Can you make a bar chart race?

Donna ColesLeave a comment

Yoshi & Yusuke presented this week’s #WOW2025 challenge live at the Agentforce World Tour in Tokyo. The key feature of this challenge is utilising the Pages shelf to step through how the shipment rankings for a set of products changes on a month-by-month basis.

Gathering the required files & modelling the data

I downloaded the Sample Super factory (subset).xlsx file from the provided google drive and connected directly to it. Relate Production_Plan_Output_Shipment to Product Master via the Product ID fields. I then added a Data Source Filter to restrict the data to Date: Year = 2025

I also downloaded all the images from the images folder and saved them in a new WOW2025_47 directory I created within my …\My Tableau Repository\Shapes\ directory.

Building the core rank calculation

On a new sheet, add Date to Columns and set to the Month level as a discrete (blue) pill. Add Product Name to Rows and Shipment Qty to Text.

Create a new field

Shipment Rank

RANK_UNIQUE(SUM([Shipment Qty]))

and add to the table. Adjust the table calculation setting, so the field is being computed explicitly by Product Name only.

Create another new field

Rank Display

IF [Shipment Rank] = 1 THEN ‘1st’
ELSEIF [Shipment Rank] =2 THEN ‘2nd’
ELSEIF [Shipment Rank] =3 THEN ‘3rd’
ELSE STR([Shipment Rank]) + ‘th’
END

Build the bar chart

On a new sheet, add Shipment Rank as a discrete (blue) pill to Rows and Shipment Qty to Columns and Product Name to Text.

Add Spiciness Level to Colour and change the field to be an Attribute so the table calc doesn’t break. Then add another instance of Product Name to the Detail shelf, and then click the icon to the left of the pill to add it to the Colour shelf, so there are 2 dimensions on the colour shelf. Adjust the colours to suit.

Tip – the quickest way to get the colours to be in a range is to edit colours > ctrl-click to multi select a set of colours, choose a diverging colour palette and click assign palette.

Edit the axis and reverse the axis. Adjust the size of the bars to make them a bit smaller. Adjust the label and match mark colour. Hide both the axis and the Shipment Rank header and all gridlines, and row/column dividers. Add Date at the Month level to the Pages shelf and update the sheet title.

Creating the Viz in Tooltip

On a new sheet ad Product ID to Rows. Change the mark type to Shape and add Product ID to shape. Edit the shapes to use the WOW2025_47 shapes added. As they are stored in alphabetical ordered, just use Assign Palette to set the right images to the right products. Hide the Product ID header row and remove any row/column dividers. Set the sheet to Entire View.

Back on the bar chart sheet, add Product ID to Detail and set as an Attribute so the table calc doesn’t break. Update the Tooltip to reference the relevant pieces of text and then add a reference to the VIT worksheet

The image should now display on hover of a bar.

Creating the bump chart

On a new sheet, add Date at the month level as a discrete (blue) pill to Columns and Rank Display to Rows. Add Product Name to Detail. Change the mark type to circle.

Add Spiciness Level to Colour and change the field to be an Attribute. Change the icon next to Product Name from Detail to Colour. The colours should automatically change and match the settings made against the bar chart.

Add Date at the month level as a discrete (blue) pill to the Pages shelf. The table will be filtered to January.

On the pages control, check the show history checkbox, then click on the ‘down arrow’ to display the additional history options. Set them as follows : show All marks, show both marks, allow fade and adjust the range, then format the trails to a narrower line at a lower opacity.

As you now press ‘play’ on the pages, the trails will display. HOWEVER (and this took some time to realise), in Desktop, the display of a circle on previous months does not work. Publish to cloud and it does. I did go down some dual axis related route until I discover this 😦

Add Product ID as an attribute to the Detail shelf and Shipment Qty to the Tooltip shelf and update the Tooltip and reference the Viz in Tooltip images sheet as before.

Then tidy up by

  • Removing row dividers
  • Adding column dividers
  • Adding column banding
  • Hide the Date label heading (right click > hide field labels for columns)
  • Hide the Rank Display label heading (right click > hide field labels for rows)
  • Update the title

Then add the sheets onto a dashboard and you should be good to go:-) My published viz is here.

Happy vizzin’!

Donna

Can you create a dynamically zooming map?

Donna ColesLeave a comment

Kyle challenged us this week with another take on zooming into maps, but this time not using spatial parameters.

Modelling the data

There are 4 sheets of data within the provided Excel workbook. The data needs to be related as follows:

  • start with free_bike_status
  • add vehicle_types and relate to free_bike_status on the Vehicle Type Id field
  • add station_info and relate to free_bike_status using a calculated field where1 =1
  • add station_status and relate to station_info on the Station Id field

Building the Core Map

We will be using map layers and spatial functions throughout this challenge. We start by defining the location of each bike and each station

Bike Location

MAKEPOINT([Lat],[Lon])

Station Location

MAKEPOINT([Lat (Station!Info)],[Lon (Station!Info)])

For the bikes, we need to know how much charge it has left

Charge %

SUM([Current Range Meters]) / SUM([Max Range Meters])

format this to % with 0 dp

Add Bike Location to a new sheet. Add Bike Id to Detail and change the mark type to circle. Add Charge % to Colour, and adjust the colour palette as required, and also edit so it is fixed to range from 0 to 1 (ie 0-100%).

Adjust the opacity of the colour to around 70% and add a pale grey border around the circles. Click on the 1 null indicator to the bottom left and select filter data to exclude that record from the display.

Select Map > Map Options from the menu and uncheck all the values to prevent the map from bing manually zoomed in/ changed. Then select Map >Background Layers from the menu, and set the Style to dark and click the Streets,Highways etc map option.

Drag Station Location onto the canvas and drop when the Add a Marks Layer option appears. Add Name the Detail shelf and Num Bikes Available to Colour. Change the mark type to square and adjust the colour palette as required and fix to range from 0 to 50.

