Sean’s #WOW2024 challenge this week was to visualise the comparisons between different entities within a limited space, by using a Viz In Tooltip (VIT) to provide additional information on hover.
Building the Treemap
Add Sales to Size, Category to Colour and Sub-Category to Detail to create the basic tree map. Tableau will automatically define the layout based on the space available, and you can’t control this, so don’t worry if it doesn’t match the final output.
Move Sub-Category from Detail to Label and add Sales to Label too. Format Sales to to be $ at 0dp, then adjust the Label as required.
Crete a new field
Rank
RANK(SUM([Sales]))
Format the field so it is formatted to be a whole number with a suffix of .)
Convert to discrete and add to the Detail shelf. Adjust the table calculation and verify it is computing by both Category and Sub-Category – this ranks every cell from 1 to 17 based on the Sales.
Adjust the Tooltip to just show the Category, Sub-Category and Sales data.
Name the sheet TreeMap.
Building the bar chart (the VIT)
On a new sheet add Sub-Category to Rows and Sales to Columns. Sort by Sales descending. Add Category to Colour and adjust the opacity to around 30%. Manually widen each row.
Add Sales and Sub-Category to Label and adjust to get the correct layout and then align left middle.
Add Rank to Rows after Sub-Category. Hide the Sub-Category field (uncheck show header).
We need to identify a row that has been ‘selected’ by the user. For this we need a parameter
pSelectedRank
Integer parameter defaulted to 0
Show the parameter on the page. We need to indicate which row is selected.
Selected Rank Indicator
IF [Rank] = [pSelectedRank] THEN ‘●’ ELSE ” END
Add this field to Rows before Rank, then update the pSelectedRank parameter to a valid number, eg 5.
Hide field labels for rows, make the Selected Rank Indicator and Rank columns narrower. Adjust alignment of columns and increase the font size of the Selected Rank Indicator column.
Hide the Sales axis, remove all gridlines, zero lines and row & column dividers. Format the Row Axis Ruler to be a black line.
We only want a subset of the rows to show – those that are 2 below and 2 above the selected rank. Create a new field
Rank in Range
([Rank] >= [pSelectedRank]-2) AND ([Rank]<= [pSelectedRank]+2)
Add this to Rows in front of Sub-Category. The bar chart will split.
We only want to see the ‘True’ rows. You can do this in 2 ways.
1 – Click on the word True and select Keep Only from the dialog box displayed. This will add Rank in Rangeto the Filter shelf
or
2 – right click on the section with the False records and select Hide from the context menu. The rows associated to False will disappear but won’t actually be filtered out of the view (this is what I did)
Hide the Rank in Range column from showing (uncheck show header). Name this sheet VIT or similar.
On the TreeMap sheet, update the Tooltip to show the VIT worksheet (via Insert > Sheets). Adjust the code snipped inserted so the filter property = “” (ie no filters are passed and the complete viz is displayed).
If you test it from the worksheet, and still have the pSelectedRank set to 5, you should see the same set of bars regardless of which part of the TreeMap you hover on.
Applying the filter
Create a dashboard of the required size and add the TreeMap sheet. Set the viz to fit entire view. It’s likely it will now rearrange itself to (nearly) match the solution.
Add a parameter dashboard action to set the selected rank
Set Rank
On hover of the TreeMap sheet, set the pSelectedRank parameter by passing in the value from the Rank field aggregated to nothing. When the selection is cleared, set to 0.
Hovering over the dashboard should now update the display in the VIT to ‘focus’ on whichever Sub-Category has been selected on the TreeMap.
This week’s challenge focuses on allowing the user flexibility in both how they want to ‘slice’ the measure being reported (actual headcount), and how they want the results displayed to meet the needs of the question they are trying to answer. Whilst the above could be built using multiple sheets and ‘sheet swapping’ using dynamic zone visibility, the aim is to try to build within a single sheet.
Let’s get cracking.
Enhancing the data
Not all the fields we need to slice the data by are included initially in the data provided, so we need to define some additional calculated fields, as stated in the requirements.
Contract Type
IF [FTE] = 1 THEN ‘Full Time’ ELSE ‘Part Time’ END
To determine the Age Bracket an employee belongs to, we first need to know their age. Usually this would be based on today’s date (using the TODAY() function), but as this data is static, we’re going to pretend today is 01 Dec 2022, by capturing this in a parameter.
pToday
date parameter defaulted to 01 Dec 2022
We can then work out how old the employee is (in complete years) on 01 Dec 2022
Employee Age
IF DATEPART(‘dayofyear’, [Birth Date])<=DATEPART(‘dayofyear’,[pToday]) THEN DATEDIFF(‘year’, [Birth Date], [pToday]) ELSE DATEDIFF(‘year’, [Birth Date], [pToday])-1 END
The ‘dayofyear’ parameter of the DATEPART function returns as it suggests the day of the year, so is a number from 1 to 365 (or 366 in a leap year). So this calculation is basically saying, if the birthday falls before ‘Today’, then they’ve had their birthday in that year, so a simple difference between the years suffices, otherwise the birthday hasn’t happened yet, so take one off the difference in years.
We can then create
Age Bracket
IF [Employee Age] < 20 THEN ‘Under 20’ ELSEIF [Employee Age] < 30 THEN ’20-29′ ELSEIF [Employee Age] < 40 THEN ’30-39′ ELSEIF [Employee Age] < 50 THEN ’40-49′ ELSEIF [Employee Age] < 60 THEN ’50-59′ ELSE ‘Over 60’ END
Setting up the parameters
All the user interactivity is driven through selection of parameters.
pDisplayType
string parameter defaulted to Butterfly Chart with a list of values Stacked, Side by Side, Butterfly which each have a slightly different Display As value (up to you whether you want to do this).
pDisplayRowsBy
string parameter defaulted to Age Bracket with required options listed.
pSplitBarsBar
string parameter defaulted to Contract Type with required options listed
Building the Viz
The pDisplayRowsBy parameter defines the field that we want to display on the Rows shelf. The parameter is just a string value though which we need to map to a proper field from the data set
Dimension – Rows
CASE [pDisplayRowsBy] WHEN ‘Age Bracket’ THEN [Age Bracket] WHEN ‘Contract Type’ THEN [Contract Type] WHEN ‘Department’ THEN [Department] WHEN ‘Gender’ THEN [Gender] WHEN ‘Nationality’ THEN [Nationality] END
The pSplitBarsBy parameter defines the field that will be used to colour the bars. Again we need to map this to fields in the data set
Dimension – Colour
CASE [pSplitBarsBy] WHEN ‘Gender’ THEN [Gender] WHEN ‘Contract Type’ THEN [Contract Type] END
The existing Employees(Count) field that is automatically included is just a counter for the number of rows in the data set, so is essentially our headcount number. However, we need to think about how the display needs to look for the different types of chart, specially the butterfly chart.
When building a butterfly chart, the bars to the right of the middle axis are plotted as positive numbers, while the bars to the left are plotted as negative numbers (so the middle is actually 0). So in the event the display type of Butterfly Chart is selected, we need to make some adjustments, so that some of the values are plotted on the negative axis. This means our calculation looks like
Headcount
IF [pDisplayType] = ‘Butterfly’ THEN IF MIN([Dimension – Colour]) IN (‘Part Time’, ‘Female’) THEN COUNT([Employees]) * -1 ELSE COUNT([Employees]) END ELSE COUNT([Employees]) END
If it’s a Butterfly chart, then if the values associated to the field we’re colouring the bars by are ‘Part Time’ (pSplitBarsBy = Contract Type) or ‘Female’ (pSplitBarsBy = Gender), then negate the count of employees, otherwise just return the count of employees.
Let’s start putting some of this into a viz to see what we’ve got…
On a sheet, add Dimension-Rows to Rows and Headcount to Columns. Add Dimension-Colour to Colour. Show the 3 core parameters and adjust the colours to suit.
Change the pSplitBarsBy to Gender, and adjust colours again. Change to ‘N/A’ and adjust again, so all possible options for the Dimension-Colour field have been set. Change pSplitBarsBy back to Contract Type.
Now change pDisplayType to Stacked Bar.
We want Full Time segment of the bar to appear first against the zero line of the axis, so manually re-order the options in the colour legend, so Part Time is listed first.
Change pSplitBarsBy to Gender and verify that the Male segment of the bars are displaying first against the zero line of the axis. Change pSplitBarsBy back to Contract Type.
For the side by side bar chart, we need another dimension on Rows that is essentially the Dimension -Colour field. However, we only want the value when the pDisplayType is Side by Side. So we need
Dimension – Side by Side
IF [pDisplayType]=’Side By Side’ THEN [Dimension – Colour] ELSE ” END
Add this to Rows after the Dimension-Rows field.
This adds an additional column to the display. While we’re in side by side or butterfly ‘mode’ , nothing is displayed. Change pDisplayType to Side by Side and we get the separation required.
Since the Colour legend is defining what the bar relates to, we can hide this field (right click on the Dimension – Side by Side pill and uncheck show header.
We want to also show the % of Total headcount split for each row. Create a new field
Total Employees Per Row
{FIXED [Dimension – Rows] : COUNT([Employees])}
then create
% Total Headcount
[Headcount]/SUM([Total Employees Per Row])
and format to a custom number format of 0%;0%. This is a % with 0 decimal places, but the custom format is used as we want negative numbers (caused by the butterfly chart type) to be displayed as +ve percentages.
