Business intelligence glossary: plain-English BI and Tableau terms
Updated
11 BI and Tableau terms explained in plain English: what each one means, why it matters, a worked example with real numbers and the terms it gets confused with. Each one links to the free business intelligence lessons where you use it.
A
- Aggregation
- Aggregation is combining many rows into a single number for each group, using a function such as SUM, AVG, MEDIAN, MIN, MAX, COUNT or COUNT DISTINCT. "Total revenue by region" is revenue aggregated with SUM, grouped by region.
B
- Business intelligence (BI)
- Business intelligence (BI) is the set of tools and habits a company uses to turn its everyday data (orders, invoices, tickets, ad spend) into reports and dashboards that update themselves, so people can answer "how are we doing?" without rebuilding a spreadsheet each time.
C
- Calculated field
- A calculated field is a new field you create in a BI tool by writing a formula from existing fields, such as Profit = Revenue minus Cost, or Margin = SUM(Profit) / SUM(Revenue). It lives in the BI tool, so the source data does not change.
D
- Dashboard
- A dashboard is a single screen that shows a handful of related charts and numbers, with shared filters, so someone can answer a recurring question (are we on track this month?) at a glance and drill into the detail when something looks off.
- Data source
- A data source is the connection a BI tool reads from: a spreadsheet, a CSV export, a database table or a cloud app such as a CRM. It defines which rows and columns the charts can use and how fresh they are.
- Data visualization
- Data visualization is showing data as charts, maps or tables designed so that a pattern, comparison or change is obvious at a glance: bars to compare, lines for change over time, maps for places.
- Data warehouse
- A data warehouse is a central database designed for reporting and analysis. It holds cleaned, combined copies of data from many business systems (sales, billing, support, marketing) so BI tools can query one trusted place instead of each app separately.
- Dimension
- A dimension is a field that describes or categorizes your data, such as region, product, customer or order date. In a chart, dimensions decide how the data is split: one bar, row or line per value. They answer the "by what?" in "revenue by region".
- Drill-down
- Drill-down is moving from a summary to more detail in a chart, such as from year to quarter to month, or from region to store to salesperson, usually by clicking. It lets one chart answer both "how are we doing?" and "where exactly?".
F
- Filter
- In BI, a filter limits which rows a chart or dashboard uses, for example only the East region, only the last 90 days or only open orders. Filters can be fixed by the builder or shown as controls so viewers pick for themselves.
M
- Measure
- A measure is a numeric field that a BI tool summarizes, such as revenue, quantity, hours or cost. On a chart it becomes the length of a bar or the height of a line, and it is always shown with an aggregation such as SUM, AVG or COUNT.
Looking for AI terms? The AI glossary covers prompts, agents and automation. More topic glossaries: Digital marketing glossary · Microsoft 365 glossary · Google Workspace glossary.