Adjust the opacity of the colour to around 70% and add a pale grey border around the circles. Then move the stations marks card so it is listed below the bikes marks card. This means the bikes are displayed ‘on top’

Identifying the selected bike

Create 3 parameters

pSelectedBike

string parameter defaulted to <empty string>

pLat

float parameter, defaulted to 38.9358 (this is the central point mentioned in the requirements)

pLon

float parameter defaulted to -77.1069 (this is the central point mentioned in the requirements)

Note – originally I planned to just capture the ID of the selected bike then determine the lat & lon of that bike using a FIXED LOD to in turn determine the selected bike’s location, but that really hampered the performance, so I just used the parameter action to capture the required Lat & Lon directly

Show the 3 parameters on the sheet.

Update the 3 entries with a Bike Id and its associated Lat & Lon values (eg Bike Id =
8ec444bc696c2c8837ca0dcad39de819 , Lat = 38.8965 , Lon = -77.0334)

We need to identify the selected bike on the map

Is Selected Bike

[Bike Id]=[pSelectedBike]

Add this to the Size shelf on the bikes marks card. Adjust the sizes so True is listed before False and the sizes are therefore reversed. You may need to adjust the slider on the Size shelf too.

Zooming in to the selected bike

Create a new field

Selected Bike Location

MAKEPOINT([pLat],[pLon])

then create a buffer of 2000m around this (the requirements state 1000m, but I found that there were free bikes that were over 1000m from their nearest station, and if they were clicked on in the grid, the map didn’t display).

Selected Bike Buffer

BUFFER([Selected Bike Location],2000,’m’)

We want the map to ‘zoom’ into this buffer area if a bike has been selected, but show all bikes & stations so we need

Within 2000m

([pSelectedBike]=”) OR ((INTERSECTS([Bike Location],[Selected Bike Buffer])) AND (INTERSECTS([Station Location],[Selected Bike Buffer])))

Add this to the Filter shelf and select True

The map should zoom in, and the bike selected should be quite central to the display (the middle point of the buffer). To verify this, create

Buffer for Zoom

IF [pSelectedBike] <> ”
THEN [Selected Bike Buffer]
END

Add this to the map as another marks layer, and the circular buffer ‘zone’ will be displayed (we’ll keep this here for now for validation purposes).

Reset the pSelectedBike to <empty> and set pLat and pLon back to their default values – the buffer circle disappears.

Kyle hinted that we need to make sure that on ‘zooming out’ the display should be centred on the default values. To ensure this, we want to create a buffer around that central point that encapsulates all the stations and bikes. So we need

Default Location

MAKEPOINT(38.9358,-77.1069)

Default Buffer

BUFFER([Default Location],30,’km’)

Choosing a 30km buffer was just trial and error.

Now update the Buffer for Zoom field to

IF [pSelectedBike] = ” // then we’re in the default ‘show all’ view
THEN [Default Buffer]
ELSE [Selected Bike Buffer]
END

A buffer zone for the whole display is now shown

Ensure the buffer marks card is displayed at the bottom, reduce the opacity of the colour to 0 and remove any border to make the circle disappear. Then click on the eye symbol to the left of the marks card name to make the map layer disabled, so it doesn’t show up on hover.

Finally adjust the Tooltips on the relevant marks cards and then name the sheet Map or similar.

Building the Bike Selector Grid

To build this we will need to identify the closest station to each bike. First we need the distance between each bike and each station

Distance Bike to Station

DISTANCE([Bike Location], [Station Location],’m’)

and then we can create

Distance Bike to Closest Station

{FIXED [Bike Id]:MIN([Distance Bike to Station])}

On a new sheet add Bike Id to Detail and Distance Bike to Closet Station to Colour. Change the mark type to square. Sort the Bike Id by the field Distance Bike to Closet Station ascending.

Add Lat and Lon to the Detail shelf, and update the Tooltip as required. Name the sheet Bike Grid or similar.

Adding the interactivity

Add the two sheets onto a dahsboard, then create 3 dashboard parameter actions

Select Bike

On select of the Bike Grid sheet, set the pSelectedBike parameter with the value from the Bike Id field. When the selection is cleared, reset to <empty string>

Set Bike Lat

On select of the Bike Grid sheet, set the pLat parameter with the value from the Lat field. When the selection is cleared, reset to 38.9358

Set Bike Lon

On select of the Bike Grid sheet, set the pLon parameter with the value from the Lon field. When the selection is cleared, reset to -77.1069

And with that, hopefully the map should zoom in and out as required, albeit a bit slowly… (gif below recorded on Desktop)

My published viz is here.

Happy vizzin’!

Donna

Population Pyramids

Donna ColesLeave a comment

Sean used a new HR dataset from the #RWFD website for this week’s #WOW2025 challenge.

The data provided contained 1 row per person. I started by creating a bin based on the Age field, which I dragged into the dimensions section of the data pane (above the line) after I connected to the data. Right click Age > Create Bins

Age Group

Create bins every 5 ‘units’

Adding this on to Rows you’ll see you get the relevant values

With this field, we can create the other calculations we will need

Total Headcount

{FIXED[Age Group]: COUNT([synthetic_hr_dataset.csv])}

Other Gender

{FIXED [Age Group]:SUM( IIF([Gender]<>’Female’ AND [Gender]<>’Male’,1,0))}

Format both of these to 0 dp

Males

IIF([Gender]=’Male’,1,0)

Format this to 0dp

Females

IIF([Gender]=’Female’,-1,0)

Note, this is -1 due to how we’re going to plot on the chart, but we don’t want the labels displayed with negative numbers, so custom format this field to ,##0;#,##0

Headcount Gap

SUM([Males]) + SUM([Females])

Note – we’re adding since the Females value is actually a negative number

Also custom format this to ,##0;#,##0

Add Total Headcount to Rows and change to be discrete (blue pill). Add Other Gender to Rows too, and again change to discrete.