Add % Total Headcount to Columns and verify the display for the different display types. Hint – if the calc is working as expected, the Stack Bar option should show 100% 🙂
Labelling the Viz
We can’t simply add labels using the usual method (show mark labels) and adjusting the positioning, as it won’t always show what we want, where we want for all the different display types. So we need to employ different techniques based on the chart being displayed.
Let’s start with the stacked bar chart. For the Headcount bars, we want to display the total number of employees at the end of the bar, and for the % Total Headcount, we want the % displayed in the middle of the bar.
Create a new field
Ref Line – Stacked
IF [pDisplayType] = ‘Stacked’ THEN [Headcount] END
Add this to Detail shelf of the Headcount marks card, then add a reference line to the Headcount axis (right click axis > Add Reference Line) that for each pane references the Sum of the Ref Line – Stacked field, and just displays the Value on the Label. No line or tooltip is displayed.
Format the reference line (right click the ‘invisible’ line) to adjust the colour and alignment of the font.
Add % Total Headcount to the Label shelf of the % Total Headcount marks card. You may need to adjust the width of the bars so you can see the values. Adjust the font to be white.
Change the pDisplayType parameter to Side by Side. No labels should be displayed. This is because the label we used for the headcount bar was based on the display type, and the label we used for the % total has been coloured white and is therefore invisible on a white background (set it to black and you’ll see it displayed). So again we need more fields
Ref Line – Side By Side
IF [pDisplayType] = ‘Side By Side’ THEN [Headcount] END
Add this to the Detail shelf of the Headcount marks card, and again add a reference line to the Headcount axis, this time setting the scope at the cell level.
Once again format the reference line to set the font and alignment.
Create
Label – % of Total Side by Side
IF [pDisplayType] = ‘Side By Side’ THEN [% Total Headcount] END
Format to a % with 0 dp and add this to the Label shelf of the % Total Headcount marks card, and then adjust the Label so this field is appropriately coloured and listed before the other label (which is coloured white).
Change the pDisplayType parameter to Butterfly chart. The % labels should already display. We just need to sort the labelling for the actual headcount. For this we need
Ref Line – Butterfly Pos
IF [pDisplayType] = ‘Butterfly’ THEN IF [Headcount] >= 0 THEN [Headcount] END END
and
Ref Line – Butterfly Neg
IF [pDisplayType] = ‘Butterfly’ THEN IF [Headcount] < 0 THEN [Headcount] END END
Add both these fields to the Detail shelf of the Headcount marks card. Then add reference lines for each of the two fields
Then format both the reference lines so the font and alignment is set as required (in the case of the Ref Line – Butterfly Neg reference line, it needs to be left aligned)
Add Headcount and % Total Headcount to the Tooltip shelf of the All marks card, and then adjust the tooltip. Finally tidy up by
Adjusting format of the Dimension – Rows values and aligning middle left.
Hide field labels for rows
Remove column dividers
Adjust row dividers to be more subtle
Remove gridlines, zero lines, axis ticks & rulers
Remove the Headcount & % Total Headcount axis.
Add the viz to a dashboard. I used a horizontal container placed above the viz to add text objects to represent the headings. The first text box just the referenced the pDisplayRowsBy parameter value, so it was dynamic.
For this week’s challenge, Erica wanted us to be able to set a discount value for a Sub-Category which once set, overwrote the value displayed in the table and applied the discount to the other visuals. She added an additional complexity to display the input field aligned with the selected Sub-Category. She alluded to the fact this last requirement was likely to be tricky, and she wasn’t wrong. I managed to build a solution, and I’ll walk through the principles, but there will be a bit of trial and error involved….
Building the table
We will need to capture the discount value to apply in a parameter, so create
pDiscount
integer parameter defaulted to 5
and we also need capture the Sub-Category to apply the discount to
pSubCat
string parameter defaulted to Art
The discount to display will need to be adjusted for the selected Sub-Category
Discount to Display
IF [Sub-Category] = [pSubCat] THEN [pDiscount]/100 ELSE [Discount] END
format this to % with 1 dp.
Add Category and Sub-Category to Rows. Double-click into rows and manually type in MIN(1). Change the mark type to shape and change the shape to be a transparent shape (see this blog for more details). Add Discount to Display to the Label shelf, and change the aggregation to Average. Align middle centre. You should see that the value associated to Art is 5%.
Note – you may be wondering why this is not being displayed in a standard table – why the need for the fake axis? I can’t recall exactly why I ended up with this, but it will have been borne out of later steps, and the need to try and get the input parameter aligned – by all means feel free to try without and see how it goes 🙂
Hide the MIN(1) axis, remove column dividers and gridlines / zero lines, axis rulers etc. Add subtotals (Analysis menu > Totals > Add all subtotals). Stop the Tooltip from displaying. Adjust the height and width of the cells so you can see all the rows on the screen. Show the parameters, and test the functionality by manually changing the parameters.
Create a new field
Index
INDEX()
Set this to be a discrete field and add to Rows after Sub-Category. Adjust the table calculation so it is set to compute using both Category and Sub-Category, and you show see the rows numbered from 1 to 17 (except for the total rows).
In order to help us position the input parameter, we will need to capture the index of the selected Sub-Category, so create a parameter
pIndex
integer parameter defaulted to 6 (the value associated to Art)
For now, we’ll leave the index displaying in the table. But we will hide it eventually. Name this sheet Table.
Building the line chart
The line chart needs to show the actual Sales and the sales as they would be if the revised discount was applied for the selected Sub-Category. The value stored in the Sales field will already account for the original value stored in the existing Discount field. So to work out what the adjusted Sales will be, we need to determine the full sale price (Sales / (1 – Discount)) and then apply the inputted discount value from pDiscount (multiply by (1- (pDiscount/100))
Adjusted Sales
IF [Sub-Category] = [pSubCat] THEN ([Sales] / (1-[Discount])) * (1- ([pDiscount]/100)) ELSE [Sales] END
format this and the Sales fields to $ with 0do
On a new sheet add Order Date at the continuous Month/Year level (green pill) to Columns. Add Sales to Rows, and then drag Adjusted Sales and drop it on the Sales axis when the green ‘2 column’ icon appears. This will automatically add Measure Values to Rows and Measure Names to Filter and Colour.
Calculate the difference as
Difference
IF [pSubCat]<>” THEN (SUM([Adjusted Sales]) -SUM([Sales])) / SUM([Sales]) END
and apply a custom number format of ▲0.00%;▼0.00%;0%
Format the date axis to display dates as custom format mmm yy, and edit the axis to change the title to Month.
Add Sales, Adjusted Sales and Difference to the Tooltip and update to suit. Show the pDiscount parameter and update it to a really large value, say 10,000. The 2 lines will show more prominently and the Sales axis will adjust its scale.
The requirement is to ensure the grey line (the original sales) doesn’t move, so edit the value axis, adjust the title to Sales and then fix the start from 0, but end ‘automatic’
This will push the Adjusted Sales off the chart. Reset the pDiscount to something more reasonable like 5.
Remove row/column dividers and gridlines, but retain axis rulers. Name the sheet Line.
Building the KPI card
On a new sheet, add Sales to Text. Change the Mark type to shape and select a transparent shape. Align the text middle centre, and set the display to Entire View.
We want to only show the Adjusted Sales if a Sub-Category has been selected, but we need to line chart to display a blue line all the time, so we need another field
Label Sales
IF [pSubCat]<>” THEN [Adjusted Sales] END
format this to $ with 0dp and add to the Label shelf.
Adjust the layout and display of the text as required. Hide the Tooltip. Name the sheet KPI.
Right, we’ve got the key components. Let’s get these all on a dashboard first.
Building the dashboard
Getting all the objects you want on the dashboard (including titles, footers etc) positioned exactly where you want them, with the appropriate padding set is crucial to getting the method I’m going to use to reposition the input parameter. It’s also quite fiddly and I can’t guarantee that even if you follow the steps, you’ll get things looking right…
Anyway, let’s start with the dashboard.
I set the dashboard size to 1100 x 650, then I added a floating vertical container which I positioned 0,0 and sized 1100 x 650. I formatted the dashboard and set the background colour to light grey.
I then switched to Tiled and added a text box for my title. I set the background of this to white, outer padding to 0 and inner padding to 5.
I then added another text box beneath for the instructions. I set the outer padding to 0 and inner padding to 5. I then fixed the height to 70.
Next I added a horizontal container beneath the instructions. I add a blank object to it as a placeholder. Ensuring the horizontal container was selected (blue border), I set the outer padding to 5.
I then added another horizontal container beneath this, and added my standard footer (created by, recreated by etc). I set the outer padding of this container to have 5px on the left and right, and 0 on top and bottom. All the text boxes within I set to have 0 outer padding and 0 inner padding.
I then added another text box beneath to add in the link to the challenge, also part of my ‘standard footer. I set the outer padding for this text box to 0.
I then calculated how high all the ‘rows’ of objects were on the dashboard (the height of the title + the height of the instructions + height of my standard footer and challenge link), and then subtracted this from 650. I then fixed the height of the central horizontal container based on this value
Add the Table sheet into the left side of this container. Remove the title. Set the background to white. Adjust the outer padding to 0. Set the sheet to Fit Width. Very carefully, adjust the width of a row, so the table fills as much of the vertical space as possible without there being a scroll bar. This is really fiddly to do.
The addition of the table will have automatically added some parameters and a Tiled object to the layout. We’ll deal with these shortly, but leave them be for now.
