Tag: Set Actions

Sales Goal Selection Tool

Donna ColesLeave a comment

Ann Jackson set this week’s #WOW2021 challenge, based on a recent ‘real world’ situation she had encountered.

Analysing Ann’s solution (by interacting with her published solution), I deduced we’d need to use set actions to add and remove the selected Sub-Categories into and out of the set (I hadn’t noticed Ann had tagged the challenge on the main page with Set Actions 🙂 ). I also realised the initial visual in the first column, wasn’t using reference lines to depict the target, as the tooltip displayed on hover, was much more detailed than what you can add to a reference line tooltip.

So armed with this knowledge, I set about building what was required.

  • Defining the required calculations
  • Building the BANs
  • Building the viz
  • Adding the interactivity

Defining the required calculations

This is one of those challenges where I want to get all the calcs sorted up front in a tabular view, before even attempting the viz. I’ll go through what I ended up with, but be assured this did take a bit of time and change of direction to get what I needed.

Let’s start with parameters. Firstly I created a parameter to simulate ‘today’, that is hardcoded to 9th June 2021

I then created a parameter to store the % uplift we want to use for one of the goal options. I default this to 0.1 (ie 10%)

We need to work out the sales so far this year (ie the sales in 2021 up to and including 9th June 2021), and the equivalent sales for the previous year (ie the sales in 2020 up to and including 9th June 2020).

SALES YTD by Sub Cat

IF YEAR([Order Date]) = YEAR([pToday]) AND [Order Date] <= [pToday] THEN [Sales] END

SALES LY YTD by Sub Cat

IF YEAR([Order Date]) = YEAR([pToday])-1 AND [Order Date] <= DATEADD(‘year’,-1,[pToday]) THEN [Sales] END

Let’s pop these into a table with the Category and Sub-Category fields, and add grand totals, so we can see what figures we need to be aiming for the BANs at the top.

Now let’s work out the values for the goals.

One goal is based on finding the average sales per day in 2021, then extrapolating this across the whole year.

So firstly, we need to know how many days in the year up to ‘today’.

# Days So Far This Year

DATEDIFF(‘day’,DATETRUNC(‘year’,[pToday]), [pToday] ) +1

This finds the number of days between 01 Jan 2021 and 09 June 2021 (then adds 1, as we need to include 9th June too).

# Days in Year

DATEDIFF(‘day’,DATETRUNC(‘year’,[pToday]), DATEADD(‘year’,1,DATETRUNC(‘year’,[pToday])))

This finds the number of days between 01 Jan 2021 and 01 Jan 2022.

These methods ensure the right number of days is recorded if the ‘current’ year happens to be a leap year.

We can now work out one of the goals

Same Pace Goal

(SUM([SALES YTD by Sub Cat])/[# Days So Far This Year]) * [# Days In Year]

Add up the Sales so far this year and divide by the number of days so far to get the average sales value per day, then multiply by the total number of days in the year.

For the other goal, we need to determine the sales for the whole of the previous year, and multiple by the uplift %.

SALES LY

IF YEAR([Order Date]) = YEAR([pToday])-1 THEN [Sales] END

This gives the total sales for 2020.

LY + Percent Increase

SUM([SALES LY])*(1+[pPercentIncrease])

This applies the % increase parameter to the total sales for 2020.

Now we want to decide which of the goal values to use based on ‘selection’. To define the selected Sub-Categories, we’re going to use a set. Right-click on Sub-Category > Create > Set, name accordingly and select ‘Phones’ as the initial value in the set.

Use Last Year With Increase

Now we can use whether the record is in or out of the set in the logic to determine the goal to use

YEAR_END GOAL per Sub-Cat

IF ATTR([Use Last Year With Increase]) then [LY + Percent Increase Goal] ELSE [Same Pace Goal] END

Add the set and the goal field to the table, and you’ll see the value in the final column is matching the relevant previous columns, depending on whether the Sub-Category is IN or OUT of the set.

NOTE – when you do this, you’ll get In or Out displayed against each row. To get the description as I’ve got displayed, right click on the text In or Out and Edit Alias.

These data fields are going to be used to build out the central viz. There’s a couple of other fields we need to finish off the data requirements for the viz

Value to Goal

[YEAR-END GOAL Per Sub Cat]-SUM([SALES YTD by Sub Cat])

and

% of Goal

SUM([SALES YTD by Sub Cat])/[YEAR-END GOAL Per Sub Cat]

This field needs to be formatted to percentage with 0 dp (all other monetary fields need to be formatted to $ with 0 dp).

So now we have the core fields stored against each row that will help us build out the main viz. You can edit the set and add further sub-categories, so you can validate how the values change.

Now we want to work on the data we need for the BANs. You may think the grand totals sum up all the rows above, however while this works fine for the SALES YTD by Sub Cat and SALES LY YTD by Sub Cat columns, it isn’t the case for the YEAR-END GOAL by Sub Cat column.

If we select all the rows in that column, and examine the tooltip that appears on hover, the total of the selected columns differs from the total at the bottom of the column.

The value in the hover text is what we need. The discrepancy with the column grand total is because it’s working across the whole data and not row by row. Because at least 1 record is in the set, its taking the logic to use the same pace goal. You’ll notice the total of this column matches the total of the Same Pace Goal column. In fact as you add more values to the set, the total will match the Same Pace Goal total up until all values are in the set. At that point the total will match the LY + Percent Increase column.

So back to the summary measures. We’re going to use table calcs to solve this.

SALES YTD

WINDOW_SUM(SUM([SALES YTD by Sub Cat]))

SALES LY YTD

WINDOW_SUM(SUM([SALES LY YTD by Sub Cat]))

YEAR-END GOAL

WINDOW_SUM([YEAR-END GOAL Per Sub Cat])

These are all basically summing up the values displayed in the rows on the screen. Add them to the table, and you can see the same values are displayed on each row which tally to other data in the table

Right, we have all the data fields we need, let’s start building.

Building the BANs

On a new sheet, add the fields as below

We want to turn this into 1 row.

Create a field called

Index

INDEX()

and add this to the Rows shelf and change to be discrete (blue pill). Each row should be numbered from 1 to 17.

Now drag the Index field from the Rows shelf onto the Filter shelf and when prompted select 1.

You’ve now got 1 row displayed, but the data associated to all the rows is being included in the calcs (if you’d filtered just to Sub Category = Accessories for example, the date would be just related to the rows with the Accessories value).