Add Females to Columns and then add Males to Columns too.

Make the chart dual axis and synchronise the axis. Change the mark type on the All marks card to bar. Adjust the Measure Names colour legend.

Make the rows a bit wider. On the All marks card, on the Label shelf, tick show mark labels and align the labels middle centre and bold.

Add Headcount Gap to Columns. Remove the Measure Names field from the Colour shelf on the Headcount Gap marks card.

Create a new field

Colour – Headcount Gap

[Headcount Gap] <0

and add to the Colour shelf on the Headcount Gap marks card and adjust colours accordingly.

I chose to make the tooltip on all the bars to match exactly and reference the information shown. For this I created some other fields

Tooltip – Least Gender

IIF(NOT([Colour – Headcount Gap]),’women’, ‘men’)

Tooltip – Most Gender

IIF([Colour – Headcount Gap],’women’, ‘men’)

On the All marks card, add Males, Females, Headcount Gap, Tooltip – Least Gender and Tooltip – Most Gender to the Tooltip shelf and adjust the tooltip as required

Add a constant 0 reference line that displays a solid black line to both the Female axis and the Headcount Gap axis.

Finally tidy up by

  • Hide the top axis (uncheck show header)
  • Editing the title of the Female axis to read Headcount
  • Remove all gridlines
  • Remove column dividers
  • Update the viz title.

Add the sheet to a dashboard and ta-dah! My published viz is here.

Happy vizzin’!

Donna

Can you build a satellite chart to represent values exceeding 100%

Donna ColesLeave a comment

For this week’s challenge, we’re using the data from a previous challenge and visualising it using Sam Parson’s ‘satellite’ chart idea – see here.

Modelling the data

Connect to the Food Self-Sufficiency csv file then add another connection to the Circle_Scaffold excel file. Relate the two together using a relationship calculation where 1 = 1 (ie relate every row in left hand data source to every row in the right hand).

Since we only care about data from FY2019, add a data source filter to set Fiscal Year = FY2019.

This saves us from having to apply that filter to each sheet we build.

Building a single spiral

On a new sheet, add Prefecture to the Filter shelf and select Akita-ken (which is near the top of the list and has a % value over 200%).

Create a parameter

pMinRadius

integer parameter defaulted to 500

To build the spiral, we need to plot a mark for every percentage point from 0 up to the Food Self-Sufficiency % value. For this we will need to determine an (x,y) coordinate value for each point, which will require some trigonometry, based on the diagram below

For each point on the circle, we will need to identify the x & y position of where the radius intersects the edge of the circle. As we are building a spiral, the radius of the circle will increase as we move around each percentage point, so we need

Radius

[pMinRadius]+[Path Percent Point]

We then need to determine the angle θ. As a circle is 360°, and a complete circle represents 100%, then 1% is 360/100, so the angle (in radians) for each % point plotted round the circle can be calculated as

Angle

RADIANS([Path Percent Point] * (360/100))

X

(SIN([Angle]) * [Radius])/360

Y

(COS([Angle]) * [Radius])/360

Now create the point

Spiral Point

MAKEPOINT([X],[Y])

Note – the X & Y values are divided by 360 due to the spiral we’re building and the increasing radius when displayed using map layers. If we were just plotting X against Y and not using map layers, this wouldn’t be required.

Double click on Spiral Point to automatically add Longitude and Latitude fields to the sheet.

Change the mark type to line and then add Path Percent Point to the Path shelf.

Add Prefecture to the Detail shelf, as it’ll be needed later when we build the trellis and remove the filter.

At this point, the spiral is showing 3 complete revolutions, as the data in the circle_scaffold data set contains info for up to 300%. We need to restrict it so we only show up to the Self-sufficiency ratio… so we need

Filter Percent Point Displayed

[Path Percent Point] <=[Self-sufficiency ratio for food in calorie base 【%】]

Add this to Filter shelf and set to True.

We now want to colour the spiral based on the percentage point associated to each mark plotted being <100%, between 100% & 199% or >= 200%, so we can use

Colour – Spiral

FLOOR([Path Percent Point]/100)

which will return an integer of 0, 1, or 2

Change this field to be discrete and then add it to the colour shelf and adjust colours accordingly.

Now obviously, you might be thinking things aren’t quite right – we’re not starting at the top and rotating differently. Simply pressing the swap rows and columns icon in the menu bar will resolve this, but if we do that too early, we lose the ability to add map layers, so leave as is for now.

Add the label map layer

Create a 0 point

Zero

MAKEPOINT(0,0)

Drag this onto the canvas and drop when the Add a Marks Layer option appears

This has the effect of creating a 2nd marks card

and now we have this, we can press the swap rows and columns icon in the menu bar to get the start of the spiral at X=0

Change the mark type to circle and add Self-sufficiency ratio… and Prefecture to the Label shelf. Adjust the font style and align centrally. Set the colour of the circle to white and increase the size. Move the Zero marks card to be below the Spiral Point marks card.

Rename the marks cards if you wish.

Add the starting point map layer

We need to create a point for the start of each line which is at the 0% mark

Start Point

MAKEPOINT((IF [Path Percent Point] = 0 THEN [X] END), (IF [Path Percent Point] = 0 THEN [Y] END))

Add this as a new marks layer. Change the mark type to circle and increase the size a bit. Colour the mark to the same base colour you used for your <100% range and remove the border. Rename the marks card to 3.Start Point

Add the end point map layers

Create a new point to represent the end of each line

End Point

MAKEPOINT((IF [Path Percent Point]= [Self-sufficiency ratio for food in calorie base 【%】] THEN [X] END), (IF [Path Percent Point]= [Self-sufficiency ratio for food in calorie base 【%】] THEN [Y] END))

Add this as a new marks layer. Change the mark type to circle and increase the size a bit. Add Colour-Spiral to the Colour shelf as a discrete dimension (blue disaggregated pill) and remove the border. Rename the marks card to 4.End Point Outer.