Add a Vertical container to the right hand side. Add the KPI sheet and then then Line sheet underneath. Remove the blank object that was the placeholder. Widen the vertical container so the vizzes have more space. For both the KPI and the Line objects, remove the title, set the background to white, set the outer padding to 0. Set the inner padding of the KPI chart to 20, and the inner padding of the line chart to 10. Adjust the height of the KPI chart so its visible.
If all is well, you should have something like
Adding the interactivity
Create a parameter action
Set Sub Cat
On select of the Table chart, set the pSubCat parameter, passing in the value from the Sub-Category field. Reset to ” when unselected.
Set Index
On select of the Table chart, set the pIndex parameter, passing in the value from the Index field aggregated to None. Reset to 0 when unselected.
If you click different Sub-Categorys, the KPI and line chart will change. Once unselected, no adjusted sales or discount will display.
Getting the parameter to move
Duplicate the Table sheet, and remove all subtotals. On this sheet, we’re only going to display the rows up to the row before the selected Sub–Category. For this we need
Show Top Rows
[pIndex]=0 OR [Index]<[pIndex]
Add this to the Filter shelf and set to True. Verify the table calculation is computing by both Category and Sub-Category. If need be adjust, then recheck the filter is just displaying True still. Show the pIndex parameter and just test the filter is working, by changing the value. Here, with the parameter set to 6, it is showing rows up to 5.
What we’re trying to do is just display the rows necessary so that the parameter input can be added beneath this sheet on the dashboard. The reason we have removed the subtotals, is that if the index is set to 2, we only want to display 1 row above; that for Bookcases. With subtotals included we’d get a row for Bookcases and a Total row. However once we get to a new Category as we have above, we need to show an additional row to accommodate for the subtotal displayed within the original table.
So we need to force additional rows to show in some circumstances but not others.
To help with this I have made use of the Region field. I checked that for two regions, Central & East, there were Sales in both Regions for every Sub-Category.
Add Region to the Filter shelf and set to Central & East only. Add Region to the Detail shelf. Remove Discountto Display from the Label shelf. Create
Extra Row
IF LAST()=0 THEN STR(ATTR([Region]) )
ELSE ''
END
Add this to Rows after Index. Adjust the table calculation so that it is computing by Sub-Category only. With pIndex set to 0, this should just display the two Regions against the last Sub-Categorys in each Category, simulating the subtotal rows.
But set the index to 6 and we just get the additional rows for the Furniture Category
and set to 2 and we just the row for Bookcases
Hide the Category column (uncheck show header). Name the sheet Top. Set the pIndex back to 0, and let’s start seeing how this works on the dashboard.
Add a vertical container between the existing table and the kpi/line chart. Reduce the width. Add the Top sheet into this container. Remove the title and set the inner and outer padding to 0. Set the sheet to fit width. If you’re lucky, all the rows should align. If not you may need to tweak again.
Select a Sub-Category in the original table, and the 2nd table should shrink.
From the Tiled section on the layout item hierarchy, navigate through until you find the pDiscount parameter. Click it to select it on the dashboard, then move that object to sit beneath the shortened table. Then select the Tiled section on the item hierarchy, and right click and remove from dashboard, which will remove all the unnecessary parameters/legends that were being displayed.
For the pDiscount object, remove the title, set the background to white and set the outer padding to 0. Set the background of the vertical container to white too. We only want this discount parameter to show when a Sub-Category has been selected. To manage this, we need
Show pDiscount
[pSubCat]<>”
Select the pDiscount object on the dashboard, and then from the Layout tab, check the Control visibility using value and choose the Show pDiscount field
Unselecting the Sub-Category and the field won’t display
So now we’ve got the basics of what we’re trying to do, we obviously don’t actually want any of the table to be visible. But if we hide all the fields (uncheck show header), we lose the column headings which was helping with the positioning, as we can see below – the input box is no longer aligned with Art.
To fix this, create a new field
Dummy Header
”
and add to the Columns of the Top sheet. If you haven’t already, uncheck show header against all the other blue pills (Category, Sub-Category, Index and Extra Row). The sheet should look like below, and what the Dummy Header has done is create an extra spacing at the bottom of the page, which compensates for the heading we don’t have at the top… and this is the reason for creating a table using a fake axis 🙂
Back on the dashboard, everything is aligned again.
… except when we select Bookcases … argghhh!
Add a blank object above the parameter. Set the padding to 0, and adjust the height to about 18 px – enough to bring the parameter in line. Create a new field
Show Blank
[pIndex]=1
and use this to control the visibility of the blank object – ie we only want the blank object to come into play when Bookcases is selected, and nothing else.
Click around every Sub-Category and hopefully the parameter box is aligned each time.
Final touches
On the Top sheet, remove row dividers, so the sheet just always looks empty.
On the Table sheet, hide the Index field (uncheck show header).
Add left outer padding of 10px to the vertical container that contains the Top sheet and the pDiscount parameter. This should mean some grey spacing appears between the table and the input field.
Adjust the width of the objects to suit BUT DON’T fiddle with the heights at all!
To stop the other discounts from ‘fading’ when a Sub-Category is clicked, create a new field
HL
‘HL’
and add to the Detail shelf on the Table sheet. Then on the dashboard, add a highlight dashboard action that on select of the Table sheet, targets the Table sheet with the HL field only. This essentially has the effect of highlighting all the fields, since the HL field is applicable to every row.
Phew! This took some time and a lot of fiddling to get right, and even then I know there’s every chance that you can’t quite get things to align just right, or publishing to Tableau Public and it all seems to shift … My published viz is here. Fingers crossed you’re successful!
Yoshi set this week’s challenge to build a page navigator, but there was so much more in it too, so this could be a bit lengthy 🙂
Note, I’m blogging based on the full ‘advanced’ challenge, to include an ‘apply all’ button as well. I built the following sheets to build this via and I’ll talk through the basics of each of them in turn
List of State names
Bar chart of total State sales
Line chart of monthly State sales
Jitter plot of State sales by order
Navigation page number buttons
Back arrow
Forward arrow
Filter summary
Apply button
Preparing the data
The data being presented is only applicable to the states of the US. In the latest versions of Superstore, information for both Canada and the US is included, so I started by adding a data source filter to include only Country/Region = United States (right click data source -> Add Data Source Filter).
Building the list of State names
Add State/Province to Rows, and apply a sort to sort by the field Salesdescending
Add State/Province to Text and to Colour. Adjust font to be bold and widen each row.
Create a new field
Index
INDEX()
and add to Rows before State/Province. Set the table calculation to be explicitly computing by State/Province. Index is essentially ranking each State from 1 to 49, as we’ve already sorted the listing of the states.
The requirement is to show up to 7 states on a page, so create
Page No
INT(((INDEX()-1) /7)) +1
Set to be a discrete field and add to Rows in front of Index. Again explicitly set the table calculation to compute by State/Province. This shows us which states are on which page.
We’re going to identify the page we’re on based on a parameter
pPageSelected
integer parameter defaulted to 1
Show the parameter, then create a new field
Is Selected Page
[pPageSelected] = [Page No]
Add to the Filter shelf. Initially select All. Then adjust/verify the table calculation is explicitly set to compute using State/Province. Then edit the filter to just show values that are True.
Adjust the pPageSelected parameter to test the functionality.
Hide the Page No, Index, and State/Province field from Rows (uncheck show header). Remove column dividers and don’t show the tooltip. Name this sheet States.
Building the bar chart
Note – to get the labelling and the spacing between the bars, this isn’t a ‘standard bar chart’. This is a technique that has been included in previous WOW challenges.
On a new sheet, add State/Province to Rows and sort by Sales descending. Add Sales to Columns and Add State/Province to Colour. Add a grey border to the bars (via Colour shelf).
Double click into Rows and manually type MIN(1.0) and change the Mark Type to bar. Add Sales to Size, then click on the Size button and adjust the size from Manual to Fixed and align right.
Add Sales to Label and align top left. Adjust the Tooltip. Add Index to the front of Rows and adjust the table calculation to be computing by State/Province.
Add Page No to the front of Rows and adjust to computing by State/Province.
Set the page to Fit Width. Show the pPageSelected parameter and add Is Selected Page to the Filter shelf and set to True. Verify the table calculation is set to compute using State/Province. If not adjust, and then recheck the filter is just showing True value.
Change the parameter to show page 2. You’ll notice the axis has now adjusted from 0 – $80,000 whereas on page 1 it went up to $450,000. We want to retain the axis scale across the pages. For this, create
Max Sales
WINDOW_MAX(SUM([Sales]))
Add this to the Detail shelf and ensure the table calculation is computing by State/Province.
Add a reference line to the bottom Sales axis (right click axis > add reference line) and set it to cover the entire table, using the average Max Sales value. Don’t show any label., tooltip or line
The axis will now have readjusted and display up to 450,000 regardless of the page you’re on.
Adjust the Min(1.0) axis to be fixed from -0.5 to 2 to add some white space around the bars.
Hide both axis, the Page No, Index and State/Province fields in Rows. Remove all gridlines, zero lines, axis rulers & tick marks. Remove column dividers. Add Row Banding.
Name the sheet Total Sales.
Building the line chart
On a new sheet, add State/Province to Rows and sort by Sales descending. Add Index and Page No to Rows too and adjust both table calcs to be explicitly computing by State/Province.