Now we can tidy this to look how we want

  • Add Measure Names to Text shelf (change display to entire view if need be).
  • Hide Sub-Category from displaying (uncheck Show Header)
  • Right Click on each column title and Edit Alias to remove the ‘along…’ text
  • Format the text appropriately and align centrally
  • Adjust the tooltip to remove the Sub-Category info
  • Hide the Measure Names from displaying (uncheck Show Header).
  • Format the Row Dividers to be thick

Building the Viz

Add Category and Sub-Category to the Rows shelf on a new sheet. Change the sort of the Category field to sort by data source order, descending. Change the sort of the Sub-Category field to sort as below

Add SALES YTD by Sub Cat to Columns, then drag SALES LY YTD by Sub Cat onto the canvas and drop onto the SALES YTD by Sub Cat axis when you see the 2 columns appear

Drag Measure Names from the Rows shelf to the Size shelf. Add Measure Names to the Colour shelf. Adjust sizes and colours accordingly. Add a white border to the bars on the colour shelf.

Turn stack marks off (Analysis > Stack Marks > Off) to allow the bars to overlay each other.

Add both SALES YTD by Sub Cat and SALES LY YTD by Sub Cat to the Tooltip shelf, so you can reference both values regardless which bar you’re hovering over.

Add YEAR-END GOAL by Sub Cat to the Columns shelf and set to dual axis and synchronise axis. Reset the mark type of the Measure Values card to bar, and of the YEAR-END GOAL by Sub Cat card to Gantt.

Remove the Measure Names from the Size and Colour on the YEAR-END GOAL by Sub Cat card. Set the colour of this mark to black.

On the All marks card, add YEAR-END GOAL by Sub Cat to the Tooltip shelf so once again it’s value can be referenced by all marks.

Adjust the tooltip on the All marks card to match.

‘Type in’ MIN(0) to the Columns shelf (double click in the space next to the pills to enable the text edit feature). On this MIN(0) marks card, change mark type to Text and add Value to Goal to the Text shelf. Adjust the text to include the additional wording and adjust size too if need be. Adjust tooltip too.

Repeat this process for the % of Goal field too.

For the circles, create another MIN(0) column in the same way, but this time change mark type to circle, and add Use Last Year with Increase set to the Colour shelf and adjust. Adjust tooltips.

Format axes/gridlines/text/row banding accordingly and rotate text of the Category field.

Adding the interactivity

Add the sheets to a dashboard. Add a set action to add Sub-Categories to the set on click (Dashboard > Action > Add Action > Change Set Values). Set the action to run on select (on click) of the chart viz, to add values to the Use Last Year with Increase set.

We then need another set action to remove the Sub-Categories, but this needs to work by clicking a link in the tooltip which displays. The name of this action will display on the tooltip.

And fingers crossed.. that should be it! My published viz is here.

Happy vizzin’! Stay Safe!

Donna

How often is Sean listening to his favourite songs?

Donna ColesLeave a comment

A “scatter plot with a twist” music based challenge this week was posed by Sean Miller, using data from his last.fm account. On the surface, a simple scatter plot of each song, comparing the number of days between first and last listen against total plays. But click on song, and you get to see a timeline depicting days since first play vs cumulative plays, on the same chart. Hmmm…

The data set provided consists of 1 row per song per date played since 2017. For the scatter plot, we’re looking to summarise the data at a song level. For the timeline related to the selected song, we need to have the data at the song and date level. Ultimately we’re mixing levels of granularity within a single chart.

This certainly took some thinking. Creating the 2 charts independently was pretty straightforward, but trying to put them together took some thought. I knew I was going to want to use a set action to drive the interactivity and apply different logic based on whether a song was selected or not, but it took a bit of trial and error to get a solution.

First up, the data provided contained some timestamp date fields, but these were string data types. I chose to use the Timestamp UTC field to get a ‘proper’ date. I actually did this by duplicating the field, renaming it to Date Played and changing the datatype to a date. This generated a calculation which is below… I’d have never of typed this myself 🙂

Date Played

DATE(IF NOT ISNULL( DATEPARSE ( “MM/dd/yyyy HH:mm”, [TimeStamp UTC] ) ) THEN DATEPARSE ( “MM/dd/yyyy HH:mm”, [TimeStamp UTC] ) ELSEIF NOT ISNULL ( DATEPARSE ( “MM/dd/yyyy hh:mm:ss a”, [TimeStamp UTC] ) ) THEN DATEPARSE ( “MM/dd/yyyy hh:mm:ss a”, [TimeStamp UTC] ) END)

Now we have that, we can work out the first date a song was played

Min Date Per Song

{FIXED [Song ID]:MIN([Date Played])}

and the latest dates

Max Date Per Song

{FIXED [Song ID]:MAX([Date Played])}

and then we can derive the days between

Days since first listen

DATEDIFF(‘day’, [Min Date per Song], [Max Date per Song])

We can also get the total plays per song using

Total Plays per Song

{FIXED [Song ID]: [Total Plays]}

and with these calculated fields, we can build the basic scatter, using Total Plays per Song as a range filter, and setting both the axes not to start at zero.

So far so good. Now let’s think about the timeline. We need to identify a ‘selected song’ to help build this, so let’s create a set by right clicking on Song ID > Create > Set, and selecting a single option

We need to capture the number of plays on a date

Total Plays

COUNT([2021_05_26_WW21_My Streaming Activity.csv])

This is the default count field generated (the equivalent of the Number of Records if you’re on older versions of Tableau).

And we also need to capture the number of days from first play date to the current date, as we need to plot on a consistent axis when putting the charts together (ie we can’t plot with date on the axis).

Days to Date

DATEDIFF(‘day’,[Min Date per Song],[Date Played])

Let’s put this out into a table so you can see what’s going on.

Add the Selected Song = True to the filter shelf

There are days when there were multiple plays, so the Days To Date field needs to be set to AVG rather than SUM, to get the correct figure.

For Total Plays we need to plot the cumulative value, so we can set a quick table calculation against the Total Plays field of Running Sum (right click on Total Plays field). We’re going to explicitly set the table calculation to compute by Date Played as when depicted on a viz, the default of table down, might not give the correct values.

So with these fields, we can build the timeline viz (duplicate the table sheet and move the fields around). Set the mark type to line, and change the setting on the Path to make a stepped chart.

Ok, so now we have the 2 charts and hopefully understand what we’re aiming for. But how do we now go about getting everything onto a single chart?

We’re going to need a dual axis chart, since we have different mark types in play. And we’re going to want to plot different measures depending on whether we’re working with the selected song or not.

We’re going to build the data up in a table to get the logic for the fields we need. To just test the concept, we’ll filter to just a few songs, including the one in the Selected Song set. Add Song ID to the filter shelf and filter to a few songs.

Then build out a table as below:

What we’re aiming for, is for the records where In/Out of the set is Out, we want to plot the information we’re getting from the 1st two columns, but for the records where In/Out the set is In, we want the information from the other columns.

So let’s build this out.