Add another instance of End Point as another marks layer. Again change the mark type to circle and adjust the size so it is smaller than the previous circle, and set the Colour to white. Rename the marks card to 5.End Point Inner.

Tidy up by

  • removing the Tooltip from each layer
  • disabling selection of each map layer (so nothing happens when you hover over it)
  • Hide the axis
  • Remove axis rulers and gridlines, but make sure the zero lines are shown
  • Hide the null indicator

Name the sheet Single Spiral or similar.

Building the trellis

Duplicate the single spiral (so if things go awry, you can get back to this). Then start by adding Prefecture to the Detail sheet of all the marks card.

When creating trellis charts, we need to create fields that represent which row and which column each Prefecture should sit in. There’s lots of blogs on creating trellis charts. As we know the number of rows and columns we need, I created

Cols

INT((INDEX()-1)%10)

Rows

INT((INDEX()-1)/10)

and make both fields discrete.

Add Cols to Columns and Rows to Rows. Adjust the table calculation setting of each field so it is computing by Prefecture only, and custom sorted descending by Self-sufficiency ratio…

Then show the Prefecture filter and select all values to display the ordered set of Prefectures.

Hide the Rows and Cols fields, remove row & column dividers. Adjust the size of the start and end point circles to suit, and if the zero lines aren’t showing, reduce the size of the label circle map layer and fit to Entire View.

Then name this sheet Trellis or similar and add to the dashboard.

My published viz is here

Happy vizzin’!

Donna

Can you build a ranked heatmap tile?

Donna ColesLeave a comment

Erica had a guest coach, Valerija Kirjackaja setting the challenge this week, asking us to use table calculations to build this heatmap table.

I built an initial version of the heatmap only, which I’ve published here, but I couldn’t get the display to match Valerija’s when I clicked on it. (Note – I wasn’t bothered about Viz in Tooltip part at this point). I used 2 dimensions to display the yellow header section, and you can see below, when clicking, this is noticeable. But Valerija’s solution treats the header as a single entity.

I couldn’t figure out how she’d managed this, so I had to have a look at the solution, and then I built my own instance, which is what I’ll now blog about.

Defining the core fields

Connect to the datasource and add a data source filter to restrict the data by the latest year (as I used Superstore 2025, I filtered to 2025). Doing this meant I didn’t have to worry about adding worksheet level filter fields.

On a new sheet add Category and Sub-Category to Rows and add Sales to Text and then sort descending so you can see the data we need to work with. Format Sales to be $ to 0 dp.

Create a new field

Sales by Cat Rank

RANK(SUM([Sales]))

change it to be discrete and then add to Rows. Adjust the setting of the table calculation so it is computing by Sub-Category only, so the ranking restarts for each Category

We will also need to display the Category in upper case, so create

Category Upper

UPPER([Category])

and add to Rows.

Having this tabular layout just lets us clarify how the table calculation will be working.

Building the Heatmap Table

On a new sheet, add Category to Columns and Sub-Category and Sales to Text and align centrally (Note – I originally put Category Upper on the columns, and then changed later after taking all the screen shots)

Add Sales by Cat Rank to Rows. Change it to a continuous (green) pill and edit the axis to be reversed. Adjust the table calculation so it is computing by Sub-Category only.

Create a new field

One

1

Change the mark type to gantt bar and add One to the Size shelf, setting the aggregation to Avg. Increase the size of the mark via the Size shelf to as large as possible. Add Sales to Colour then add a white border.

We need the axis numbers to be central to the ‘row’, so to fix this, double click into the Sales by Cat Rank pill and change it to subtract 0.5 ( [Sales by Cat Rank] -0.5 )

Re-edit the axis to reverse it again.

So our ‘table’ is now displaying data on a axis from 0.5 up to 9.5. To add the header, we’re going to plot another mark at -0.5, so we can display a section of the same size as the existing ones. For this, double click into Rows and type MIN(-0.5).

This has the effect of creating a second marks card

Remove Sales from Colour and Sub-Category from Label. Add Category Upper to Label. Adjust the label text alignment and formatting and change the Colour to yellow.

Make the chart dual axis and synchronise the axis and we now have the required display.

Tidy up by

  • Remove row & column dividers
  • Remove gridlines, zero lines & axis ticks
  • Hide the right hand axis (right click > uncheck show header)
  • Hide the Category Upper column labels (right click pill > uncheck show header)
  • Remove the left hand axis title
  • Fix the left hand axis from -0.5 to 9.5
  • Format the axis with a custom formatting of #,##0;-#,##0;TOTAL so that 0 is displayed as the word TOTAL (this is very sneaky by the way, and took me a while to work out)
  • Then format the font to be bold
  • Adjust the Tooltip on the Sales by Cat Rank marks card to display the Sub-Category and Sales value.
  • Delete the text from the Tooltip on the MIN(-0.5) marks card
  • Name the sheet Table or similar

Building the Viz in Tooltip

On a new sheet add Order Date to Columns at the discrete month level (blue pill) and add Sales to Rows. Add Sub-Category and Category to Detail. Format the date axis so the dates are just using First Letter.

Create a new parameter

pSubCat

string parameter defaulted to Bookcases

Then create a field

Is Selected SubCat

[Sub-Category] = [pSubCat]

and add to the Colour shelf. Adjust accordingly, then make sure True is listed first in the legend, so the line is ‘on top’

Create a new field

Label Line

IF [Is Selected SubCat] THEN [Sub-Category] END

and add to the Label shelf and update to allow marks to overlap. Hide the Order Date label heading (right click > hide field labels for columns). Title the chart Line or similar

Remove gridlines and row/column dividers

Go back to the Table sheet, and update the Tooltip of the Sales by Cat Rank marks card to reference the Line chart and update the filter to pass as just <Category>

Adding the final interactivity

Create a dashboard and add the Table sheet. Then add a parameter action

Set Sub Cat Param

On hover of the Table sheet, set the pSubCat parameter with the value from the Sub-Category field, setting the value to <empty string> when the selection is cleared.