Add Order Date to Columns and adjust to be at the continuous Month/Year level (green pill ). You’ll notice the page numbering & indexes start to look odd – ie multiple states have same index.
Adjust the Order Date field to Show Missing Values, and our numbers are all aligned again.
If we just add Sales to Rows though, the indexes all mess up again due to the there being no values for some points.
To fix this create
Sales to Plot
ZN(LOOKUP(SUM([Sales]),0))
This returns 0 if there is no value for the date / state combination. Add this to Rows instead and adjust the table calculation so it is computing by both State/Province and Month Order Date.
Edit the Sales to Plot axis, so it is displays an independent axis range for each row or column – this makes the records near the bottom show peaks, rather than just a straight line.
Add Is Selected Page to the Filter shelf and set to True. Verify the table calculation is set to compute using State/Province. If not adjust, and then recheck the filter is just showing True value.
Add State/Province to Colour. Adjust Tooltip. Reduce the Size of the line.
Hide both axis, the Page No, Index and State/Province fields in Rows. Remove all gridlines, zero lines, axis rulers & tick marks. Remove column dividers. Add Row Banding.
Building the Jitter Plot
On a new sheet, add State/Province to Rows and sort by Sales descending. Add Index and Page No to Rows too and adjust both table calcs to be explicitly computing by State/Province. Add Sales to Columns and Order ID to Detail. Change mark type to circle.
Readjust the table calc settings of Page No& Index to also include Order ID, but also set the leval at State/Province.
Add State/Province to Colour, and reduce the opacity.
To get the marks to not overlap so much, create a new field
Jitter
RANDOM()
add add to Rows as a dimension. Again adjust the table calcs so Jitter is also included in the settings.
Add Max Sales to Detail and adjust the table calc settings to be computing over all 3 fields – State/Province, Jitter & Order ID.
Add a Reference line to the Sales axis across the entire table, using the average of Max Sales and don’t display any label/tooltip or line.
Add Is Selected Page to the Filter shelf and set to True. Verify the table calculation is set to compute using all fields and at the level of State/Province. If not adjust, and then recheck the filter is just showing True value.
Adjust the Tooltip. Hide both axis, the Page No, Index and State/Province fields in Rows. Remove all gridlines, zero lines, axis rulers & tick marks. Remove column dividers. Add Row Banding.
Name the sheet Sales by Order.
Building the Navigation Number Buttons
On a new sheet add State/Province to Rows and sort by Sales descending. Add Index to Rows and set the table calc to compute by State/Province. Move Index to Columns and State/Province to Detail.
Change the mark type to square and add Index to Label, aligning middle centre.
Create a new field
Colour – Page No
[Index] = [pPageSelected]
and add to the Colour shelf. Verify table calc is set to compute by State/Province. Adjust colours to suit and add a dark border.
We only want to show the indexes relating to the number of pages we have, which in turn is going to be based on what the data has been filtered by. So firstly we want to understand what the maximum number of pages is
Max Pages
IF SIZE()%7 = 0 THEN INT(SIZE()/7) ELSE INT(SIZE()/7)+1 END
If the number of results (ie number of states after filtering has occurred – the SIZE()) is exactly divisible by 7 (%7 = 0) then divide the results by 7 to get the max number of pages, otherwise, increment this value by 1. Eg if 14 results, it’ll be 2 pages, but 15 results will require 3 pages.
Now we know that, we can create
Pages to Show
INDEX() <= [Max Pages]
Add this to the Filter shelf.Set the True, Then adjust the table calc settings to be explicitly computing by State/Province for all nested calcs too.
Re-edit the filter to ensure it just shows True results.
Hide the Index from Rows and don’t show row/column dividers. Don’t show the tooltip. Name the sheet Page Nos.
Building the back arrow
On a new sheet, show the pPageSelected parameter, and change the mark type to Shape.
Create a new field
Show Page Back
[pPageSelected]>1
Add to the Shape shelf. If pPageSelected = 1, then False should display and adjust the shape to use a transparent shape (refer to this blog on how to set this up). Change the pPageSelected parameter to 2 and adjust the shape of the True option to be a filled arrow. Change colour to black.
On the dashboard ,we will need to define what page is being navigated to on click, so we need
Page Back
IF [pPageSelected]>1 THEN [pPageSelected]-1 END
Add this to the Detail shelf as a dimension.
Name the sheet Page Back.
Building the Forward Arrow
This is slightly more tricky than the back arrow, as we need to know how many pages are being displayed to know when we no longer need to show the arrow.
On a new sheet, add State/Province to Detail and sort by Sales descending. Remove the Lat/Long fields that automatically get added and change the mark type to shape. Create a new field
Show Page Forward
[pPageSelected]<[Max Pages]
and add to the Shape shelf. Set the table calc to be computing by State/Province explicitly. Set the mark type for ‘True’ to be a filled arrow and adjust colour to black.
Show the pPageSelected parameter and set to 7. Adjust the ‘False’ option to be a transparent shape.
Once again, on the dashboard, we will need to define what page is being navigated to on click, so we need
Page Forward
IF [pPageSelected]<[Max Pages] THEN [pPageSelected]+1 END
Add this to the Detail shelf as a dimension, and verify table calc is set to compute by State/Province explicitly.
We only want 1 arrow to show at most, so add Index to filter. Set to 1, then adjust table calc so it is set to compute by State/Province explicitly, and then re-edit filter to just select 1 again. Name the sheet Page Forward
Building the Filter Summary
On a new sheet add Category, Segment and Ship Mode to the Detail shelf and change the mark type to polygon..
Edit the Title of sheet and update as required
Name the sheet Filter Summary
Building the Apply Button
The basic outline for this is documented in this Tableau KB article here.
Create a calculated field
Apply
‘Apply Filters’
and add to Rows on a new sheet.
Add Category, Segment and Ship Mode to the Detail shelf and to the Filter shelf (set to All for each). Change the mark type to polygon. Right click the work ‘Apply’ in the column header and select hide field labels for rows.
Right click on the words ‘Apply Filters’ and select Format – set the shading of the header to teal.
As well as applying filters when the button is clicked, the page needs to reset to the first page. For this create
Reset Page 1
1
Add this to the Detail shelf as a dimension.
Adjust the size and colour of the font. Remove row dividers. Set the background of the worksheet to light grey. Remove the Tooltip. Name the sheet Apply Button.
Creating the dashboard
Now we have all the components, we can arrange the objects on a dashboard.
I added the 4 sheets making up the main viz int a horizontal container. All the sheets had the titles hidden, were set to fit entire view and had 0 padding, which gives the illusion of them all being a single viz. I added some outer padding to the container itself.
I used another horizontal container positioned above this one to add text boxes to give the viz headings.
Another horizontal container was placed above the title one. IN the left hand side I placed the Filter Summary viz., and in the right, I added a vertical container.
The vertical container had a blank and then a horizontal container underneath the blank object. The horizontal container then stored the page back, the page nos and the page forward sheets.
Another horizontal container was place above all this and I add the Apply Button sheet. I then moved the 3 filter objects automatically added to the sheet into this horizontal container too. I set the background of this container to light grey
Adding the interactivity
Multiple dashboard actions are needed to get the page to function as required. Now, I did have issues getting somethings to behave as I wanted, and I believe it was something to do with the order in which the actions were added. I can’t prove this… all I know is that I spent a long time trying to figure out why the filters I selected were getting reset when I pressed a page number, but removing all actions and adding again worked…
You need these actions
Apply Filters
Filter action that on select of the Apply Button sheet, targets all other sheets. Clearing the selection keeps filtered values. Category, Segment and Ship Mode should be passed through as selected fields.
Set Page No from Square
Parameter action that on select of the Page Nos sheet, sets the pPageSelected parameter passing in the value from the Index field that is not aggregated. Clearing the selection, keeps the current value.
Reset to Page 1
Parameter action that on select of the Page Nos sheet, sets the pPageSelected parameter passing in the value from the Reset Page 1 field that is not aggregated. Clearing the selection, keeps the current value.
Prev Page From Arrow
Parameter action that on select of the Page Back sheet, sets the pPageSelected parameter passing in the value from the Page Back field that is not aggregated. Clearing the selection, keeps the current value.
Next Page From Arrow
Parameter action that on select of the Page Forward sheet, sets the pPageSelected parameter passing in the value from the Page Forward field that is not aggregated. Clearing the selection, keeps the current value.
With these actions, you should be able to test the functionality, but you will find some fields become greyed out/ need clicking twice. We need to automatically ‘deselect’ them on click. For this I applied the basic principles discussed here.
Create new calculated fields
True
TRUE
False
FALSE
Add both these fields to the Detail shelf of the Page Back, Page Forward, Page Nos, and Apply Button sheets. Then add a dashboard filter action for each sheet.
Deselect Apply
On select of the Apply Button sheet on the dashboard, target the Apply Button sheet itself (ie not the object on the dashboard), passing the selected fields of True = False. Show all values when the selection is cleared.
Repeat the above for the Page Back, Page Forward and Page Nos sheets.
Hopefully with all this you have a fully functioning dashboard. My published viz is here.
For those of you who are regular readers of my blog, you’ll know that working with maps and spatial data isn’t something I do often, so challenges like this always start with me feeling a little bit daunted by what’s required.
