exam.