If all has been applied, then the line chart should just display the lines associated to the Sub-Categories in the same Category

My published viz is here.

Happy vizzin’!

Donna

Dynamic Dimension Colouring

Donna ColesLeave a comment

For this week’s challenge, Yusuke asked us to provide a solution to allow charts to be coloured by different dimension, but he sprinkled a few extras in just for good measure 🙂

Defining the parameter

The key driver here is going to be the use of a parameter to define the dimension we need to colour by.

pColourBy

string parameter defaulted to Order Date, listing the 4 options as below

We then need a field that uses this parameter to define the actual dimension we’ll colour by

Colour

CASE [pColourBy]
WHEN ‘Order Date’ THEN STR(YEAR([Order Date]))
WHEN ‘Region’ THEN [Region]
WHEN ‘Category’ THEN [Category]
WHEN ‘Segment’ THEN [Segment]
END

Building the Order Date chart

On a new sheet, add Order Date to Columns and Sales to Rows. Change the mark type to Bar and add Colour to the Colour shelf. Adjust the colours to suit, set the opacity to 70% and add a white border. Show the pColourBy parameter.

Change the options in the pColourBy parameter and each time readjust the colours as you wish.

Add a reference line to the Sales axis that displays the value of Total Sales per cell

Format the reference line to format the displayed number in $M and bold font, and align top middle.

Create a new field

% of Sales

IF SUM([Sales]) / TOTAL(SUM([Sales])) <> 1 THEN SUM([Sales]) / TOTAL(SUM([Sales])) END

and format to % to 1dp. This will only display a value if its not 100%.

Add this to the Label. Adjust the table calculation setting so it is computing by the Colour field only.

Adjust the Label so the font is bold and the label only appears when Highlighted. Then update the Tooltip as required.

Although not explicitly called out in the requirements, I noted that if Yusuke clicked on the chart title, it reset the dimension to colour by. To deal with this we need to create

param Order Date

‘Order Date’

Add this to the Detail shelf.

We also need to ‘fake’ the title to be part of the chart itself (so it’s clickable). Double click into the Columns and manually type ‘Sales by Order Date’ and position the pill created before Order Date.

Right click on the column label (the text in darker font) and hide field labels for columns. Then right click on the column label to format – set the font to 12pt and bold, align left and shade the background to light grey. Increase the width of the column heading.

Then right click on the corner whitespace next to the heading just created, and format. Apply a light grey shading to the corner too.

If the ‘title’ is clicked, we don’t want it to be ‘highlighted’/’selected’. For this we will need fields

True

TRUE

False

FALSE

Add both of these to the Detail shelf.

Finally tidy up by removing the axis title, adjusting the font of the axis labels (I made them a bit darker), and removing row & column dividers. Name the sheet Order Date or similar.

Building the Region chart

Duplicate the Order Date chart and then click the option in the menu to swap axis so we have a horizontal bar chart.

Move the ‘Sales by Order Date’ pill from Rows to Columns and update the text to become ‘Sales by Region’ instead. Drag the Region pill and drop it directly over the Order Date pill on the Rows so it replaces it and all references to the field are replaced too. Widen the rows.

Right click on the ‘Region’ text in the column heading and hide field labels for rows. Format the reference line to align middle right.

Create a new field

param Region

‘Region’

and add this to the Detail shelf instead of the param Order Date field. Name the sheet Region or similar

Building the Category Chart

Duplicate the Region chart, and go through similar steps described above so the ‘title’ is Sales by Category and a new field

param Category

‘Category’

replaces param Region on the Detail shelf.

Building the Segment Chart

Repeat as above, this time setting the ‘title’ to Sales by Segment and a new field

param Segment

‘Segment’

replaces param Region on the Detail shelf.

Adding the interactivity

Add the sheets to a dashboard using layout containers and padding to organise as required. Then create the following dashboard actions

Highlight Action : Highlight

On hover of any of the charts on the dashboard, target all other charts, highlighting based on the Colour field only.

This action makes all the % labels appear when the mouse cursor is moved over the bars.

Parameter Action : Set Order Date Param

On Select of the Order Date sheet, set the pColourBy parameter with the value from the param Order Date field.

Parameter Action : Set Region Param

On Select of the Region sheet, set the pColourBy parameter with the value from the param Region field.

Parameter Action : Set Category Param

On Select of the Category sheet, set the pColourBy parameter with the value from the param Category field.

Parameter Action : Set Segment Param

On Select of the Segment sheet, set the pColourBy parameter with the value from the param Segment field.

These actions change the value displayed in the pColourBy parameter when the ‘title’ of the charts is clicked on.

Filter Action: Deselect Order Date Title

On select of the Order Date sheet on the dashboard, target the Order Date worksheet directly, passing the selected values of True = False. Show all values when selection is cleared.

Filter Action: Deselect Region Title

On select of the Region sheet on the dashboard, target the Region worksheet directly, passing the selected values of True = False. Show all values when selection is cleared.

Filter Action: Deselect Category Title

On select of the Category sheet on the dashboard, target the Category worksheet directly, passing the selected values of True = False. Show all values when selection is cleared.

Filter Action: Deselect Segment Title

On select of the Segment sheet on the dashboard, target the Segment worksheet directly, passing the selected values of True = False. Show all values when selection is cleared.

And once these have all been applied, you should have a functioning dashboard. My published version is here.

Happy vizzin’!

Donna

Let’s make a Tableau Pulse-Inspired Dashboard!

Donna ColesLeave a comment

Yoshi set the challenge this week to build a dashboard which looks like the visual you might get as part of a Pulse metric.