Side Note – I originally built this challenge using Tableau Desktop v2024.1, but encountered some issues with getting the data on the map updated as I made changes to the selections – the selection changes were visible on other tabular sheets, just not on the map, unless I forcibly refreshed the data source. Recreating in Tableau Desktop v2023.3 was fine. And the version published from v2024.1 to Tableau Public also worked fine on Tableau Public. I have raised this to Tableau via Slack channels I have access to, so if you experience similar issues, that may be why…
Understanding the data and the requirement
I initially spent some time trying to understand how the data matched up to the information I could see on the viz, specifically what was being listed in the Arrival Station selection box.
I found, every Station was associated with a Line, but the Station could be associated to more than one Line. Every Line was associated to a Branch, but again, the Line could be associated with more that one Branch. Picking some specific Stations as an example…
Amersham Station is associated to 1 Line (Metropolitan) which is associated to 1 Branch (Metropolitan Line Branch 0) – so Amersham is associated to 1 Branch
Bank Station is asscociated to 3 Lines (Central, Northern, Waterloo) which in turn are only associated to 1 Branch each – so Bank is associated to 3 Branches
Acton Town Station is associated to 2 Lines (District and Piccadilly); District is associated to 1 Branch which Piccadilly is associated to 2 Branches – so therefore Acton Town is associated to 3 Branches.
The list of possible Arrival Stations is based on the set of Stations associated to any of the Branches the Starting Station is associated to.
So for Amersham, we’re looking for all those Stations on the metropolitan branch 0 Branch
For Bank we’re looking at Stations on the central 0, northern 1 and waterloo 0 Branches
and for Acton Town, we’re looking at stations on the district 0, piccadilly 0 and piccadilly 1 Branches.
So first we need to find a way to
Identify the Starting Station
Identify the Branches the Starting Station is associated with
Identify the Stations associated to these Branches.
Identifying the Arrival Stations
To start with, we need to capture the starting station, which we can do with a parameter
pStart
String parameter which is a List object that populates from the Station field when the work book is opened, and is defaulted to Bank.
For the rest, we’ll build up what we need step by step, so on a new sheet add Branch and Station to Rows and display the pStart parameter.
I’m first going to identify the possible Branches associated to the pStart station, and ‘spread’ this across all the stations in that Branch
Possible Branches
{FIXED [Branch] : MIN(IF [Station] = [pStart] THEN [Branch] END)}
If the Station in the row matches that in pStart, then get the Branch for that row, then ‘spread’ that across all the rows with the same Branch (via the {FIXED [Branch]: …. } statement.
Add this onto Rows and you’ll see the name of the Branch is listed against all the stations associated to the branch that the pStart station is related to
Now we can define a field to capture the stations that have a Possible Branch
Possible Destination Stations
IF NOT ISNULL([Possible Branches]) THEN [Station] END
Add this to Rows too, and stations should only be listed against those rows with a Possible Branch
We can use this field to then create a Set. Right click on Possible Destination Stations > Create > Set
Destination Stations Set
Select Epping from the list displayed
Add the field to the Colour shelf (the Epping row should be coloured IN the set). Then click on the pill on the Colour shelf and select Show Set
The list of possible options in the Destination Stations Set should be displayed. Change the control type to be single value dropdown
Now test the behaviour of the set by changing the value of the pStart parameter eg select Amersham. Epping remains selected but is now contained in ( ) as it’s not a valid value. The other options to select though should all now have changed.
This is the ‘relative values’ only type behaviour required.
Determining the number of stops
While we’re working with a ‘check sheet’, let’s finalise the other calculations we’re going to need to build the final viz; firstly the number of stops between the two selected stations. We’re going to use the Path Order field to help with this.
Firstly, if it’s appearing as a string in the data set, convert it to a numeric whole number field, then add it to Rows between Branch and Station It should be a discrete dimension (blue disaggregated field). A unique number should be listed against each record; this record is effectively an index defining the order of the Stations on the Branch.
Let’s reset the station parameters to start at Bank and end at Epping These stations are on the Central 0 Branch, and Bank is at Path Order 47 and Epping at 61
The number of stations is the absolute difference between these two numbers. To determine this, we need to capture the Path Order for the starting station against every row.
Now, it’s possible that the stations are on multiple branches, so we need to make sure we have a handle on the Branch we care about
Selected Branch
{FIXED: MIN(IF [Destination Stations Set] THEN [Branch] END)}
Get the Branch associated to the selected destination station, and then ‘spread this’ across all rows.
Add this to Rows.
Now we can get the number associated to the pStart station on the Selected Branch, and spread this across every row
Starting Station Path No
INT({FIXED: MIN(IF [pStart] = [Station] AND [Branch] = [Selected Branch] THEN [Path Order] END)})
as well as
Destination Station Path No
INT({FIXED: MIN(IF [Destination Stations Set] AND [Branch]=[Selected Branch] THEN [Path Order] END)})
Add both of these as discrete dimensions to Rows
Then we can create
No. of Stops
ABS([Starting Station Path No] – [Destination Station Path No])
which is just the absolute difference between the two
Identifying the stations between start & end
The final piece of the puzzle, that we’re going to need is just to isolate all the Stations on the Branch that lie between the pStart station and the station in the Destinations Station Set. As this is going to be used to highlight the section of line on the map, I called this
Highlight Line
[Path Order] >= MIN([Starting Station Path No],[Destination Station Path No]) AND [Path Order] <= MAX([Starting Station Path No], [Destination Station Path No])
Here I utilised the rarely used (at least in my case) feature of the MIN and MAX functions, that allows you to supply multiple values and return a single value – the MIN or the MAX of the options provided. So in this case, I want to flag all the rows as being true if the Path Order sits between the Starting Station Path No and the Destination Station Path No. Add this onto Colour instead of the In/Out set and we can see all the rows between the two endpoints are highlighted.
Test by trying different start and ends, so you’re happy how the behaviour is working.
Building the tube map
This did take a bit of time to get right, and I did end up referring to Tableau’s own KB article on creating paths between origin and destination to get some pointers (although I didn’t follow it to the letter…)
Create a new sheet, then create a spatial field
Station Location
MAKEPOINT([Right Latitude], [Right Longitude])
and double click to automatically add the field to the new sheet. Longitude and Latitude fields are automatically generated and a basic layout is immediately visible
Add Branch to Detail then change the mark type to Line.
Add Path Order to Path. The lines should all now join up as expected
Delete all the text from the Tooltip, but ensure Show Tooltip is still enabled.
Set the background of the map to dark (Map menu > Background Maps > Dark). Adjust the Colour of the line to whatever suits (I used #01e6ff)
Add a 2nd map layer – drag Station Location onto the canvas and drop when the Add a marks layer option appears
Change the Mark type of this 2nd marks card to circle, then add Station and Line to the Detail shelf. Change the colour to same as the line and adjust the Size if required. Update the Tooltip as required.
To highlight the stations between those selected, create a new spatial field, just for those stations
Selected Stations
IF [Highlight Line] THEN [Station Location] END
Drag this on to the canvas to make a 3rd marks layer.
Add Branch to Detail, change the Mark type to line and add Path Order to Path. Change the Colour to something contrasting (I chose #ff00ff). Adjust the Size so the line is a bit thicker than the other lines.
To label the start & end station, create
Label – Stations
IF [Station] = [pStart] OR [Destination Stations Set] THEN [Station] END
Add to the Label shelf, and change to be an attribute (rather than dimension) so it doesn’t break up the line. Adjust the font accordingly. I set it to Tableau Medium 8pt bold in white, aligned top centre. All the labels to overlap other marks.
Show the pStart parameter and the Destination Stations Set list (just right click on the field in the data pane on the left and select Show Set – this is now an option as there are fields already on the viz that reference that set). Test the display by changing the options.
Add No of Stops to the Detail shelf, then update the title to reference the field. Set the font to white and align right.
Format the background of the whole worksheet to black, remove row/column dividers. Hide the null indicator field, and remove all map options (Map menu > map options, uncheck all the fields).
The viz should now be ready.
Add it onto a dashboard, which is also formatted to have a black background. Display the pStart parameter and the Destination Stations Set as floating objects. Update the title of each and format the latter so it has a black shading to the body of the control. Remove the ‘all’ option from the arrival station control (customise > uncheck show ‘all’ value).
My published version is here. Hopefully I’ve built it in a way that supports the impending Part 2…
For this week’s challenge, Kyle aimed to solve a problem that he discussed with a #TC24 attendee while waiting in line for a session. How to show solid (categorical) and graduating (sequential) colours within the same chart.
For this we’re going to create 2 sheets, one displaying Sales and one for Profit Ratio.
Data Preparation
As the requirements referenced the use of the Manufacturer field, I connected to the Superstore Sales.tds file I had stored locally, rather than the .xls file, as Manufacturer doesn’t exist in the xls file.
Once connected, I also added a data source filter where Sub-Category = Storage (right click on data source > edit data source filter).
Building the Sales bar chart
Add Manufacturer to Rows and Sales to Columns and sort descending. Format Sales to be $ with 0 dp, and show mark labels.
Create a new field
Colour – Sales Bracket
IF SUM([Sales]) > 15000 THEN ‘>$15k’ ELSEIF SUM(Sales) >= 4000 THEN ‘$4k-$15k’ ELSE ‘<$4k’ END
Then create another field
Colour – Sales Range
IF SUM([Sales])<4000 THEN SUM([Sales])*-1 END
By default, this will be a continuous field as it returns a numeric value. But when having multiple fields on the Colour shelf, which is what we’re going to do, the fields need to be discrete. So convert Colour – Sales Range to discrete (right click on field).