Days to Plot

IF ATTR([Selected Song]) THEN AVG([Days To Date]) ELSE SUM([Days since first listen]) END

Plays to Plot

IF ATTR([Selected Song]) THEN RUNNING_SUM([Total Plays]) ELSE SUM([Total Plays per Song]) END

Pop these in the table, making sure any fields which are table calculations are set to compute by Date Played.

If you scroll to find where the data changes from a song out of the set to the one in, you can see how the two new fields are working.

So lets try plotting the chart out using these fields instead.

  • Days to Plot on Columns
  • Total Plays Per Song on Rows
  • Song ID on Detail shelf
  • Plays to Plot on Columns
  • Date Played (set to exact date) on Detail of the All Marks card.
  • Set the table calculation of Plays to Plot to compute by Date Played only.
  • Change mark type of the Plays to Plot to Line and set the Path to stepped line
  • Add Total Plays Per Song to Filter shelf and set to range from 50 to 100 (just to make the chart less busy).

You should end up with the below

You’ll notice we have the line of circles in the top chart, which is plotting a mark per day for the Selected Song. If we remove the Date Played pill from the Detail shelf of the Total Plays Per Song marks card, we lose these marks including the mark for the Selected Song too, which we need.

To resolve this, we need another field.

Is Last?

LAST()=0

Last Plays to Plot

IF [Is Last?] THEN Sum([Total Plays per Song]) END

This is just saying give me the total plays for the last mark in the list. Add these to the table to see what’s going on, making sure to set the table calc to compute by Date Played only

Now if we replace Total Plays per Song with the Last Plays to Plot field, we get
Now make the chart dual axis (don’t forget to synchronise), and we can then sort the formatting.
  • Set the marks type on the Last Plays to Plot to circle
  • Remove Measure Names from the Colour shelf, and set the mark colour to #3dde3c. Reduce the opacity to about 90%. Add a dark grey border.
  • Add Selected Song to the Size shelf, and adjust so the selected song is larger than the others.
  • On the Plays to Plot marks card, again remove Measure Names from the Colour shelf, and set the colour to black.
  • Set the Path to stepped line.
  • Click on the right hand axis and select Move marks to back
  • Reduce the Size of the mark.
  • Add Selected Song to the Colour shelf, and adjust the colours so the line is black and the tiny dots for all the other marks that you can see in the circles, is set to #3dde3c

You’ve now got the core chart, which needs to be further tidied to remove grid lines, axes, add tooltip etc. Once done, you can add to a dashboard, where you can then set the interactivity.

Add a dashboard action to change set values that sets the Selected Song set on Select. Set to work on single-select only.

Finally, you’ll find that if you select a mark, while you’ll get the trend line, the other points will now ‘fade out’

Create a new field True = True, and add this to the Detail shelf of the All Marks card. Then on the dashboard, add a new dashboard highlight action, which is set to Target Highlighting to the True field only.

Now if you click on and off a mark, you should get the trendline show and disappear, and all marks remain at the same transparency throughout.

Hopefully you’ve got enough now to complete this challenge. My published viz is here.

Happy vizzin’! Stay Safe!

Donna

Regional Sales Readout

Donna ColesLeave a comment

The challenge this week from Ann Jackson was all about map layers, a feature introduced in v 2020.4. As an extra twist Ann specified that you couldn’t use table calculations or LoDs, and that the viz should all be on a single sheet.

The key features of this challenge are

  • display the map segmented by region
  • colour the borders of each region with different colours
  • display the cities sized by sales
  • display sales per region
  • on hover of a city, display city sales, city name and % of regional sales

Display the map segmented by region

Maps work with geographic data types, so to split map by Region, the field needs to be converted to this type. To do this, right click on Region > Geographic Role > Create From > State

Double clicking on Region should automatically create a map visual. Change the mark type to filled map, and you’ll see the region boundaries.

Strip off all the background & labels etc via the Map > Map Layers menu. Uncheck all the options on the right hand side.

Set the colour of the map to grey (via the Colour shelf), then set the background of the worksheet to a darker grey/black. Remove row & column dividers.

Colour the borders of each region with different colours

On the colour shelf, you can set a border colour, but this is a fixed single colour, not one that can be associated to a field. This is where the map layers start to come in.

We need to create a layer per region.

To start we need a calculated field

West Region

IF [Region]=’West’ THEN [Region] END

This should still be a geographic role (if it hasn’t got a globe symbol next to it, then make it geographic as you did above).

Drag this field onto the map, and drop it on the Add a Marks Layer symbol that displays. A new West Region marks card will display. Change the mark type to filled map.

Now on the Colour shelf, reduce the opacity to 0. Change the border colour to #7ec886, and the halo to None.

Finally, and this is the really sneaky bit that took me some time to figure out, right click on the Null on the legend on the right hand side, and Hide. Only the West region now has the coloured border.

Repeat these same steps for the Central (#82d7d6), East (#b6b6dd) and South (#fd8b59) regions.

A final step at this point is to turn off tooltips across all 5 layers. Also, we don’t want the regions ‘highlighting’ as you hover the mouse over the map, so on each layer, disable selection

Display the cities sized by sales

Drag the City field onto the map, and drop it to create another layer. Drag State onto the Detail shelf of the City marks card (as there are some cities that are associated to different states).

Add Sales to Size and adjust accordingly.

Add Region to Colour, and reduce the Opacity to suit. Remove tooltips from displaying.

Display sales per region

Add another layer by dragging Region onto the map again. Change the mark type to Text. Add Sales to the Text shelf. Format appropriately. Set Disable Selection on the layer.

Good practice, rename the layer to Sales Text or similar.

On hover of a city, display city sales, city name and % of regional sales

For this we need to store a selected city, and we’ll use sets to do this. I did this by right-clicking on one of the cities in the viz, and choosing Create Set. Rename the set Selected City.

We can now work out the value of the Sales for this city, and the % of sales.

Selected City Sales

IF [Selected City] THEN [Sales] END

format to $ 0dp

% Total Sales

SUM([Selected City Sales])/SUM([Sales])

format to % 1dp.

Add these onto the Text shelf of the Sales Text marks card and format.

Now we want to add the City Name, some other additional text.

Selected City Name

IF [Selected City] THEN [City] END

However, if you add this field to the Text shelf, the marks move and things go a bit crazy.

I had to ponder about this for a long time, and I can’t explain why it does it. However it didn’t happen when I added measures (green pills) to the Text shelf. So I converted the field to a measure by editing the field and changing it to

Selected City Name

MIN(IF [Selected City] THEN [City] END)

Adding this to the Text shelf and the text stayed where it was.

