Tableau Prep is a powerful tool for cleaning and shaping data. One of its weaknesses is that it can be slow on a desktop computer. There are a number of reasons for that (computer memory limitations, size of data source, complexity of steps, etc.). One of the ways that Tableau Prep conducts these performance issues is to sample your data automatically.
Have you ever tried to add a label to the end of a stacked bar chart in Tableau? I'm guessing it didn't work the way you wanted!
When you add a measure to the Label section of the Marks card, it adds a label to each section of stacked bar chart rather than an overall label for the entire bar.
Sometimes, users need to see the same data multiple ways to develop thorough insights. Providing your user the ability to switch worksheet types (e.g. swap a map for a bar chart) is a great way to provide them with flexibility in analysis!
One of my favorite tricks in Tableau dashboarding is to allow users to swap worksheets! You can hook a parameter up to a calculation which filters/swaps between multiple sheets in a Tableau dashboard.
There are three certainties in life; death, taxes and running out of space on your dashboard.
We've all been there, right? Our business users want to squeeze "just one more sheet" onto an already crowded view. If that sheet is a bar chart, I've got a space saving tip for you. Could you overlay the dimensional labels at the beginning of the bars to save some space?
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.
Users love text tables. No matter how much we steer them toward data visualizations that do a better job of exposing patterns, outliers and areas of interest, many users are still most comfortable viewing data in a table.
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One of my favorite solutions is to have the text table expand / appear when users make a selection and collapse / disappear when they deselect a value.
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!
Does your dashboard feel cluttered because you're trying to communicate too much supporting information to your user? Making sure you cover everything your user needs to know can leave your output feeling more like an essay than a data-driven dashboard.
Info buttons are a staple of Tableau dashboards. They allow you to pack so much additional information to a dashboard without cluttering the view for users.
Do you know the difference between measures and dimensions in Tableau? How about discrete and continuous fields? These are common points of confusion for Tableau Desktop users. Knowing the difference allows you greater control and customization as you leverage fields for visualization in Tableau. In this video, we review what you need to know to use discrete and continuous fields to build the visuals you want to see!
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.
Are you having trouble getting your data to work in Tableau the way you want? Join us to learn how to prepare data for analysis in Tableau!
You can find a thousand tutorials on how to use Tableau, but they're all worthless until your data is structured for analysis in the format that Tableau likes. Don't get stuck in your analysis journey because Tableau doesn't like your data.
6 data formats to avoid, 8 key rules for structuring data, and 1 video you can't miss. Check out the recording to learn about the key concepts you can utilize to prepare for your data for Tableau.
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.
“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!