All in Tableau Dates
Creating custom date filters in Tableau takes some creativity and ingenuity. They can be especially tricky when they are used to control both aggregated and non-aggregated measures. Tableau is particular about how aggregated formulas are written.
If you want to create a custom date filter in Tableau that controls both aggregated and non-aggregated measures but you're struggling to write the formulas without errors, check out this video for some helpful tips!
One of my favorite and most-often used date filters in Tableau is a range of dates with dynamic start and end dates.
For example, you choose a range of dates (last 7 days, last 14 days, last 30 days, etc.) and then create dynamic start and end date filters that meet that criteria. This is a great way to provide a pre-selected filter range for your users but still give them ultimate control over the exact date range they want to see.
Do you want to build a customizable, dynamic date range filter in Tableau?
For example, imagine you want the filter to default to the last 14 days ending with today's date, but you'd like your user to be able to adjust the end date and number of days in that filter.
That combination of functionality is not available out-of-the-box in Tableau, but with some creativity, parameters and calculations, it's possible!
How do you add a Quarter and Year list filter in Tableau? By default, Tableau lets us add a Quarter Number filter (e.g. Q1), but getting a Quarter and Year filter list isn't a standard option! As a result, we need to workaround this a bit with three possible options.
Which one works best for you depends on your use-case, but all three will be helpful to know in your Tableau work.
Filtering on a date range in Tableau is pretty straightforward, right? But how about if you want to filter on that date range AND you want a comparison date range filtered at the same time? That's trickier.
For example, you set a filter from January 1st to March 15th 2024 and you want a comparison period of January 1st to March 15th 2023 to automatically be set, how do you do that?
Does your data set have multiple date fields? For instance, maybe you have both an "Order Date" and a "Delivery Date". Or maybe you have both a "Hire Date" and a "Termination Date".
Sometimes, you need to filter on both date fields at once to answer questions like, "How many people were hired and how many people were terminated in the Marketing Department this year?"
Many organizations report against a fiscal calendar. If your organization's fiscal year doesn't start in January and you've tried to display values against fiscal periods in Tableau, you probably know exactly what I'm talking about.
When fiscal date periods are being compared, it's usually Fiscal Years or Fiscal Quarters. Let's imagine you are asked to build a chart which compares business segment values from the current Fiscal Quarter to Date versus the same period last year. Where would you start?
Visualizing time-series data is one of Tableau's best and defining features. Tableau provides a flexible method for visualizing dates so you can easily display chronological values and compare time periods.
However, with that flexibility comes a lot of a lot of options which can feel overwhelming and complex. For instance, why are there two different ways to visualize months and what's the difference? What does that mean if a date pill is green versus blue?
Let's say you want to filter a Tableau worksheet to only contain data from the latest date in the data set. That's pretty simple if the latest date is consistently today or yesterday. You can just use a relative date filter! But what if the most recent date in the data set is less consistent?…
Tableau is a great tool for operationalizing time period comparisons. One of the classics is comparing quarters.
For example, you might want to know how this quarter compares to last quarter. That's a great way to compare values if your business isn't very seasonal. However, what if you sell sunscreen? You can bet that comparing fall to summer is always going to look like a bummer.
When it comes to displaying data over time, it's easy to fall into the trap that you should always use some form of line graph. While line graphs are a great default when displaying chronological data, they aren't always your best option!
Do you need to calculate tenure in Tableau? You're probably looking for the DATEDIFF function! You indicate your date unit, a start date, an end date and let Tableau do it's thing. Simple as that, right?
Not necessarily!
One of my favorite, underrated visuals in Tableau is to compare running sum values year over year! It is a great tool to compare student enrollments, sales and even personal achievements like miles run or silver coins found metal detecting! :-P
Would it be helpful to see how the running sum of values for this year stacks up to previous years? Check out this video to learn how you can compare cumulative values year over year!
How are things performing at your organization this month? How does that compare to the past? What if the best historical comparison isn't last month, but this month last year?
If you want to use Tableau to compare month to date performance for this month to the same month last year, you can! However, it's going to require a few custom calculations to get there.
Many organizations report against a fiscal calendar which doesn't align with the standard calendar year. If your organization's fiscal year starts in October or July, you know what I'm talking about.
We've created a handful of resources documenting how to use calculations to monitor year to date performance compared to prior year to date performance, but we've never addressed how to do this if you're operating on fiscal years.
Hey everyone! We are back with another one of the “To Date” calculation videos many people know us for.
Need to calculate Quarter to Date vs. Previous Quarter to date in Tableau? Check out the video below to learn the simplest method.
In addition, you can easily tweak this formula to compare to the same quarter last year, or any other quarter of interest.