You also might be wondering why we’re multiplying the value by -1. This is to ensure the values when listed in the colour legend are sorted in the way we want. This will become clearer shortly.
Add Colour – Sales Range to the Detail shelf, then click on the icon to the left of the pill, and select the Colour icon, to add this pill to the Colour shelf along with the Colour – Sales Bracket field.
Re-order the pills so Colour – Sales Range is listed first.
Your viz will look something like this
To change the colours without having to go through each legend option individually, edit the colour legend and choose a sequential colour palette that suits. In my case I used a custom one I had installed, but you could just opt for the Red-Gold that should be installed by default.
Click the Assign Palette button, and Tableau will automatically assign the colours in the graduated sequence, which is why the ordering of the entries matters. The colour legend lists the entries in ascending order, and as we want to display the values in descending order, multiplying by -1 reverses the order for the colour legend.
Manually set colours for the NULL, >$15k and NULL, $4k-$15k options. Add a pale grey border around the marks (via the Colour shelf). Then adjust the tooltip, remove the Manufacturer column heading label, hide the axis and remove all gridlines, zero lines, axis rulers, row/column dividers, and update the title.
Note – I chose to re-order how the two colour pills were listed on the Colour shelf so that there was a more noticeable difference between the colour chosen for the $4k-$15k range vs the first entry for the <$4k range.
Building the Profit Ratio bar chart
For this you will need similar fields
Colour – PR Bracket
IF [Profit Ratio] > 0.15 THEN ‘>15%’ ELSEIF [Profit Ratio] >= 0 THEN ‘0-15%’ ELSE ‘<0%’ END
and
Colour – PR Range
IF [Profit Ratio]<0 THEN [Profit Ratio]*-1 END
and Profit Ratio should be formatted to % with 1 dp.
You then just need to go through similar steps to that described above.
Building the dashboard
I used a horizontal container to position the two sheets in, side-by side. I set the outer padding of each sheet to 0 and inner padding to 5 and set to fit entire view. Between the sheets I added a blank object which I set to have outer padding of 0. I set the background colour of this blank object to a mid grey, then set the width to be 2, which produces the thin divider line.
To enable the highlighting between the sheets ‘on click’ I simply selected all fields from the highlight menu button.
A relatively short blog this week, but a great concept that’s worth knowing. My published viz is here.
For this week’s challenge I expanded on my challenge from week 13. So for this solution guide, I’ll be starting with the workbook I built for week 13 and adjusting as required. You can either build on your own solution if you took part, start with my workbook, or rebuild from scratch (my solution guide to week 13 is here).
Based on the hint I provided in the challenge, I’m going to build this with 3 sheets; one sheet to display the bar charts per year for the specific Sub-Category, then one sheet to display the segmented bars up to the selected Sub-Category and one sheet to display the segmented bars below the selected Sub-Category.
For this we need to assign an index to each row of data.
Sub-Cat Index
INDEX()
Make this discrete and add it to Rows in front of Sub-Category and adjust the table calculation so that it computes using Sub-Category only. Each row should be numbered from 1 – 17.
Creating the top & bottom bar chart
We will need to be able to identify the name of the Sub-Category selected and the associated index value. We’ll use parameters to store this information
pSelectedSubCat
string parameter defaulted to ” <empty string>
and
pIndex
integer parameter defaulted to a very large number, in this case I chose 10,000 (basically a number higher than the number of dimensions listed.
Show the parameters, and manually type into pSelectedSubCat the word ‘Copiers’ and into the pIndex type 8 (the index associated with Copiers).
We want to display an arrow indicator based on whether a Sub-Category is selected or not. We need
Arrow Indicator
IF [pSelectedSubCat] = [Sub-Category] THEN ‘▼’ ELSE ‘►’ END
Add this onto the Rows after the Sub-Category pill. Readjust the table calculation of the Sub-Cat Index so it is computing by Arrow Indicator as well.
We only want to show up to the selected Sub-Category
Show Top
[Sub-Cat Index]<=[pIndex]
Add this to the Filter shelf and set to True. Verify the table calculation is also computing by Sub-Category and Arrow Indicator only. Hide the Sub-Cat Index column and format the arrows so they are coloured brown and aligned top centre. Name this sheet Top or similar
Duplicate the sheet.
To show the bottom half of the chart create
Show Bottom
[Sub-Cat Index]>[pIndex]
Remove Show Top from Filter and add Show Bottom instead. Set to True. Again verify the table calculation is computing by Sub-Category and Arrow Indicator only. Call this sheet Bottom or similar.
Building the year bar chart
On a new sheet add Order Date to Rows and Sales to Columns. Change mark type to bar. Adjust Colour and size
Create a new field
Is Selected Sub-Cat
[Sub-Category] = [pSelectedSubCat]
Add to Filter and set to True.
Add another copy of Sales to Columns, then double click into the pill, and manually wrap the text with WINDOW_MAX(….. )
On the Window_Max marsk card, reduce the size to as small as possible and add a white border (via the Colour shelf). Add Sales to the Label shelf and adjust the font to be smaller and coloured brown.
Make the chart dual axis and synchronise the axis. Remove measure Names from the All marks card, and right click on the top axis and move marks to back. Hide both axes, remove row/column dividers and gridlines/zero lines. Adjust the font colour and size of the row labels, and remove the row header.
Add Sales to the Tooltip shelf of the All marks card, and add a quick table calculation of percent of total. Format to 1 dp. Add Sub-Category to the Tooltip shelf too, and then adjust the Tooltip of the All marks card to suit. Name the sheet Years or similar.
Building the dashboard
On the existing dashboard, add a vertical container, and then add the Top, Years and Bottom charts within it.
Remove the chart titles.
You’ll notice that the bar for bookcases in the bottom chart is longer than the bar for copiers in the top chart. We don’t want this. To correct we need
Max Sales Axis
{MAX({FIXED [Sub-Category]:SUM([Sales])})}
Navigate to the Top sheet and add Max Sales Axis to the Detail shelf of the All marks card
Create a new parameter
pMaxAxis
float parameter defaulted to 500,000
On the Bottom sheet, show the Sales axis, then edit the axis and adjust so the axis range is Custom from 0 to pMaxAxis
Hide the Sales axis again
Adding the Interactivity
We will use parameter actions to set the various parameters on click, but we need to ensure the viz will ‘expand’ but also fully ‘collapse’. So we need
Sub-Cat to Pass
IF [Is Selected Sub-Cat] THEN ” ELSE [Sub-Category] END
Index to Pass
IF MIN([Is Selected Sub-Cat]) THEN 10000 ELSE [Sub-Cat Index] END
ie if we’re selecting the Sub-Category that’s already been selected then we need to ‘reset’ back to the start state.
Add both of these fields to the Detail shelf of the All marks card on both the Top and Bottom sheets.
Change Sub-Cat to Pass to be an Attribute so that it doesn’t impact the existing table calc settings, and verify Index to Pass is computing by Sub-Category and Arrow Indicator.
Back to the dashboard, and add the following dashboard action
Select SubCategory
On select of the Top or Bottom sheets, set the pSelectedSubCat parameter, passing in the value from the Sub-Cat To Pass field. When clearing the selection, reset to ” <empty string>
Set Index
On select of the Top or Bottom sheets, set the pIndex parameter, passing in the value from the Index To Pass field aggregated at the minimum level. When clearing the selection, reset to 10,000
Set Axis
On select of the Top sheet, set the pMaxAxis parameter passing in the value from the Max Sales for Axis field. When cleared reset to 50,000
You should now have a functioning chart. You may need to adjust padding of the objects and modify width of headers on the charts to get the alignment as required. Update the chart title as required as well.
Week 18 2024, was the #Data24 TC edition, which we shared live during our session at TC. It was so wonderful to see so many people at our session, and to be able to meet one of our new coaches, Yusuke Nakanishi, in person.
The data provided contained a row per respondent indicating the hours slept and their responses to 4 questions. For this viz, we only care about the data associated to the Wake Up Well Rested and Sleep Hours fields.
The hours of sleep is grouped into custom bins
Hours Bin
IF [Sleep Hours] <= 4 THEN “<= 4” ELSEIF [Sleep Hours] >= 10 THEN “10+” ELSE STR([Sleep Hours]) END
On a new sheet add Hours Bin to Rows and Wake up Well rested to Columns and Sleep Survey.csv (Count) to Text. Manually adjust the ordering of the Hours Bin field, so it is displayed in the correct sequence. This gives us the number of respondents per bin per response.
For the y-axis, we’re looking to display the % of total of respondents for each bin
Add this into the table, and adjust the table calculation to ensure it is computing by Wake up Well rested only
This should mean each row adds up to 100% (you can check by displaying row grand totals).
Now for the x-axis, we need to plot a point based on how wide each bar needs to be. This width is based on the total number of respondents in each Hours Bin
Count People per Bin
{FIXED [Hours Bin]: COUNT([Sleep Survey.csv])}
Add to the table, and you should see the values are the same for each Hours Bin regardless of the response column.
But if we plotted at these points, we won’t get the points in the right place, we need a further step… we need to plot at the cumulative values. So add a Running Total Quick Table Calculation to the Count People per Bin field, that is set to compute by the Hours Bin only.
We now have the core fields we need to build the chart.
Building the Marimekko chart
On a new sheet, add Hours Bin to Detail. Add % of Total to Rows and Count People per Bin to Rows. Manually sort the Hours Bin field so that it is logically ordered.