Define the parameters

Create a parameter to define the ‘reporting’ date

pBaseDate

date parameter defaulted to 21 Sept 2025

Create a parameter to capture the number of previous weeks the ‘forecasting’ values should be calculated against

pWeeks

integer parameter defaulted to 8, with a min value of 5 and max of 15, incremented every 1 step

Building the KPI card

This section displays the month to date sales and comparisons to previous month, based on the value in the pBaseDate parameter. We need several calculations

MtD Sales

IF [Order Date] >= DATETRUNC(‘month’, [pBaseDate]) AND [Order Date]<=[pBaseDate] THEN [Sales] END

format to $ with 0 dp.

Prev MtD Sales

IF [Order Date] >= DATEADD(‘month’, -1, DATETRUNC(‘month’, [pBaseDate])) AND
[Order Date]<= DATEADD(‘month’, -1, [pBaseDate]) THEN [Sales] END

MtD Sales Diff

SUM([MtD Sales]) – SUM([Prev MtD Sales])

custom format to +”$”#,##0;-“$”#,##0

MtD Sales % Diff

[MtD Sales Diff] / SUM([Prev MtD Sales])

custom format to +0.0%;-0.0%;0%

On a new sheet add MtD Sales, MtD Sales Diff and MtD Sales % Diff to Text. Change the mark type to shape and set to be a transparent shape (refer to this blog to understand how to set this up). Adjust the layout and style of the text on the Label. Set the sheet to Entire View and align the text to the left. Update the title of the sheet and remove the Tooltip.

Building the Line Chart

Before building the viz, we’ll start by building the calculations and checking them through a tabular display.

On a new sheet, show the pBaseDate and pWeeks parameters. Then add Order Date as a discrete exact date (blue pill) to Rows and add MtD Sales to Text. The MtD Sales values should only display against the dates from 1st to 21st Sept.

For each day, we need to calculate the 25th percentile of the Sales value using the gp model against the same day of the week for the previous data.

25th Percentile

MODEL_QUANTILE(“model=gp”,0.25,SUM([Sales]),ATTR([Order Date]),ATTR(STR(DATEPART(‘weekday’,[Order Date]))))

and we also need the 75th percentile

75th Percentile

MODEL_QUANTILE(“model=gp”,0.75,SUM([Sales]),ATTR([Order Date]),ATTR(STR(DATEPART(‘weekday’,[Order Date]))))

These 2 values give the ‘range’ we want to check the actual MtD Sales value against. Add both values into the table, and update the table calculation setting of each so they are computing explicitly by Order Date

However we only want the calculations to be based on the last x weeks, so we want to filter the display.

Dates to Include

[Order Date]>= DATEADD(‘week’, -1 * [pWeeks], [pBaseDate]) AND [Order Date] <= [pBaseDate]

Add this to the Filter shelf and set to True. This will adjust the 25th & 75th Percentile values as they are only considering data within the display (eg compare the highlighted values for 01 Sept against those in the image above)

But when it comes to ‘plotting this data’ on a chart, we only want to display the data for the current month (based on pBaseDate), so we need to apply a second filter that restricts the dates displayed further, but that does not eliminate the data in such a way that we lose reference to the previous x weeks.

We can do this using a filter based on a table calculation

Filter: Dates for Chart

LOOKUP(MIN([Order Date]),0) >=DATETRUNC(‘month’, [pBaseDate])
AND LOOKUP(Min([Order Date]),0) <= [pBaseDate]

The LOOKUP function is a table calc that is basically returning the same value for Order Date and comparing it against the base date. But because it is a table calc, when applied as a filter, it will only be applied after other computations.

Add this to the Filter shelf and set to True. Then adjust the table calc so it is explicitly computing by Order Date and then re-edit the filter again so it is just considering True values (changing the table calc setting, resets this).

Let’s start to build the viz :

Duplicate the tabular sheet above. Move Order Date to Columns and change to be continuous (green pill), Move MtD Sales to Rows and move Measure Values to Rows. Move the Measure Names field to the Colour shelf of the Measure Values marks card. Unstack the marks ( Analysis menu > stack marks > off) – if you can’t see 2 areas, swap the order of the pills in the Measure Values box so the 25th Percentile is listed first. Adjust the colours of the marks so the 25th percentile is white and the 75th percentile is pale blue (#e6f2fe). Ensure the opacity of these marks are 100%. Set the colour of the Mtd Sales line to bright blue.

Note – by moving the pills around and having already explicitly set the table calculation settings, we know the fields will be computing correctly. If you wish, you can build the viz from scratch, but you will need to explicitly set all the table calc pills to compute by Order Date again.

Make the chart dual axis and synchronise the axis. Right click the right hand axis and move marks to back to make the line display in front.

Create new fields

Ref Line – Start of Month

DATE(DATETRUNC(‘month’, [pBaseDate]))

and

Ref Line – End of Month

DATE(DATEADD(‘day’,-1, DATEADD(‘month’, 1,DATETRUNC(‘month’, [pBaseDate]))))

Custom format both of these to dd/mm and then add both to the Detail shelf of the All marks card. Set to be continuous exact date (green pills).

Add 2 reference lines to the Order Date axis, which reference these pills.

Add pBaseDate to the Detail shelf of the All marks card too, and add an additional reference line to that field. In this instance format the reference line and apply a custom format to the date to be dd/mm

Adjust the Tooltip via the All marks card. Remove all gridlines, zero lines and row/column dividers. Hide the right hand axis and the Order Date axis. Remove the title from the left hand axis.

To show the summary of how the MtD Sales value for the pBaseDate compares to the range, we will use the caption feature of the worksheet, which can reference fields, but we need these fields to essentially be ‘constants’ for every row of data, so we need some new fields.

Sales for Base Date

WINDOW_MAX(SUM(IF [Order Date] = [pBaseDate] THEN [Sales] END))

format this to $ with 0 dp.