A further calculated field is required, which is simply

Selected City Sub Text

MIN(IF [Selected City] THEN ‘OF REGION TOTAL’ END)

Add this and adjust the text.

So now we have the text showing, we need to make it change based on hover.

Add the map to a dashboard, then add a set action (Dashboard > Action > Add Action > Change Set Values)

Set the properties as below, and then test the interactivity by hovering over different cities.

Hopefully that’s everything you need to complete this challenge. The borders and the ‘moving marks’ certainly caused me sometime of puzzlement, but it is a very satisfying feeling when you get that ‘lightbulb’ moment. My published viz is here.

Happy vizzin’! Stay Safe!

Donna

Is Profit Ratio Influenced by Quantity?

Donna ColesLeave a comment

For this week’s challenge, Ann asked we recreated a scatter plot that ‘on click’ became a connected scatter plot and also displayed an ‘insights’ box to the user.

Building out the data

The scatter plot is to show Profit Ratio by Quantity, so first up we need

Profit Ratio

SUM([Profit])/SUM([Sales])

formatted to percentage with 0 dp.

A mark is shown on the scatter plot per Category and Month/Year. When working with dates like this, I often prefer to created a dedicated field to use as an ‘exact date’ which I can then format. So I built

Month Year

DATE(DATETRUNC(‘month’,[Order Date]))

and formatted it to the March 2001 format (ie mmmm yyyy).

We’re also going to need a set based on the Category field, as that is going to drive the interactivity to help us connect the dots ‘on click’. So right click on Category and Create Set and just tick one of the categories displayed for now.

Selected Category

Let’s build these out into a table as follows

  • Order Date to Filter, filtered by years 2018 & 2019
  • Category, Selected Category & Month Year (exact date , discrete) onto Rows
  • Measure Names to Text and Filter to Quantity & Profit Ratio
  • Right click on Selected Category and select Show Set to display a selection control to easily allow the set values to be changed

To help drive the interactivity, we’re going to need to store the value of the Profit Ratio for the Selected Category in the set.

Selected PR

IF ATTR([Selected Category]) THEN [Profit Ratio] END

Format this to percentage 0 dp too, and add this to the table – it will only display the profit ratio against the rows associated to the category in the set

At this point, we’ve got what we need to build out the scatter plot, but I’m going to continue to create the fields needed for the ‘Insights’ piece.

These are looking for the months that contained the Max & Min values for the Profit Ratio and Quantity. I’m going to tackle this with Table Calcs.

Max PR per Category

WINDOW_MAX([Profit Ratio])

Adding this to the table, and setting the table calculation to compute by Month Year only, gives us the Max Profit Ratio for each Category

We need 3 more fields like this :

Max Qty per Category

WINDOW_MAX(SUM([Quantity]))

Min PR per Category

WINDOW_MIN([Profit Ratio])

Min Qty per Category

WINDOW_MIN(SUM([Quantity]))

Add all these to the table, setting the table calc in the same way as described above.

Now we know what the min & max values are, we need to know the month when these occurred.

Max PR Month

WINDOW_MAX(IF ATTR([Selected Category]) AND [Profit Ratio] = [Max PR per Category] THEN MIN([Month Year]) END)

Format this to March 2001 format.

If the category is that selected, and the profit ratio matches the maximum value, then retrieve the Month Year value, and duplicate that value across all the rows (this is what the outer WINDOW_MAX does).

Add this to the table in the Rows, and adjust the table calc settings for both the nested calculations to compute by Month Year only. The month for the selected category which had the highest profit ratio will be displayed against all rows for that category, and null for all other rows.

Again we need similar fields for the other months

Max Qty Month

WINDOW_MAX(IF ATTR([Selected Category]) AND SUM([Quantity]) = [Max Qty per Category] THEN MIN([Month Year]) END)

Min PR Month

WINDOW_MAX(IF ATTR([Selected Category]) AND [Profit Ratio] = [Min PR per Category] THEN MIN([Month Year]) END)

Min Qty Month

WINDOW_MAX(IF ATTR([Selected Category]) AND SUM([Quantity]) = [Min Qty per Category] THEN MIN([Month Year]) END)

Format all these too, and add to the table with the appropriate table calc settings applied.

If you now change the value in the the Selected Category set, you should see the table update.

Building the Scatter Plot

On a new sheet, build out the basic scatter plot by

  • Order Date to Filter, filtered by years 2018 & 2019
  • Profit Ratio to Rows
  • Quantity to Columns
  • Category to Colour and adjust accordingly
  • Month Year exact date, continuous to Detail
  • Change Shape to filled circle
  • Adjust the Tooltip to suit
  • Change the axis titles to be capitalised
  • Change the sheet title
  • Remove all row/column borders & gridlines. Leave the zero lines and set the axis rulers to be a sold grey line

Add Selected PR to Rows, and change the mark type of that card to line, and add Month Year to path. In the image below, I still have Furniture selected in my set.

Add Month Year to the Label shelf too and format so the text is smaller and coloured to match mark colour

Make the chart dual axis, synchronise the axis and remove the Measure Names from the colour shelf of each mark. Hide the Selected PR axis.

If you now change the selected set value, you can see how the other categories ‘join up’.

Building the Insights Box

Take a duplicate of the data table built originally, and add Selected Category to Filter. If you’ve still got an entry in your set, this should reduce the rows to just those records for that Category.

Remove the fields Profit Ratio, Quantity, Selected PR from the Measure Values section, and remove Selected Category from Rows.

Create a new field

Index = Size

INDEX()=SIZE()

and add this to the Filter shelf, setting the value to true.

The INDEX() function will number each row, the SIZE() function will number each row based on the total number of rows displayed (ie all rows will display the same number), so INDEX()=SIZE() will return true for the last row only

Now we’ve only got 1 row displayed, we’ve got the info we need to build the data in the Insights box by

  • Move Month Year to Detail
  • Category to Colour
  • Move Max PR Month, Max Qty Month, Min PR Month, Min Qty Month to Text
  • Move Max PR per Category, Max Qty per Category, Min PR Per Category, Min Qty per Category to Text

This will probably show duplicate instances of the values. This is because we didn’t fix the table calculation setting of the Index=Size field. Edit that to compute by Month Year

and then re-edit the Index=Size filter to just be true again, and expand the display so you can see all the values.

Now you can easily format the Text to the required display

I used this site to get the bullet point image from

Building the dashboard & interactivity

Add the scatter plot to the dashboard, and remove the legends that automatically get added.

Float the Insights sheet and position bottom right, remove the title. fit entire view, and also remove the colour legend which will have been added.

Add a dashboard Set Action to assign values to the Selected Category set and remove all values when the selection is cleared

Additionally, add a highlight action that highlights the Category field only (this keeps the lines highlighted on selection of a single mark).