Add Wake up Well Rested to Colour and adjust accordingly, and manually reorder the values in the colour legend.
Adjust the table calculation of the % of Total field, so that is computing by Wake up Well rested only – all the bars should extend to 100%
Then adjust the table calculation of the Count People per Bin Running Total so that its is computing by Hours Bin only – the bars should shift, into their expected logical position based on the Hours Bin ordering – ie <=4 is the first bar and 10+ is the last.
Now to get the bars to be wider, add Count People per Bin to the Size shelf, then as we have measures (green pills) on both the rows and column shelves, we can set the size to be Fixed and Right aligned, to get the display we require
Hide the Tooltips, hide the bottom axis, and remove the title of the y-axis, and you should have the required display.
When I added to the dashboard, I just used text boxes carefully positioned to simulate the labelling of the x-axis, and then I floated text boxes on top of the chart to label the sections.
As community month draws to a close, long term participant Deborah Simmonds set us a map based challenge based on TC23 data.
I chose to use the data that was associated to the solution workbook, rather than take the direct source, so bear that in mind if you’re following along.
Examining the data
As there were quite a few fields in the data set which were directly related to the solution, I just wanted to familiarise myself with what I was working with initially. Essentially we have a row per person (Names Full) with the hotel they stayed at (Label Hotels), and how many steps (Steps) they took each day (Date). The details of the convention centre (Label Convention Centre) exist against every row.
The LAT and LON fields contain the location details of the hotels, while Convention LAT and Convention LON contain the location details of the Mandalay Bay Convention Centre.
Names Full already had the logic applied to create names for users based on their User ID if the Name was NULL, so I didn’t need to do anything for that requirement.
We only want to consider records relating to those people who attended ‘In Person’ and who had provided a hotel. Consequently I added the following as data source filters (right click data source -> edit data source filters) to exclude unrequired records from the whole analysis.
Did you attend in person or virtual? : In person
Label Hotels : excludes NULL
Building the BANs
The BANs have 3 metrics – the number of attendees, the number of steps, and the distance in metres (based on the logic that 1 step = 0.75m).
Attendees
COUNTD([User ID])
Distance (m)
[Steps] * 0.75
On a new sheet add Date to Filter as a range of dates and show the filter control. Add Attendees, Steps and Distance (m) so the measures are displayed in a row.
Change the mark type to shape and add a transparent shape (see this blog for more details). Add Measure Names to Label too and then adjust label accordingly and align centrally.
Hide the header row (uncheck show header), remove row dividers and don’t show tooltips. Name the sheet BANs or similar. Adjust the date slider and the values should adjust.
Building the bar chart (viz in tooltip)
On a new sheet add Names Full to Rows and Steps to Columns. Apply the same Date filter (from the BANs worksheet, set the filter to apply to this new worksheet too).
The viz needs to display a reference line showing the overall average of the steps per person across the selected dates, regardless as to whether the records are filtered to a hotel or not.
What do I mean by this… well if I add a standard average reference line to the viz above, the average for the whole table is 78.2k steps.
If I now filter this by a Label Hotel, then the average changes, and I don’t want that – I still want to see 78.2k.
But the average does need to change if the date range changes
This took a bit of effort to get right, but I needed
Format this as a number with 1dp set to the K (thousandths) level
and I also needed to add the Date field on the Filter shelf to context.
So reverting back to the initial view of the bar chart… right click on the Date filter and Add to Context. Add Avg Steps to the Detail shelf. Then add a reference line (right click the Steps axis > add reference line) that displays the Avg Steps with a dark dashed line with a custom label.
Format the reference line to position the label at the top and adjust the font style.
To colour the bars we need
Steps above average
SUM([Steps]) >=[Avg Steps]
Add this to the Colour shelf, change the colours and adjust the opacity to about 75%.
Hide the column heading, and adjust the font size of the names and the axis. Name the sheet Bars or similar.
Building the initial map
I decided to create 2 maps – one for the initial display of all the hotels and the convention centre, and then one for the selected location and buffer.
To plot the hotels on the map I created
Hotel Locations
MAKEPOINT([LAT],[LON])
On a new sheet, add this to the Detail shelf. A map will automatically generate with Latitude and Longitude fields. Change the Mark Type to Circle, then add Label Hotels to Label and align left middle. Edit the map Background Layers (via the map menu) to add Streets, Highways etc to the display
Add Steps, Attendees and Distance(m) to the Tooltip. Add Attendees to the Size shelf and adjust the size to vary by range
Apply the Date filter from the other worksheets to this sheet too. For the tooltip, We need to know about the min and max dates in the range selected. Create
Min Date
MIN([Date])
and custom format simply as dd (the day only)
Also create
Max Date
MAX([Date])
and custom form this as dd mmm yyyy
Add both of these fields to the Tooltip shelf. Adjust the text in the Tooltip and add a reference to the Bars sheet as a viz in tooltip (Insert > sheets > ). Adjust the height of the sheet to be 900.
The viz in tooltip should now display nicely on hover
To add the mark for the convention centre, we need
Conf Location
MAKEPOINT([Convention LAT], [Convention LON])
Drag this onto the map, and drop it when Add A Marks Layer displays
This will create a 2nd marks card. Change the mark type to shape and select the Tableau sparkle image if you have it stored. If not, just use another shape or circle (coloured differently).
Add Attendees to Size and add Label Convention Centre to Label and align left middle. Add Steps and Distance(m) to Tooltip and adjust to suit. Hide all the map options (map menu -> map options -> uncheck all the selections). Name the sheet Map – Initial or similar.
Building the ‘selected’ map
This will use parameters to identify what’s been selected – a hotel or the convention centre, so we need
pSelectedHotel
string parameter defaulted to empty string
and
pSelectedCentre
string parameter defaulted to empty string, just like above
The intention is that either both these parameters will be empty or only one will be populated.
To plot on a map we need
Selected Hotel Location
IF [pSelectedHotel] = [Label Hotels] AND [pSelectedCentre] =” THEN [Hotel Locations] END
and
Selected Centre Location
IF [pSelectedHotel] = ” AND [pSelectedCentre] =[Label Convention Centre] THEN [Conf Location] END
Duplicate the initial map sheet and name it Map – Selection. Show the two parameters and verify both are empty.
On the Hotel Locations marks card, drag the Selected Hotel Location field and drop it straight onto the Hotel Locations field. On the Conf Location marks card, drag Selected Centre Location and drop straight onto the Conf Locations field. Your map shouldn’t display anything…
Manually type ‘Luxor’ into the pSelectedHotel parameter. A mark should display. Adjust the Label of the Selected Hotel marks card so it is larger font, and aligned top middle. Set the colour to orange and remove the halo.
Remove the text from the pSelectedHotel parameter and manually type ‘Mandalay Bay Convention Centre’ into the pSelectedCentre parameter. A mark should display. Adjust the Label of the Selected Centre marks card so it is larger font, and aligned top middle. Remove the halo from the Colour shelf.
To create the buffer circle, we need to define the buffer radius, which is the attendee steps in metres.
Buffer Distance (m)
{FIXED : SUM(IF [pSelectedHotel] = [Label Hotels] OR [pSelectedCentre] = [Label Convention Centre] THEN [Steps] END)} * 0.75
and then we create
Buffer
IF [pSelectedHotel] <> ” THEN BUFFER([Selected Hotel Location], [Buffer Distance (m)], ‘m’) ELSEIF [pSelectedCentre] <> ” THEN BUFFER([Selected Centre Location], [Buffer Distance (m)], ‘m’) END
Add this as another marks layer.
Reduce the opacity on the colour shelf to 0% and set the border to be orange. We don’t want to allow any interactivity with the buffer, so disable selection of the layer, and also move down so it is listed at the bottom of the 3 map layers.
Show the Date filter control and adjust the dates to see the buffer adjusting. Test the behaviour with a hotel too (you may find you want to add some more detail to the background layers of the map).
We will use dynamic zone visibility on the dashboard to decide whether to display the initial or the selected map. To control this, we need
Show Initial Map
[pSelectedCentre]=” and [pSelectedHotel]=”
and
Show Selected Map
[pSelectedHotel]<>” OR [pSelectedCentre]<>”
Adding the interactivity
Create a dashboard, add the BANs and both the map sheets.
Create a dashboard parameter action
Set Hotel
On selection of the Initial Map set the pSelectedHotel parameter passing in the value from the Label Hotels field. When the selection is cleared, reset to ”.
and another parameter action
Set Conv Centre
On selection of the Initial Map set the pSelectedCentre parameter passing in the value from the Label Convention Centre field. When the selection is cleared, reset to ”.
Select the Initial Map object, and from the Layout tab, set the visibility to be controlled by the Show Initial Map field
Then select the Selected Map object, and set the visibility to be controlled by the Show Selected Map field. Only one of the maps should display based on the interactivity.
This is all the core functionality of the map, but Deborah threw in a couple of extra asks…
Building the Distance Legend
We’re using map layers again for this. Create a new field
Zero
MAKEPOINT(0,0)
Add it to the Detail shelf of a new worksheet to create the 1st map layer, then immediately add another map layer, by adding another instance of Zero to the sheet.
Switch the axis, and the map will disappear, and you’ll have axis displayed instead. Change the mark type of the first map layer to circle and colour orange.
Change the mark type of the 2nd map later to circle and colour pale grey with an orange border. Increase the Size of this circle so it appears as a ring around the filled orange circle. Move the 2nd marks layer down to the bottom and disable both marks from being selectable.
