Search the history of over 446 billion web pages on the Internet. Maria Brock’s journey from Tableau Student Ambassador to full-time data analyst This year, Tableau Public is celebrating its 10th anniversary. Since the platform was founded in 2010, millions of people have used Tableau Public to develop their data visualization skills, find. I wanted to add to this, glad you got it figured out below, but that didn't work for me in Tableau 10. I had the same issue where the columns option was grayed out. Select 'Show Field Labels for Rows' then swap columns and rows and then swap back, This added field labels back to columns for me. Tableau tips and tricks: Calendar in Tableau This is a simple yet an out of the box trick which you can use to impress your colleagues. Let’s learn how to create Calendar in just 4 steps!
Tips & Tricks
The 'best' dashboard is the one that yields actionable insights AND gets adopted by your end users. But what are the best practices to ensure your dashboards meet these criteria?
After years of meeting with customers and using their requirements to build dashboards, we have learned some valuable insights. In this blog we share 10 best practices so you too can build dashboards that are beautiful, impactful, insightful and – best of all – used in your organization.
When trying to determine if your dashboard is accomplishing your goals, use the Five Second Rule: Put your dashboard in front of your users. Within five seconds they should be able to ascertain what the dashboard is trying to accomplish.
Below is an example of a dashboard with a summary at the top which is used to filter the details below (Sample Superstore Data):
Note: If you need help with tuning dashboard performance or creating a data repository, Senturus has subject matter experts that would love to help you. Call us at 888 601 6010 for a free one hour consultation!
And while you are at it, experiment with the different visualizations under Show me in Tableau.
Note: For additional tips on what chart type to use, Senturus has a great whitepaper:
Which Chart or Bar Graph is Right for You?
Also, make sure when you are choosing a color palette to maintain consistency within your workbook and within your data. For example, “Central” is always blue, “East” is always orange, etc.
Note: The above chart shows the default behavior for color in Tableau. If the default colors do not meet your needs, you can change them by clicking on color in the marks card and selecting edit color.
For example: if you want to display sales by category, sub-category and location, don’t put each on a separate bar chart on one dashboard, this can be confusing for your users. Instead, try depicting the different dimensions (i.e. category, sub-category and location) on one worksheet using color, size and shape to differentiate them. And if it makes sense, put your dimensions in a hierarchy (i.e. category, sub-category) so your users can easily drill from one level to the next by clicking on a “+” sign.
Designing your dashboards in this manner will give a complete picture without putting your users into information overload. And, since fewer queries are involved in rendering your dashboard, its performance is better.
In this example, the beginning and ending values on the axis are used to give the perception that the difference is much greater than it is.
In this example, the axis starts at zero, which is a much more accurate depiction of the difference.
In the worksheet below packed bubbles are used to display sales by product. This way of visualizing the data has an undesirable “data-to-ink ratio” and it is really hard to accurately compare the sales of the different products.
In the below visualization, the same information is displayed in a scatter plot. In this visualization it is much easier to identify outliers. In addition, further details like product category can be put on color to convey more information.
To sum it all up, Tableau dashboard creation is part art and part science. Use both sides of your brain when creating your dashboards. Visualizations are about more than simply presenting the numbers in your reports; they are about effective use of graphical elements to enable insights and “aha” moments for your users. Adhering to these dashboard guidelines will help you design for beauty, impact and insight. Remember, the “best” dashboard is one that is used.
Want to learn more on this topic? Click here to enjoy our video presentation, complete with demos.
*The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, Edward R. Tufte, Graphics Press, Cheshire CT, 1983, p.93
Dashboards Reporting and Visualizations / Tableau
Can’t wait for the Tableau conference next week year? How about playing a game of blackjack against Tableau in the meantime? No, you won’t win real money. But you can sharpen your skills in case a future since the next conference is in Vegas.
By the way, this dashboard uses a little known fact that secondary data sources are many times refreshed only from the cache even when the primary sends a new query to the data source. Want to discuss? Ask me questions, provide feedback and critique in the Tableau Community Viz Talk
Just remember to press F5 (refresh the browser) after you play — or the cards won’t be shuffled (of course, you could use that to your advantage by just pressing the revert button – though sometimes the dealer still likes to shuffle).
(scroll down to play!)