When teaching, I often get asked some variation of the question, “How many rows of data can Tableau handle?”. It’s a well-intended question but it’s incomplete. Tableau technically doesn’t have a row count limitation, but row count is one of the factors that can impact performance.
You probably know that you can only set one number format per field in Tableau. That means that if you create a dynamic measure driven by a parameter (check out this blog post for details) you have to choose a number format. You could choose percent, decimal or currency, but you can’t get the format to swap.
Tableau is a fantastic tool because of its flexibility, but it takes some time to master. Nowhere is this more evident than date calculations. Many of our most read blog posts deal with topics like comparing Month to Date vs. Previous Month to Date.
I teach classes on visual best practices so I know that it’s a bad idea to include more than 5-7 colors in a single visual display. Our short-term memory generally only allows us to keep track of up to 7 variables at a time. Ever had someone tell you their phone number only to immediately forget what they said or mix it up?
If you’ve been reading the OneNumber blog for a while, you likely saw a post last year about using the Set Action feature to create asymmetric drill downs.
I’ve gotten asked by multiple students if it’s possible to create a currency formatted field where the unit at the end of the number can be a K or M depending on the size of the value. Let’s imagine we are working with a chart like this…
One of the exercises I’ve been facilitating in my Tableau classes lately is asking students, “What is something of personal interest you’d like to visualize?”. That open-ended question leads to interesting ideas around entertainment, sports and finances to name a few common themes.
It seems like just about every organization I work with has a little twist to the way they like their dashboards presented which varies slightly from the next organization. Recently, I was working with a team that largely provided their reporting on a weekly basis and displayed the Week End date in a DD-MMM format.
As a Tableau dashboard designer, I’m trying to always keep in mind that the end user of my products might not be familiar with Tableau. One of the things that makes Tableau different than other tools is its interactivity.
One of Tableau’s greatest strengths is the ability to easily and intuitively visualize historic information. When that data is broken out by date, Tableau can display the data broken out by “Date Part” or “Date Value”. This terminology and concept is unique to Tableau and provides the designer with a lot of flexibility.
Depends who you ask! According to US News the top national university in 2020 is Princeton. That’s a bit simplistic though. What if you want to be an aeronautical engineer, filmographer or social worker? What if you want to stay close to home or are on a tight budget? Is Princeton the “best university” in that case?
If you've ever wondered, "Are we measuring the right data?", check out our webinar recording as we discuss how to ensure you are measuring the right things and how you can initiate an open discussion on the topic in your workplace.
My computer was getting bogged down recently. My 3.5 year old Microsoft Surface Pro was down to 8 GB left in the 237 GB harddrive.
On a number of occasions, I’ve been asked if Tableau can use a top filter to show the top percent of a population. For instance, some varieties of that questions has been…
My wife and I recently purchased an older house. We are doing some remodeling ourselves and our first big project was removing the popcorn ceiling and replacing it with more modern looking texture. Multiple weeks later we are (maybe) half-finished with the project. My initial estimate is that the project would take us 3 days. How was I so off? How did I anticipate it might take 3-6 days of manpower (depending on number of people working) and it’s looking more likely to take 20+?
The new Tableau Relationships feature will likely replace joins in a lot of circumstances. I was recently asked, “What kind of join does the Tableau Relationships feature most closely resemble?” I didn’t know with certainty so I did some digging.