Hide the axis and gridlines/zero lines.
Right click on the central circle and annotate point. Don’t enter any text into the annotation box, just click OK. You should get the annotation box with a line.
Move the box so the connector line is horizontal, then format the annotation so the shading is set to none and the line is formatted to be a darker dashed line. Update the title of the sheet.
Building the Size Legend
Apply a similar process to that described above, but this time create 3 mark layers where the mark type is an open circle shape which is coloured blue, and for each layer, the size of the circle is slightly bigger. This time show the zero lines.
Set the background of both the legend sheets to be none (ie transparent), then add them as floating objects onto the dashboard. Use the control visibility feature to only display the Size legend when Show Initial Map is set, and only display the Distance legend when Show Selected Map is set. Set a background against each object of light grey, that is then set to 80% transparency.
With this you should have a completed challenge. My published version is here.
Community Month continues and this week Hideaki Yamamoto provided us with this 1 sheet view. He very kindly posted requirements aimed at different levels, but I’m writing the solution for the Level 1 version.
Identifying the Current & Previous FY
The dashboard is all focused on reporting over financial years, and Tableau very kindly allows us to set the start month of the FY, in this case April. Right click on Order Date -> Default Properties -> Fiscal Year Start
If you now double click on Order Date to add it to a new sheet, you automatically get the discrete YEAR part of the Order Date displayed with the relevant FY label.
Expand the field to show the quarter & month, then create an explicit field
Year Order Date
YEAR([Order Date])
convert to discrete, and format as a number with 0dp and no thousand separators.
Add this to the display too and you can see how the dates behave…. every FY start with the month of April, but the FY label is based on the year of the last month (ie March), so FY2024 contains data from April 2023 to March 2024.
Throughout the challenge though, the FY is displayed in the FYXXXX-XX format, and there doesn’t seem to be a way to get a handle on the formatting Tableau applies when the fiscal year is set. So I had to come up with a calculated field to get the FY to display as I wanted.
FY Display
IF MONTH([Order Date])>=4 THEN “FY” + STR(YEAR([Order Date])) + “-” + RIGHT(STR(YEAR([Order Date])+1),2) ELSE “FY” + STR(YEAR([Order Date])-1) + “-” + RIGHT(STR(YEAR([Order Date])),2) END
Add this to the display (remove the quarter field too).
With this we can identify the maximum FY display (as there’s a requirement not to hardcode anything).
Max FY
{MAX([FY Display])}
Add this to the table
Now we can create a parameter which will display the values of FY Display and automatically show the latest/maximum value by default. Right click on FY Display -> Create -> Parameter
pSelectedFY
string parameter that sets the value to Max FY when workbook opened and lists the value when the workbook opens from the FY Display field.
To identify what records relate to the current or previous year, we create
FY End Year
INT(RIGHT([FY Display],2))
which returns the last two numbers of the FY Display string. Make this a dimension. Then we can get whether the row is related to the FY selected in the parameter by
Is Current Year
INT(RIGHT([pSelectedFY],2)) = [FY End Year]
and
Is Previous Year
INT(RIGHT([pSelectedFY],2))-1 = [FY End Year]
Add the fields onto the table, and show the pSelectedFY parameter
Adjust the parameter to see how the values change. We can now create a field that we can use to filter the data to the rows we’ll need – ie just those for the current year or the previous year
Dates to Display
[Is Current Year] OR [Is Previous Year]
It feels like I created a lot of fields just to get to this point…. there’s probably a more efficient route, but that’s just where my logical next step went to as I built out what I thought I’d need…
Building the basic chart
On a new sheet, add Dates to Display to Filter and set to True.
Add Order Date to Columns and set to the discrete Month level (blue pill). Add Sales to Rows. Add Is Current Year to Colour and adjust accordingly. Re-order so True is listed first.
We need to split the chart by Region, but the headings need to be adjusted based on which region is going to be selected. The selected Region will be stored in a parameter
pSelectedRegion
string parameter defaulted to ‘East’
Show this parameter on the sheet and then create a new field
Region to Display
IF [Region] = [pSelectedRegion] THEN ‘▼’ + [Region] ELSE ‘►’ + [Region] END
Add this field in front of MONTH(Order Date) on Columns and Sort based on Region ascending.
We need to show the cumulative sales. We can do this with a quick table calculation on the Sales pill, but sometimes like to create an explicit field, so I know exactly what pill is what
Running Sum Sales
RUNNING_SUM(SUM([Sales]))
This is the same code that a quick table calculation will generate. Format to $ with 0 dp.
Replace the Sales field on Rows with Running Sum Sales and adjust the table calculation setting, so it is computing by Month of Order Date only. Add Order Date to Detail too.
Now, the required solution at Level 3 shows the line (above), the area underneath coloured, and circular markers on the line where the end point is larger than the rest. This ‘feels’ like 3 different marks – line, area and circle, but we can’t do more than 2 mark types with dual axis….
…but we can ‘fake’ it. Now getting the large circle to display was actually part of the challenge that got me stumped, and that I ended up applying at the end after mulling it over with my colleague, Sam Parsons. For the purposes of this blog though, it’s easier to add the relevant logic now.
We want to identify the value associated to the last point for the current year
Last Sales Value
IF LAST() = 0 AND ATTR([Is Current Year]) THEN RUNNING_SUM(SUM([Sales])) END
Drag this onto the Running Sum Sales axis, and drop it when the two green columns appear
This will automatically add Measure Names and Measure Values to the sheet. Move Measure Names from Columns to Detail. Change the mark type explicitly to line. Adjust the table calculation settings of the Last Sales Value field so it is computing by Month of Order Date only. You should notice the end of each ‘current year’ line has a little circle. It’s still a line mark type, but as it’s only 1 point it has no other points to join up to, so looks lie a circle.
We want it to be more prominent though, so move Measure Names from Detail to Size. Reorder the size the fields on the size legend, so the Last Sales Value is bigger. Then from the Colour shelf, add markers to lines
Add another instance of Running Sum Sales to the Rows shelf. This will create a 2nd marks card. Change the mark type of this to Area. Remove Measure Names from this marks card, and adjust the Colour to have an opacity of around 30%. Turn stack marks off (Analysis Menu ->Stack Marks -> off). Set the chart to dual axis and synchronise axis.
Hide the right hand axis, and rename the title of the left hand axis. Format the axis to be $ with 0 dp.
On the bottom half of the chart, we want to display the current year sales as bars with previous year as a reference line, so we need
Sales – CY
IF [Is Current Year] THEN [Sales] END
and
Sales – PY
IF [Is Previous Year] THEN [Sales] END
Format both to $ with 0dp.
Add Sales – CY to Rows which will add a 3rd marks card. Change the mark type to Bar.
Add Sales – PY to Detail. The right click on the Sales – CY axis and Add Reference Line.
Set the reference line to be per cell based on the Sales-PY field, formatted as a line and with a fill below of light grey to give the appearance of a bar.
Change the title of the Sales – CY axis. Remove all gridlines and zero lines. Format the MONTH(Order Date) to use 1st letter only. Hide the null indicator.
Adding the ‘headers’
We need to have 4 rows of headers at the top – currently we’ve got 1 – the Region.
Below Region we want to split the data by Category if its the selected region, so we need
Category to Display
IIF([Region]=[pSelectedRegion], [Category],”)
Add this on to Columns after Region to Display. The visuals should automatically adapt. Adjust the value of the pSelectedRegion parameter to see how the viz changes.
Now double click into the Columns shelf and manually type ‘Total Sales’ (including the quotes). This will create a ‘dummy’ header pill. Move it to be after Category To Display.
Finally, create a new field
Current Year Sales
{FIXED [Region], [Category To Display]: SUM([Sales – CY])}
change this to be a dimension and format to $ with 0dp. Add this field to Columns after Total Sales, and we now have all the header fields we need.
Change the formatting as follows
Region To Display : Shading navy, font white, size 12, Tableau Medium Bold
Category to Display : font black, Tableau Medium size 12
Current Year Sales : font dark teal, Tableau Medium size 14 bold
Adjust the width of each header row to give a bit more ‘breathing room’.
Format the column dividers so the Header level is set to a thick white line, and set the row divider so the header level is set to None
Hide the ‘Region To Display / Category To Display / ‘Total Sales’/… etc heading label (right click and hide field labels for columns). Adjust the font of both axis to be smaller (I set to 8pt).
Adding the Tooltips
Add FY Display, Year Order Date, Region, Sales and Category To Display to the Tooltip shelf of the All marks card.
We need another couple of fields to get the required display.
Month Order Date
MONTH([Order Date])
convert to a dimension and custom format as 00
Tooltip |
IF [Category To Display] <> ” THEN ‘|’ END
Add these fields to the Tooltip shelf too of the All marks card and adjust the tooltip
Adding the sheet title
For the sheet title, we need to display the FY of the previous year
Add this to the Detail shelf of the All marks card. Then adjust the title of the sheet so its referencing the pSelectedFY parameter and the FY Display Prev Year field.
Adding the interactivity
Add the sheet onto a dashboard. I floated the pSelectedFY parameter and displayed it as a slider but customised to not show the slider.
Create a single dashboard parameter action to select the Region
Set Region
On select of the viz, set the pSelectedRegion parameter passing in the Region field. Set the value to empty when selection is cleared.
And with that, you should have a completed solution. My published viz is here.
Donna + DataViz 