25th Percentile for Base Date

WINDOW_MAX(IF MIN([Order Date]) = [pBaseDate] THEN [25th Percentile] END)

75th Percentile for Base Date

WINDOW_MAX(IF MIN([Order Date]) = [pBaseDate] THEN [75th Percentile] END)

Switch back to the tabular view of data and add these 3 fields. As they’re all table calculations, you need to set them to be computing by Order Date only (as we did above).

You should find that the values for the latest row (highlighted below) are displayed against every row in the 3 additional columns

With this, we can now work out the ‘text’ we want to disply in the caption

Expected Range Text

IF [Sales for Base Date] > [75th Percentile for Base Date] THEN ‘above’
ELSEIF [Sales for Base Date] < [25th Percentile for Base Date] THEN ‘below’
ELSE ‘within’
END

Add this to Rows, check the table calc settings, and then adjust the pBaseDate value so you can see the text change.

Now switch back to the line chart, and display the Caption (worksheet menu > show caption). Add Sales for Base Date and Expected range Text to the Detail shelf of the All marks card, adjusting the table calc settings as we’ve done before.

Then edit the caption and remove all text and update, referencing the various fields and parameters.

Building the bar chart

On a new sheet, add Segment to Rows and MtD Sales Diff to Columns. Sort descending. Create a new field

Diff is +ve

[MtD Sales Diff]>=0

Add to Colour and adjust accordingly. Show mark labels and set to match mark colour. Format the display to remove all column/row dividers, gridlines and zero lines. Display the Row Axis Ruler as a thicker grey line.

Then add all the components to a dashboard, using containers and padding to organise the display. Make sure to display the caption for the line chart worksheet.

And that should be it. My published viz is here.

Happy vizzin’!

Donna

Can you create this ‘zoom and reset’ scatter plot?

Donna ColesLeave a comment

For this week’s #WOW challenge we’re focusing on parameter driven axes ranges.

Building the basic viz

After connecting to the dataset, add Sales to Columns and Profit to Rows. Add Customer Name to Detail and change the mark type to circle.

The chart is divided by reference lines which I chose to define as parameters (but these were additional to the ones mentioned in the challenge requirements).

pProfitRef

integer parameter defaulted to 0

pSalesRef

integer parameter defaulted to 5000

Add both parameters to the Detail shelf, the add a reference line on the Sales axis that refers to the pSalesRef value.

and then repeat and add a reference line to the Profit axis referencing the pProfitRef field.

To colour the 4 segments of the chart, create new fields

Sales per Customer

{FIXED [Customer Name]:SUM([Sales])}

and

Profit per Customer

{FIXED [Customer Name]: SUM([Profit])}

These capture the total sales / profit at the customer level, and we can then determine which quadrant each customer is in by

Cohort

IF [Sales per Customer]>=[pSalesRef] THEN
IF [Profit Per Customer]>=[pProfitRef] THEN ‘High Sales, High Profit’
ELSE ‘High Sales, Low Profit’
END
ELSE
IF [Profit Per Customer]>=[pProfitRef] THEN ‘Low Sales, High Profit’
ELSE ‘Low Sales, Low Profit’
END
END

Add this to the Colour shelf and adjust colours to suit. Then set the opacity to 50% and increase the size of the marks a bit.

To add matching coloured borders around the marks, add another instance of Profit to Rows. Change the mark type of the 2nd Profit marks card to Shape and change the shape to be an open circle. Set the opacity to 100%. Set the chart to dual axis and synchronise the axis.

Adjust the Tooltip and hide the right hand axis (uncheck show header).

Dynamically adjust the axis

The axes will change by adjusting them to refer to parameters. By default we need the axis to try to replicate what it gets set to automatically. For this we need to capture the maximum and minimum sales and profit values and add a ‘buffer’ to give the extra space. I played around with a few options for the buffer, so created a parameter to store this until I got the value that seemed to work best (again this was an additional parameter that I added to just help not having to change multiple calculated fields as I got the value I wanted.)

pBuffer

integer parameter defaulted to 2000

Then create 4 fields to define the max & min of the two measures +/- buffer

Min Sales + Buffer

{MIN([Sales per Customer]) – [pBuffer]}

Max Sales + Buffer

{MAX([Sales per Customer]) + [pBuffer]}

Min Profit + Buffer

{MIN([Profit Per Customer]) – [pBuffer]}

Max Profit + Buffer

{MAX([Profit Per Customer]) – [pBuffer]}

Then create 4 parameters which will define the values we ca use to set the axis

pX-Min

float parameter that is set to the Min Sales + Buffer field when workbook opens (selecting this will then populate the value)

Create further parameters

pX-Max

float parameter that is set to the Max Sales + Buffer field when workbook opens

pY-Min

float parameter that is set to the Min Profit + Buffer field when workbook opens

pY-Max

float parameter that is set to the Max Profit + Buffer field when workbook opens

Once all the parameters exist, edit the Sales Axis and change the axis to use a custom range that references the pX-Min and pX-Max parameters

Do the same for the Profit axis, but reference the pY-Min and pY-Max parameters instead.

Finally while we’re still on the workbook, create two new fields

True

TRUE

and

False

FALSE

and add these to the Detail shelf. We’ll need these later to stop marks highlighting when we click.

Name the sheet Scatter or similar.

Building the Reset button

This actually requires another sheet (even through the requirements says 1 sheet).

Create a new field

Reset Axis

‘Reset Axis’

Add this to the Text shelf of a new sheet. Change the mark type to shape and select a transparent shape (refer to this blog to understand how to create this).

Set the view to Entire View and align the font middle centre and increase the font size. Set the background of the whole worksheet to black. Adjust the tooltip. Add Min Sales + Buffer, Max Sales + Buffer, Min Profit + Buffer and Max Profit + Buffer to the Detail shelf, along with the True and False fields.