Now practice clicking on and off marks on the scatter plot and you should see your lines & insights box being added and removed.

Finally add the title and header line by adding a vertical container at the top above the scatter plot.

Add a text box for the title, and underneath add a blank object.

Set the padding of the blank object to 0 and the background to black. Then edit the height to 4, and adjust the height of the container if it’s now too large.

Make adjustments to the position of the floating insights box if need be so it isn’t overlapping any axis.

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

I’ll be taking a break for a couple of weeks, so will be on catch up when I return from some R&R.

Happy vizzin’! Stay Safe!

Donna

Can you create a drill down using set actions?

Donna ColesLeave a comment

For week 30, #WorkoutWednesday alumni Emma Whyte returned re-posting this challenge which was originally set in Week 41 of 2017 (see here). The idea behind this was to see how the challenge could be achieved using features that have been released since that challenge – in this case set actions.

I’ve been doing the #WorkoutWednesday challenges since they were first introduced, so I completed the original challenge, which is posted here.

Despite it being over 2 1/2 years ago, I had a strong recollection as to what was required to achieve this. So the challenge I set myself, was to recreate without looking at my own solution.

Building out the data

This is one of those challenges where we can build the data out into a table to check the functionality before building the actual viz. I always like to do this where possible, as I find it a good reference to make sure I’m getting the logic & the calculated fields I need right.

Start by adding State & City to Rows and add Sales & Profit via Measure Names on Columns .

As the challenge is to use Set Actions, then naturally, we’re going to need a Set. The Set we need is based on State with the idea being that when there is a State(s) in the set, then the City will display instead.

Selected State

Right click on State and Create -> Set. Select an option in the dialog, eg Alabama say

We will need to show the marks based on State or City depending on whether a State has been selected or not. We need a single field that we will use in the viz that displays the dimension we need to show

Display Value

IF [Selected State] THEN [City] ELSE [State] END

Add this onto the Rows and you’ll see how this is working

We can test the functionality of putting values into and out of the set without the need for the dashboard action at this point, by right-clicking on Selected State and selecting Show Set – the list of set values to select will display (a bit like a filter list).

We need a way to figure out what rows to show – how to identify whether there’s anything selected in the set.

Count States Selected

{FIXED : COUNTD(IF [Selected State] THEN [State] END)}

By being an LOD, this will set the count of the items in the set across all the rows in the data. Add to the sheet so you can see how this works

So we want to show information when either there isn’t anything in the set, or for the rows associated to the Selected States only

Records to Show

[Count States Selected] = 0 OR [Selected State]

Add this to Rows and test out… with no State in the set, all the rows are True

but with a State selected, only the rows associated to that State are True

But we seem to have too many marks showing when there’s nothing in the set….?

That’s fine.. just take City out of the view now, and if you deselect all States you should get the 48 rows we’re going to start with listed, and all are Records to Show = True. The Sales & Profit values will also now be aggregated to the appropriate level.

Building the Viz

Ensure your Selected States set is empty, and build out the scatter plot

  • Profit on Columns
  • Sales on Rows
  • Display Value on Detail & Label
  • Records to Show on Filter set to True
  • Mark Type = Shape set to x

Verify the functionality by clicking a State in the list, and the view should change to show the City.

We need to colour the marks based on Profit

-ve Profit?

SUM([Profit])<0

Add this to the Colour shelf and adjust colours accordingly.

Finally we need to look at how the title/subtitle changes based on which level we’re at.

Title

IF [Count States Selected] = 0 THEN ‘Sales vs. Profit by State’
ELSE ‘Sales vs. Profit for ‘ + [State]
END

Subtitle

IF [Count States Selected] = 0 THEN ‘Select a state to drill down to city level’
ELSE ‘Double-click a city to drill up to state level’
END

Add these onto the Detail shelf, then they’ll be available to reference in the Title of the sheet.

And then adjust the Tooltip, and we’re pretty much ready to go.

Adding the Set Action

Create a dashboard and add the scatter plot sheet to it.

Add a dashboard action to Change Set Values which runs on the Select action, and assigns values to the Selected State. On clearing the selection, values are removed from the set.

And that should pretty much be it. My published version is here. I thoroughly enjoyed the ‘throwback’ to previous challenges, and would like to see this theme continue on occasion.

Happy vizzin’! Stay Safe

Donna

Can you add and remove items from a set?

Donna ColesLeave a comment

Lorna set a fun ‘create your own pizza’ challenge this week to demonstrate the ability to both add and remove items in a set via the use of Set Actions, a feature introduced in v2020.2 (so you’re going to need this to complete the task).

There’s essentially 5 components to this dashboard, which I’ll guide you through

  • The central bar chart
  • The graphical product type selector on the left
  • The list of selected products to the right
  • The actual vs budget bar at the top
  • An indicator of how much you’re over/under budget

Central Bar Chart

The essence of this is a simple Type, Product by Price bar chart, coloured by Type. Manually move the Type field so the ‘Size’ option is at the top.

To indicate if the product is vegetarian or not, we create

Veg Indicator

IF [Vegetarian] = ‘Yes’ THEN ‘●’ ELSE ” END

which we can add to the Row shelf, and format to be coloured green (I use this site to get the shapes).

The tick is used to indicate if the product has been added to the pizza or not. Selected items will be identified by the use of a set, so we need to create one. Right-click Product and Create->Set. Tick a few options.

And similar to the Veg Indicator we can build

Selected Product Indicator

IF [Selected Products] THEN ‘✔’ ELSE ” END

Add this to the Row shelf between Type and Product.

The order of the Products listed will change. I want it to be ordered alphabetically by Product within each Type. The quickest way to resolve this, was to duplicate the Product field, add it to the Rows between the Type and Selected Product Indicator pills, and then hide it.

The final requirement for this chart, is to highlight the selected products in a different shade of the ‘base’ colour.

Add Selected Products to the Detail shelf, then change the … detail icon to the left of the pill to the colour icon. This will mean there are 2 pills on the Colour shelf, and the colour legend will change. Adjust to suit

The chart just then needs formatting to add the Price to the Label of the bar, remove the row/column lines, hide the Type column, hide the field labels, hide the axis, and adjust the width of the columns.

Product Type Selector

Lorna provided the images needed for this, which need to be saved to a new folder in the Shapes directory of your My Tableau Repository. I called my new folder simply Custom.

Then on a new sheet, add Type to Rows, set mark type to Shape and add Type to shape too.

Hide the Type heading and remove the row lines.

Selected Products List

Add Type & Product to Rows and enter MIN(1) onto the Columns. Add Selected Products to the Filter shelf to restrict the list just to those in the set.

Add Type to Colour and Product to Label, changing the font to white and centring. Fix the axis from 0-1 and hide it. Hide the Type & Product columns.

