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.
“Can Tableau do conditional formatting?”
Lots of new Tableau users, especially with Excel skills, want to know if they can use Tableau like Excel. Tableau isn’t really designed like Excel. It’s not intended for data input, but rather data preparation and visualization. That said, a lot of features you might be used to from Excel like highlighting cells or highlighting rows of values are possible!
So let’s say you built a worksheet in Tableau and the row labels aren’t repeating for every row in the table. For example, maybe a year or quarter field is only showing up once instead of repeating.
Can Tableau do conditional formatting like Excel? A lot of people will tell you that it’s not possible. However, they’re wrong! It might take a little creativity, but it can be done! Check out the video below to learn how you can select and conditionally format cells in a Tableau highlight table.
Blending is nearly as old as Tableau Desktop itself. Executing a blend in Tableau is a method for relating data from multiple different tables so it can be analyzed together. For instance, a sales value and a quota.
Tableau formatting is a world of its own. While there are loads of options, there are also some under the radar tricks which can help you build workbooks faster and cut down on repeat work.
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.
The superstore data that Tableau provides is a helpful tool for practice, mockups and trying out concepts. However, one of the frustrations is that it can get “out of date” so to speak so the latest date in the data set might be December 31, 2021 even though today’s date is month’s later.
When joining two tables in Tableau, have you ever wondered any of the following questions?
Is the join working?
Is the join resulting in data duplication?
Am I losing rows of data due to the type or argument of the join?
Want to set up filters or parameters on your Tableau dashboard so they disappear or reappear based on a user selection? I ran into this scenario recently when working with a client. We had a handful of pre-set date ranges a user could select (e.g. Month to Date, This Quarter, etc.) but we also wanted to give the user the option to select a custom date range.
This video covers how you can create a parameter which is used in a Tableau dashboard to control two date ranges at once, a “selected period” (e.g. month to date) and a “comparison period” (e.g. previous month to date).
Let me guess, you have a value (maybe a null) displaying in a Tableau filter and you want it to go away? You don’t want to leave it just sitting there because it’s ugly and your users are insatiably curious. You know if you leave it they are going to select it and you’re going to have to answer questions about what this “null” value means and why it’s a filter option.
In its natural state, survey data is rarely in a format where it is optimized for analysis. If you need to visualize survey data, it's likely going to require some preparation and reshaping.
Have you ever created a worksheet in Tableau only to have the dreaded 'Abc" text sitting there as a distracting eyesore for your users? You don't have to live with that! Check this video out for a few methods which can help you get rid of that pesky placeholder.
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!
Tableau is a wonderful data visualization tool, but like any software, it has limitations and idiosyncrasies which make it difficult to work with at times. Thankfully, Tableau is aware of this and even created an ideas forum to crowdsource feature requests from users. In this video I talk about 10 ideas I would love to see Tableau incorporate into their products.
