Sometimes, when analyzing your business, you want to know how values month to date compare to this same point last month. We wrote a post about how to write these calculations in Tableau a while ago, but we’ve updated our methods and have some simpler formulas now! Check out the video below to learn the simplest way to write Month to Date and Previous Month to Date formulas.

I’ve known for several years that Google Sheets is the only data source which Tableau Public can automatically refresh for users. Until a few weeks ago, I had never tried to set up a living connection between Tableau Public and a routinely updated Google Sheet. It turns out that Tableau Public is good at holding up it’s end of the bargain, but keeping Google Sheets updated isn’t as simple.

I recently learned something crazy about Tableau. If you add a total to your worksheet and then try to filter another worksheet by selecting a total value, it doesn’t work! Maybe you’ve experienced this too and thought you were crazy. The unexpected solution to this problem is to add a separate total worksheet to a dashboard to use as a filter action. Tableau’s own documentation recommends this.