Manually reorder the Type field to be listed Size -> Crust -> Sauce -> Toppings

Actual vs Budget Bar

The budget field can be changed by the user, so we need a parameter, Budget, for this, which is an integer parameter where the display is formatted to £ with 0dp, and defaulted to 15.

Create the bar by adding Price to Columns, Selected Products to Filters and Type to Colour. Reorder the items in the colour legend to get the colours displaying in the correct order with ‘Size’ on the left and ‘Toppings’ on the right.

Add the Budget parameter to the Detail shelf, then add a Reference Line which refers to the Budget. Adjust the label displayed to be custom as shown below, and format the thickness and colour of the line to suit

Format the reference line so the text is displayed at the top right, and edit the font & size of the label displayed.

Then make the row height of the chart taller, but adjust the size of the bar to be narrower. The reference line spans the whole height of the row, so reducing the height of the bar itself provides space for the label to display without overlapping the bar.

Hide the axis and remove gridlines etc.

Finally we need to display the total price of the products selected. We can’t just add Price to Label as there are multiple segments on the bar, and this will display a Price per Type.

Instead we need a new field

Total Price Selected Products

{FIXED [Selected Products]:SUM([Price])}

Since this chart is filtered by Selected Products = True, this returns the total price of all the items in the set (selected). Add this to the Columns shelf and make dual axis & synchronise axis.

Readjust the mark types, so the Price marks card is back to a bar, and the Total Price Selected Products is Text. Remove the Measure Names pill from the Colour shelf of both cards (the dual axis will have automatically added it), and also remove the Type pill from the Colour shelf of the Total Price Selected Products card. Instead, add Total Price Selected Products to the Text shelf of this card.

The text will overlap the bar whether you align left , middle or right. The trick is to add some spaces in front of the text and then align right.

Hide the axis.

Over / Under Budget Indicator

This is just a text display, but a few calculated fields are needed so the text can be coloured differently depending on whether it’s over or under.

First we need to know the difference from budget

Diff from Budget

[Budget]-[Total Price Selected Products]

Text Budget Diff Over

IF [Diff From Budget] < 0 THEN ABS([Diff From Budget]) END

This will just display the difference if the value is negative, but the ABS function will return the number as a +ve. This field should be formatted to £ with 2 dp.

Text Budget Diff Under

IF [Diff From Budget] >= 0 THEN [Diff From Budget] END

This will just display the difference if the value is positive. Format to £, 2 dp.

Only one of these fields will ever hold a value at any time.

Similarly we need fields to show the text to display.

Over Budget Text

IF [Diff From Budget] < 0 THEN ‘Over Budget’ END

Under Budget Text

IF [Diff From Budget] >= 0 THEN ‘Under Budget’ END

On a new sheet, add Selected Products to the Filter shelf, then add all four of the above fields to the Text shelf.

Adjust the order and colour of the fields in the Label editor, setting the fields related to being ‘over budget’ to red and the ‘under budget’ fields to green.

Now we’ve got all the building blocks, we can put it all on a dashboard.

Building the dashboard interactivity

Add all the sheets in their various locations. Most were tiled, except for the Budget parameter and the Over/Under Budget Indicator sheet, which I floated.

Filter the bar chart

Add a dashboard Filter Action to filter from the Type Selector sheet to the Product Bar Chart on select, filtering on the Type field only.

Add / Remove from Set

Add a dashboard Set Action to the Chart sheet that runs from the Menu, and adds the selected item to the Selected Products set.

Create another Set Action on the same chart, which removes values instead.

And that’s the main crux of the challenge. The only addition is ‘nice’ feature to avoid the item selected from being shown as selected (ie fading out all the other items in the chart).

I reverted to the trusty true = false dashboard action which I applied to the Selector chart and the Selected Items chart.

This involves creating 2 new fields True = True and False = False and adding these to the Detail shelf of the relevant chart.

A dashboard Filter action is then added which targets itself using the fields True = False

However, when I tried to add this same feature to the main bar chart itself, the bar chart stopped working as expected. I think there was conflict between there being 2 filter actions on the same chart. I have to admit, this is where I did check Lorna’s solution, as this was a small feature that really bothered me, and I didn’t want to publish without it.

It turns out she simply used a highlight action to resolve this

I vaguely recall using this sometime ago, but the ‘true=false’ concept has become so ingrained as my ‘go to’ method, that I struggled to think of this.

And that should be it. You now have the tools to customise your own pizza 🙂

My published viz is here. Enjoy!

Happy vizzin’! Stay Safe!

Donna

Profitability Spotlight – is your budget recovered?

Donna ColesLeave a comment

For week 22 of #WOW2020, Ivett Kovacs set her first challenge as a guest poster.

At first glance it looked like it would be tricky, and it was! There were many head-scratching moments as I made my way through this, and I couldn’t complete it all without having to look at Ivett’s solution – more on that later.

Understanding the data

First up, a word on the data provided, as the requirements weren’t as clear as I’d have liked.

Ivett provided a small custom data set to build this challenge on

It contains 2 rows for each Sub-Category. The value to be plotted for Review is evident on the challenge – it’s an average. But the aggregation for Revenue & Budget isn’t that obvious, as there is no direct indication on a label or in the tooltip. Should the values be summed or averaged, or a combination of both?

The Profit value in the tooltip is the only clue you have. The Profit value for Tables is -$60, the value for Chairs is $50. From examining the values in the data, the assumption is Profit = AVG(Revenue) – AVG(Budget), so the values to plot for Budget and Revenue need to be averaged.

The assumption is this data set is a combination of a two datasets; one containing the Revenue & Budget per Sub-Category

the other containing the customer reviews

So when it comes to the viz, we’re looking to plot based on the following data

Understanding what numbers I need to be aiming for when doing these challenges is crucial to me to ensure I’m heading down the right path 🙂

Duplicating the Data

The key thing to realise about this chart is that the right hand line is a fake axis; ie not an axis at all, just a vertical line located so that it looks like it is an axis.

What we actually need to do is build a triangle for each Sub-Category, where each point of the triangle is a different (x,y) coordinate. This means we need 3 rows of data per Sub-Category, 1 row to represent each point being plotted.

So for this we need to Union the data twice, so there are 3 instances of the data – drag another instance of the table into the data pane and drop when the Union option appears. Do this twice.

The union duplicates the rows of data, and each set is identifiable by an automatically generated Table Name field containing values WW, WW1,WW2

Defining the points of the triangle

As I said above, we need to build a triangle for each Sub-Category, where each point of the triangle is a different (x,y) coordinate.

At point 1, we’re going to plot our Review value. At point 2, we’re going to plot our Revenue value, and Budget will be at point 3.

