All in Tableau Calculations
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.
Aggregations are functions which allow you to consolidate numerous rows of values into a single output. SUM, AVG, MIN, MAX, COUNT and COUNTD are some of the most used aggregations in Tableau.
Aggregations play an important role in Tableau calculations. If they aren't used properly, calculations will return incorrect results!
Do you want to keep all data associated with a value which has multiple records in a data set? Maybe it's how many students attended multiple schools, how many patients visited a hospital multiple times or how many customers made multiple purchases.
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.
How do you join two tables together in Tableau when they don’t share the same common field? Or what if that common field is slightly different in both tables? A Join Calculation can help solve a lot of those problems! In this video, we take a look at how to use a join calculation to join tables with mismatched fields.
So you are making the jump from Excel to Tableau? Great!
You've probably noticed some of the functions you love so much in Excel don't exist in exactly the same format in Tableau. Take SUMIF and COUNTIF as an example. Tableau has an IF function, a SUM function and a COUNT function, but not SUMIF or COUNTIF.
So you want to concatenate multiple text values in Tableau, huh? Great!
In some ways, this process is easier in Tableau than Excel or other data-related tools. Whether you are concatenating string fields, static text, or even text-based parameters, all you need to do is add a plus sign between your values!
Tableau is a powerful analytical tool, but learning its ins and outs can feel daunting. Whether you are a first time user, shaking off some rust, or trying to get a colleague up to speed, this video is designed to give an overview of the Tableau interface and get a user comfortable with creating worksheets, calculations and dashboards.
When you have a worksheet with many values, one of the best ways to present it to your user is to filter on the most relevant values. Those will often be the highest or lowest values. Tableau has a built in dimension filter which allows you to pick the top (or bottom) number of values you would like to display (e.g. Top 10).
You know what Tableau doesn't have out of the box? The ability to select the top *percent* of values to filter on. Don't sweat it though, because we've got you covered! With a parameter, calculation and filter application, we can filter on a top percent of values and give end users the options to change the top percent of values being displayed.
Highlight tables are one of my all-time favorite Tableau visuals. You can pack so much information into a limited space. One of the only weaknesses of highlight tables is that they usually display every label (too cluttered) or no labels (too bare). Most users are looking for a specific insight. Maybe the want to focus attention on the highest values, lowest values, or top N.
Manipulating text is one of the primary use cases for Tableau calculations. There are all sorts of things you may want to accomplish with string functions.
· Concatenate multiple text values into a single value.
· Grab characters from the beginning, middle or end of a text string.
· Filter on whether certain text criteria are met.
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.
Do you have a field that needs leading zeros added? Maybe a postal code or ID that got formatted as a number and as a result dropped the leading zeros? If that's the case, check out this video for a couple alternatives to get those leading zeros at the beginning of your field again!
