Tableau Desktop Cookbook: Quick & Simple Recipes to Help You Navigate Tableau Desktop

687 Pages·2021·53.34 MB·English

by  Lorna Brown

Tableau
Desktop
Cookbook
Quick & Simple Recipes to Help You
Navigate Tableau Desktop
Lorna Brown

Tableau Desktop Cookbook
Quick & Simple Recipes to Help
You Navigate Tableau Desktop
Lorna Brown
Tableau Desktop Cookbook
by Lorna Brown
Copyright © 2021 Lorna Brown. All rights reserved.
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September 2021: First Edition
Revision History for the First Edition
2021-08-02: First Release
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978-1-492-09011-3
[MBP]
Table of Contents
Preface. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi
Part I. Starting at the Very Beginning
1. Introduction to Data. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.1 Connecting to Data 3
1.2 Searching for Data 4
1.3 Connecting to a File 5
1.4 Messy Data Sources 12
1.5 Connecting to a Server 16
1.6 Saved Data Sources 18
1.7 Connecting to Secondary Data Sets: The Data Model 19
Creating Relationship Calculations 24
Unioning Your Data: The Physical Layer 28
Joining Your Data: The Physical Layer 32
1.8 Data Types 36
1.9 Creating Extracts 38
Summary 40
2. Getting Started with Tableau. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
2.1 Creating a New Worksheet 41
2.2 The Tableau Workspace 46
2.3 The Data Pane 47
2.4 Dimension Versus Measure 50
2.5 Discrete Versus Continuous 51
2.6 Calculated Fields 54
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2.7 Shelves and Cards 59
Rows and Columns 59
Marks Card 62
Filters Shelf 67
Continuous Filters 72
2.8 What Is Show Me? 76
2.9 Formatting in Tableau 80
Summary 85
Part I Conclusion 85
Part II. Building a Foundation
3. Bar Charts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
3.1 Horizontal Bar Chart 89
Adding a Constant Line 94
Changing to a User-Controlled Reference Line 95
Adding Color to a Parameterized Reference Line 98
Adding Average Lines 100
3.2 Grouping 103
Visual Grouping 106
Discrete Grouping 107
3.3 Top N Filter 114
3.4 Stacked Bar Chart 117
3.5 100% Stacked Bar Chart (Percent of Total) 124
3.6 Discrete Bar in Bar Chart 130
3.7 Shared Axis 132
3.8 Shared Axis Bar in Bar 135
3.9 Bullet Chart 137
3.10 Histogram 142
3.11 Soundwave 145
Summary 150
4. Text. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
4.1 Tables 151
4.2 Adding Totals 153
4.3 Highlight Tables 156
4.4 Rank Tables 160
4.5 Big Actual Numbers 165
4.6 Calculating Percent Difference 170
4.7 Using LAST and Hide 174
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4.8 Custom Number Format 177
4.9 How to Zero Nulls 180
4.10 Showing Positive, Negative, or Neutral Values 181
4.11 Calculating a Good, OK, or Bad Status 183
4.12 Using Titles as BANs 184
4.13 Using SIZE 187
4.14 Word Cloud 188
Summary 190
5. Lines. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191
5.1 Line Charts 191
5.2 Continuous Line Charts 196
5.3 Trend Lines 200
5.4 Forecasting 202
5.5 Custom Date Format 204
5.6 Running Total 206
5.7 Year over Year Growth 210
5.8 Year to Date (YTD) Growth 213
5.9 Moving Average 216
5.10 Slope Chart 219
5.11 Sparklines 223
5.12 Small Multiple Line Charts 226
5.13 Small Multiple Controlled Version 234
Summary 238
6. Basic Mapping. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239
6.1 Symbol Map 239
6.2 Filled Map 245
6.3 Dual-Axis Map 249
6.4 Mapping Nongeographic Fields 254
Summary 257
7. Basic Dashboards. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259
7.1 Build a Basic Dashboard 259
7.2 Adding Basic Dashboard Interactivity 268
7.3 Objects 277
Using Horizontal and Vertical Containers 277
Adding a Text Object 285
Adding an Image Object 288
Adding a Blank Object 293
7.4 Layout Tab 295
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Borders 295
Background 297
Using Padding 301
Item Hierarchy 303
Summary 306
Part II Conclusion 306
Part III. Broadening Your Data Viz Knowledge
8. Square. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309
8.1 Treemaps 309
8.2 Calendar Heatmap 317
8.3 Marginal Bar Charts 323
Summary 333
9. Tooltips. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 335
9.1 Basic Tooltips 335
9.2 Viz in Tooltips 342
9.3 Multiple Layout Viz in Tooltip 346
Summary 350
10. Area Charts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 351
10.1 Basic Area Charts 351
10.2 Stacked Area Charts 355
10.3 Percent of Total Area Charts 360
10.4 Discrete Area Charts 363
10.5 Pareto Charts 367
Summary 382
11. Circles, Shapes, and Pies. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 383
11.1 Scatter Plot 383
11.2 Using Custom Shapes 386
11.3 Density Marks 387
11.4 Clustering 390
11.5 Trend Lines 395
11.6 Explain Data 399
11.7 Connected Scatter Plot 401
11.8 Dot Plot 408
11.9 Dot Strip Plot 414
11.10 Jitter Plot 416
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11.11 Box Plots 420
11.12 Using Shapes for BANs 425
11.13 Pie Charts 430
11.14 Donut Chart 433
Summary 439
12. Gantt. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 441
12.1 Basic Gantt Charts 441
12.2 Barcode Charts 445
12.3 Waterfall Charts 448
Summary 455
13. Stories. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 457
13.1 Creating a Story 457
13.2 Adding a New Story Point 467
13.3 Blank Story Point 469
13.4 Duplicate Story Point 470
13.5 Annotations on a Story 471
13.6 “Save as New” Story 473
Summary 475
Part III Conclusion 475
Part IV. Advancing Your Techniques
14. Sets. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 479
14.1 General Set 480
14.2 Conditional Set 482
14.3 Top N Set 486
14.4 Combined Set 488
14.5 Constant Set 493
14.6 Set Control 496
14.7 Set Actions 499
Summary 503
15. Parameters. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 505
15.1 Float/Integer Parameter 505
15.2 String Parameter 510
15.3 Date Parameter 514
15.4 Measure Switcher 518
15.5 Dynamic Scatter Plot 521
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15.6 Dimension Switcher 523
15.7 Parameter Actions 529
15.8 Parameter Actions: Drill Down 537
15.9 Parameter Actions: Min and Max Date Range 542
Summary 547
16. Advanced Table Calculations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 549
16.1 Previous Value 550
16.2 Lookup 555
16.3 Window Calculations 558
16.4 How to Create a Control Chart 561
Summary 566
17. Level-of-Detail Calculations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 567
17.1 Include LOD 569
17.2 Exclude LODs 573
17.3 Fixed LODs 577
17.4 Nested LODs 581
Summary 585
18. Advanced Mapping. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 587
18.1 Density Marks 587
18.2 MakePoint 590
18.3 MakeLine 593
18.4 Marks Layer 596
18.5 Distance 602
18.6 Buffer 604
18.7 Spatial Joins 606
Summary 609
19. Advanced Dashboarding. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 611
19.1 Actions 611
Highlight Action 611
URL Action 616
19.2 Dashboard Objects 622
Navigation Button 624
Download Object 626
Extensions 630
19.3 Floating 636
19.4 Toggle Containers On and Off Using Show/Hide 637
19.5 Device-Specific Dashboards 643
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