From the diagram above, you can see our x coordinates are one of two numbers, either 0 or x1 (ie the x coordinate for the Revenue & Budget points is the same).

The y coordinates vary per measure, and need to be ‘normalised’ to a common scale, as otherwise, the Revenue & Budget figures would be plotted significantly higher than the Review values (you might find this blog by Zen master Jonathan Drummey useful at this point).

When normalising, you’re typically looking to convert your values to a scale from 0-1; this means the values aren’t plotted at their absolute values, but are still plotted in the same relative order to each other ie lowest value at the bottom, highest at the top.

When normalising a set of values from 0 to 1, your lowest value would typically be at the 0 position , with your highest value at the 1 position. To calculate where your value would sit on this scale, you need to know 3 numbers; the value to convert, the maximum value in the range of values to plot and the minimum value in in the range of values to plot. The normalised value is then :

(Current value – min value) / (max value – min value)

ie the difference between your value and the lowest as a proportion of the difference between the whole range.

However, in this instance, I chose to simplify the normalisation, and my method only works due to the values in the example data provided.

Side Note I consider Revenue & Budget to be values that are directly related to each other ie if Budget = Revenue I’d expect them to be plotted at the same point. I therefore chose to normalise these values across the combined range. This gave me different results from the solution, where Budget and Revenue were normalised independently of each other.

The maximum average review value is 5, the maximum value for budget and revenue combined is 100. As 100 is exactly 20 times bigger than 5, I simply chose to normalise the revenue/budget values to be on a scale of 0-5 instead, rather than normalising all values (Review, Budget & Revenue) to be on a 0-1 scale.

First up, we want to identify a position for each point

Path

IF [Table Name] = ‘WW’ THEN 1
ELSEIF [Table Name] = ‘WW1’ THEN 2
ELSE 3
END

Then we’ll create the x coordinate for each point

x

IF [Path] = 1 THEN 0
ELSE 20 END

I’ve just chosen an arbitrary value to plot the 2nd & 3rd points at – could easily have been 1.

Then we’ll create the y coordinate for each point, which is where the normalisation comes in

y

IF MIN([Path]) = 1 THEN AVG([Review])
ELSEIF MIN([Path]) = 2 THEN AVG([Revenue])/20
ELSEIF MIN([Path]) = 3 THEN AVG([Budget])/20
END

Dividing by 20, normalises the values to a scale of 0-5 as discussed above.

Let’s put these values all out in a table, so we can see what’s going on

Building the Polygon Viz

You can see we have 3 points per Sub-Category, so we can plot the x & y measures on a sheet as follows :

  • Add Min(x) to Rows
  • Add y to Columns
  • Add Sub-Category to Detail
  • Add Table Name (or Path) to Detail
  • Change Mark Type to Polygon
  • Change Colour to #666666 with 30% opacity

Tooltips

We need 2 new calculated fields for the Tooltip

Profit

AVG([Revenue]) – AVG([Budget])

formatted to $ with 0 dp

Margin

[Profit]/AVG([Budget])

formatted to % with 1 dp.

Note this will differ from the solution, where I think Ivett inadvertently used SUM(Budget) rather than AVG.

Add these to Tooltip field and adjust text accordinly.

Colouring the Line

To make the line, I created a second instance of y

y2

IF MIN([Path]) = 1 THEN AVG([Review])
ELSEIF MIN([Path]) = 2 THEN AVG([Revenue])/20
END

which just plots 2 points rather than 3.

Add this to Columns next to y, make dual axis and synchronise axis. Things might have disappeared – you need to remove Measure Names from both marks cards. Change the mark type of the y2 card to Line.

You won’t see much difference at this point (or you shouldn’t). We need a field to define the colour

Colour : Line

IF [Profit] < 0 THEN ‘Non-Profitable’ ELSE ‘Profitable’ END

Add this to the Colour shelf of the y2 marks card and adjust to suit.

Labelling the line

On the y2 marks card, add Review (set to AVG) to Label shelf, and move Sub-Category to Label shelf. Set Label to only label Start of Line. Adjust format/layout of Label to suit.

Set the format of Review to Number Standard – this is a format little used, but will display a whole number or a decimal. I discovered this through an Andy Kriebel WoW from a long time ago and is a real gem!

Finalising the viz

To tidy up and get the viz looking like the solution

  • Format to remove all gridlines
  • Hide the y2 axis
  • Hide the ‘4 nulls’ indicator if you have it
  • Edit the y axis
    • Fix the axis from 0.5 to 5.25
    • Add a title
    • Set axis ticks to none
  • On the y2 marks card, edit the Colour shelf and change the markers to show to All (this gives the circles on each end of the line)
  • Change the Min(x) pill to be FLOAT(Min(x)) using the ‘type in pill’ function
  • Edit the x axis to be Fixed from -0.3 to 19.9
    • cutting off the end of the axis makes the end circle disappear. This is very sneaky, and I had to see the solution for this!
  • Hide the x axis
  • Remove the row divider lines

So we’ve now got the core viz – hooray! But we’re not quite done – boo!

Expand /Collapse

Ivett set the viz to expand to show a column by Sub-Category on click.

This is another requirement I couldn’t get however hard I tried. I duplicated my viz and created a version with Sub-Category on Columns and tried to use Parameter Actions to set a parameter that would control which viz would display using a sheet swap techinque. However when I added the necessary field to the Detail shelf, all the polygons disappeared and I don’t understand why…. I therefore published my first instance of this challenge with a parameter the user controlled to decide which view to show. This is here.

So I had to look at Ivett’s solution to see how she had achieved this, and it involved sets.

Right click on Sub-Category and Create – > Set

Selected Sub-Cats

Don’t select any values at this point.

Create a field

Expand

IF [Selected Sub-Cats] THEN [Sub-Category]
ELSE ‘Click to Expand’
END

If there are values in the set, then the set values will be returned, otherwise the text ‘Click to Expand’ will display.

Add this to the Columns shelf, and ‘Hide field labels for columns‘ so the text ‘Expand’ doesn’t show.

A dashboard action will ultimately drive the behaviour, but we can test the display by editing the set and selecting all values.

The view should expand as expected, showing a column per Sub-Category

But the name of the Sub-Category is still displayed on the label, and in the example this isn’t the case. To fix this I created another calculated field

Label: SubCat

IF [Selected Sub-Cats] THEN ” ELSE [Sub-Category] END

which I added to the Label shelf, and adjusted the display to suit.

‘Reset’ the view to show the collapsed version by re-editing the set and removing all values.

How to Read this chart legend

I simply duplicated the main viz, and filtered by Sub-Category = Chairs.

I removed the label, and then used the Annotate Point functionality to add the relevant labels against the points.

