Using data in Tableau

Hello,

Does anyone know if there is a reasonable simple way to use this data in Tableau? I would like to get a data set for the 3-county Raleigh-Durham region that provides Telework data along with key demographics, such as age, sex, and race. That way I can see where people are telecommuting from and what they look like in different counties. Is is possible to get a data set from IPUMS that is compatible with Tableau that has these features? Thanks.

This question may be difficult to address using IPUMS data. IPUMS CPS includes the variable WSWKHM which identifies if a respondent worked from home for their primary job as well as WSWKHMFREQ which identifies the frequency of working from home. These variables are not available in many samples, however, and are most recently available in the May sample of 2004. An additional limitation is identification of households by county. In the CPS, only about 45% of counties are identifiable due to confidentiality restrictions.

My recollection is that ACS does have that sort of information, too (https://usa.ipums.org/usa-action/vari… code 70). However, the numbers are very small, in the low single digit % range, so you will be lucky to have 50 or so telecommuting respondents for the whole Triangle area. I have tried something very similar about a year ago specifically for Triangle, and the numbers just aren’t there.

I don’t think there’s anything magical about Tableau. It can read csv files, right? This is what you download from IPUMS.

How do you get IPUMS to download as a .cvs file? I keep getting a .dat file. Do i just rename that as a .csv?

There are several ways to recieve your data in .csv format. The simplest way is to request .csv as the data format before submitting your extract. We also have several online video tutorials that walk through the steps.