Figuring out what to do with filters in a Tableau dashboard can be a headache. You don’t want them to take up too much screen real estate but want them to look nice and be intuitive. Getting them all to be the same size can be a hassle. Here are some tricks I use to help everything come together.
All in Tableau Dashboards
One of the challenges of busy dashboards in Tableau is that it can be hard to tell if a filter has been applied.
Imagine you’ve run into a scenario where you want to be able to show a little more information on your dashboard but it makes it feel too cluttered. However, it’s not nearly enough extra information that it warrants creating an entirely separate dashboard. This is a great opportunity to use a little known feature in Tableau that allows you to expand and contract worksheets in a dashboard.
URL actions open up a new world of possibilities in Tableau dashboards. You can link to a URL field, look up a data point of interest, or even create an action that creates an email form. URL actions have been used to successfully linked sales opportunities to Salesforce, link furniture companies to their products on the web and generate emails to further discussion about data points of interest.
Occasionally, you’ll come across scenarios in Tableau where you need more than the stock shapes that Tableau provides.
This blog post is a continuation of a previous post. If you haven’t read the previous posts, check out steps 1-4 or steps 5-8.
This is a continuation of a previous blog post. You can find that here.
Dashboard design is difficult. You have a hundred different options for every element of design (colors, fonts, chart types). If you aren’t a natural Bob Ross, it might not feel that fun either. Here are a dozen simple ways to improve the look and feel of your dashboards.
I grew up in the Issaquah/Sammamish area of Washington State about 30 (depending on traffic 60) minutes east Seattle. When I was growing up there in the 1990s and 2000s I remember hearing comments from a lot of people that, “this area has the highest amount of high school students per capita anywhere in the state.”
6. Receive Feedback and Iterate
After you’ve built an initial dashboard, it’s time to get feedback from users and iterate. If your dashboards are going to be used by a wide audience, pick a few of the users you trust to give you feedback. Pick the people who will be frank and honest with you. This isn’t the time to get pats on the back. This is a chance to get constructive criticism so your product is as polished as it can possibly be.
Imagine you are working on the following dashboard:
You’re pleased with where it’s at overall, but you’ve run into a dilemma. The dashboard helps answer the overall question “Where should we invest our marketing dollars?”, but it’s very hard to compare individual states. Maps are great for high-level geographic overviews but poor for comparing individual values.
Thank goodness! In Tableau Desktop 2018.3 Tableau officially released the “button object” for use in dashboards. Historically, you had to create a separate worksheet and go through a complicated process to connect multiple dashboard via navigation buttons. Not anymore!
When you embark on a Tableau dashboarding project, you are creating a new product. When Apple releases the newest iPhone, they aren’t putting out a rough draft. They’ve done extensive user and product testing to make sure its the best product possible. You can (and should) use the same design sprint methodology on your own projects to ensure success.
When you embark on a Tableau dashboarding project, you are creating a new product. When Apple releases the newest iPhone, they aren’t putting out a rough draft. They’ve done extensive user and product testing to make sure its the best product possible. You can (and should) use the same design sprint methodology on your own projects to ensure success.
Imagine you are working on a project where you want to allow users to only see data that’s applicable to them. A simple example of this is a restaurant chain. You might create a sales report where you want a General Manager to only see the data for their store but not others.
If you use a parameter to swap between two worksheets in a Tableau dashboard, you lose the ability to use the worksheets’ default color legends effectively. Check out this video to learn a trick you can use to create a dynamic color legend which always shows an accurate data range despite which worksheet is showing.