Name the sheet Reset or similar

Adding the interactivity

Add the Scatter and Reset sheets to a dashboard, removing any parameters/legends etc that get added. Create dashboard parameter actions to set the axis parameters when selections are made on the scatter plot:

Set X Max

On select of the Scatter sheet, set the pX-Max parameter, passing in the maximum value of the Sales field.

Set X Min

On select of the Scatter sheet, set the pX-Min parameter, passing in the minimum value of the Sales field.

Set Y Min

On select of the Scatter sheet, set the pY-Min parameter, passing in the minimum value of the Profit field.

Set Y Max

On select of the Scatter sheet, set the pY-Max parameter, passing in the maximum value of the Profit field.

Also create dashboard parameter actions to ‘reset’ the axis parameters when the Reset button is clicked:

Reset X Min

On select of the Reset sheet, set the pX-Min parameter, passing in the minimum value of the Min Sales + Buffer field.

Reset X Max

On select of the Reset sheet, set the pX-Max parameter, passing in the maximum value of the Max Sales + Buffer field.

Reset Y Min

On select of the Reset sheet, set the pY-Min parameter, passing in the minimum value of the Min Profit + Buffer field.

Reset Y Max

On select of the Reset sheet, set the pY-Max parameter, passing in the maximum value of the Max Profit + Buffer field.

All these 8 actions should now combine to drive the ‘zoom & reset’ functionality.

Finally, the last step to make the display ‘nicer’ is to deselect the marks from being highlighted when selected. Add a dashboard filter action

Deselect Scatter

on select of the scatter object on the dashboard, target the scatter sheet directly, passing the selected fields of True = False. Show all values when the selection is cleared.

Repeat an create a similar action for Deselect Reset.

And that should be it. My published viz is here.

Happy vizzin’!

Donna

Can you create a drill-down

Donna ColesLeave a comment

Kyle set the challenge this week to recreate a drill-down, but with the stipulation that no parameters were to be used. I immediately figured this would be a challenge requiring set actions, and indeed the hint on the splash page of the #WOW site, confirmed this

Building the Viz

After connecting to the data source, create a Set off of the Category field (right click > create > Set). Select a single option eg Technology

Category Set

Create fields

Display Value

IF [Category Set] THEN [Sub-Category] ELSE [Category] END

and

Expand Indicator

IF [Category Set] THEN [Category] ELSE ‘+’ END

Add Category, Expand Indicator and Display Value to Rows and Sales to Columns and press the sort desc button in the toolbar, to sort all the bars . The click the Category pill to add another sort by sales descending.

Hide the Category pill (uncheck show header).

Format the Expand Indicator column, so the text is aligned vertically

Right click on the Expand Indicator text heading displayed in the view and hide field labels for rows. Widen each row a bit, remove all gridlines, remove the Sales axis title (right click axis > edit axis). Add a title to the sheet. Adjust the Tooltip.

Adding the interactivity

Add the sheet to a dashboard, then add a dashboard set action

Select Cat

On select of the viz on the dashboard, target the Category Set, adding values to the set when the viz is clicked (selected), and remove all values when the selection is cleared. Only allow 1 selection at a time to be made.

And that’s it. My published viz is here.

Happy vizzin’!

Donna

Can you build an L-Shaped bar chart?

Donna ColesLeave a comment

My inspiration for this week’s #WOW challenge came from Sarah Palette’s post on X from last year, and has been something I’d been meaning to try for ages, so figured a #WOW challenge was the perfect opportunity. Sarah has her own blog post which contains the core ‘trick’ to nailing the display, but as usual I’m going to walk you through step by step 🙂

After connecting to the data, start by adding Sub-Category to Rows, Sales to Columns, Category to Colour and sort by Sales descending. Adjust the colours to suit.

Format Sales to be $ to 0 dp, and add to Label. Apply a quick table calculation of Percentage of total to the Sales pill, and then format the pill to be % to 1 dp. Add another instance of Sales to Label. Adjust the layout and format the label to 8pt bold and match mark colour. Reduce the Size of the mark.

Double click into the Columns shelf, and manually type MIN(0). Then drag the MIN(0) pill from Columns and drop it on the Sales axis when the green ‘2-column’ icon appears. This automatically adds Measure Names and Measure Values into the view. Re-order the pills in the Measure Values section. This display now has 2 measures sharing a single axis.

Change the mark type to Line and line type to stepped (via the Path pill). Adjust the Label so it is labelling line ends and start of line only. Align label top right. Adjust the size of the line as required.

Click on the MIN(0) pill in the Measure Values section, and while holding down Ctrl drag the pill to Columns to create a copy of the same measure. This is important as typing in another instance of MIN(0) will create another separate measure, and we need it to be the same one.

This will create another marks card (MIN(0)). Remove the Sales pills from the Label shelf, and add Sub-Category instead. Align the label middle right, and add a couple of spaces before the Sub-Category text. Set the chart to be dual axis, synchronise the axis and then remove Measure Names from the All marks card. Adjust the width of each row to push the Sub-Category label into the corner of the L.

To give the labels at the end of the bar some ‘breathing room’, create a field

Max Sales + 10%

WINDOW_MAX(SUM([Sales])) * 1.1

Add this to the Detail shelf on the All marks card. Adjust the table calculation so it is computing by both Category and Sub-Category. Then right click on the bottom axis and Add Reference Line that uses the average of the Max Sales + 10% field for the Entire Table. Don’t display and lines/labels/tooltip

Finally tidy up by

  • Hiding both axis (right click -> uncheck show header)
  • Hiding both the Sub Category and Measure Names headers (right click, uncheck show header)
  • Remove all gridlines, zero lines, row & column dividers
  • Adjust Tooltip as required
  • Add a title colouring the text of the words to match the colours used in the legend.

Add to a dashboard. My published viz is here.

Happy vizzin’!

Donna