Profitable Legend

The Profitable / Non-Profitable legend makes use of our trusted friend MIN(0), with pills arranged as below.

Applying the Set Action

Create a dashboard to the size specified, and just use floating objects to position the text and various sheets.

To drive the expand / collapse function, create a Set Action on the main viz as below, that targets the Selected Sub-Cats set.

Revenue / Budget Label

This is just managed using Text objects on the dashboard, carefully positioned in the right locations. You might need to add additional objects to get the layout required.

The background of the whole dashboard is set to light grey and the sheets and objects need to be set to the same grey or white to get the same presentation.

So fingers crossed, you should have a complete solution now.

My final version (after I peeked at Ivett’s) is here.

Happy Vizzin’! Stay safe!

Donna

How much do these states contribute to the total?

Donna ColesLeave a comment

By Week 20 of #WOW2020, Tableau v2020.2 was released, so guest challenger, Sean Miller, returned with a challenge to demonstrate one of the new bits of functionality that had been released – the ability to remove values from a set via dashboard actions.

Selected states on the map are highlighted and added to the list displayed on the right; clicking a state on the list then removed it from being highlighted on the map.

This felt like it should be straightforward, which was quite a relief after the last couple of weeks, and I’m hoping this blog doesn’t take too long to write 🙂

Spoiler alert! It was straight forward – hurrah! I do really value these ‘simpler’ challenges, when the main purpose is to introduce new features and functionality. In a business environment, it’s not always possible to work with the latest release, so having these challenges as a useful working example of a new feature to reference in future, is of great benefit.

So, if you hadn’t already realised, you’re going to need v2020.2 to complete this challenge, which you can get here , or you may need to use Tableau Public instead.

Creating the State set

Double-click State, double-click Sales and change mark type to Filled Map, and you’ve got your basic starting point 🙂

We want to be able to have different colours for the states depending on whether they’re in or out of a set of selected states.

Create a Selected States set by right clicking on State and selecting Create -> Set. Choose a random set of states.

Note – in v2020.2, the Selected States set is now just listed in the top left hand ‘dimensions’ pane (which also is now no longer labelled dimensions) with a ‘set’ icon to indicate its ‘data type’, rather than being listed in a separate ‘Sets’ section towards the bottom.

Drag this set onto the Colour shelf of the map. The states selected in the set will be coloured differently from the other states. Adjust the In/Out colour legend to suit.

Remove the map features

The displayed map in the solution is very ‘clean’; all labels,non US countries etc are hidden. This is set by selecting Map -> Map Layers from the top menu, and unchecking all the pre-selected Map Layer options.

Map Tooltip

The tooltip displays more measures than just the Sales, so we need some calculated fields

# Orders

COUNTD([Order ID])

# Customers

COUNTD([Customer ID])

Add these to the Tooltip shelf and adjust the display accordingly.

Creating the State List

There are several ways to build a basic list, but to get the formatting nicer, I created it using a bar chart as follows

  • Type in ‘Min(1)’ to Columns
  • Add State to Rows
  • Add Selected States to Filter shelf
  • Add State to Text shelf
  • Adjust Text to read ‘x <State>’ and format to white text, and align left middle

Adjust the colour of the bar to suit, then

  • Uncheck Show Header from the State pill in the Rows
  • Adjust the axis to be fixed from 0 to 1
  • Hide the axis.
  • Change the Tooltip text to ‘CLICK TO REMOVE’
  • Change the title to include the instruction

Invoke the Set Actions

Add both sheets to a dashboard.

Add a Change Set Values Dashboard Action to the Map sheet as below

As you click a state or select a group of states, it/they will be added to the list.

Add another Change Set Values dashboard action, this time based off the state list as follows

As you click on a state in the list now, it will disappear from the list and the state will no longer be highlighted on the map.

You will notice though, that as you click states on the map, your selections remain ‘selected’ until you click again. To fix this we need to use a little ‘true = false’ trick to ‘automatically deselect’ the states.

Automatically deselect states

Create new calculated fields called

True

True

False

False

and add both of these to the Detail shelf on the Map sheet.

Then back on the dashboard create a Filter action as follows

Building the Bar Charts

The above has completed the main part of the challenge and demonstrates the new feature, the option to Remove values from set in the Set Action dialog.

However Sean added some extra charts to the display.

Sales Chart

Add Sales to Columns and Selected Sales to Colour. Change Sales to be a Quick Table Calculation and set it to Percent of Total.

The tooltip and the chart title have additional information so we need

Total Sales

{FIXED:SUM([Sales])}

Sales of Selected States

{FIXED: SUM(IF [Selected States] THEN [Sales] END)}

% Sales of Selected States

[Sales of Selected States] / [Total Sales]

Format all these accordingly.

Add all these to the Detail/Tooltip shelf as required and amend Tooltip and Chart Title as necessary.

Orders Chart

This is pretty much the same as above….

Add # Orders to Columns and Selected Sales to Colour. Change # Orders to be a Quick Table Calculation and set it to Percent of Total.

The tooltip and the chart title have additional information so we need

Total Orders

{FIXED:COUNTD([Order ID])}

Orders of Selected States

{FIXED: COUNTD(IF [Selected States] THEN [Order ID] END)}

% Orders of Selected States

[Orders of Selected States] / [Total Orders]

Customers Chart

This doesn’t work quite the same (I only found out after the event), as a customer can order against more than 1 state it would seem. So while you’ll still need the following

Total Customers

{FIXED:COUNTD([Customer ID])}

Customers in Selected States

{FIXED: COUNTD(IF [Selected States] THEN [Customer ID] END)}

% Customers of Selected States

[Customers of Selected States] / [Total Customers]

we need to build it as a dual axis, with % Customers of Selected States on Columns alongside Min(1)

This should be all the building blocks needed. My published viz is here.

Happy vizzin’! Stay Safe!

Donna

Can you build a dynamic date drilling chart?

Donna ColesLeave a comment

Week 19 of #WOW2020 saw Ann provide this challenge, which she declared would be easier than Luke’s from the previous week.

The aim was to start with a chart by week, but on selection drill in to show a by day view, with the slight twist that all days between the first and last selected dates should display, even if the specific week in between wasn’t explicitly selected.

I knew this was going to involve set actions (although there was a clue on the ‘latest challenges‘ page – I tend to pick up the challenges through Twitter, so often bypass this page, but it’s worth a look for extra clues :-))

So on the face of it, the challenge seemed as if it should be ok, but it’s usually only when I start building that things can start to unravel.

One area that Ann hadn’t been explicit about in the requirements, was the behaviour in certain scenarios. I had to revise some of my initial attempts/calculations in order to match Ann’s workbook. This week I’m not going to go into all the wrong turns, but this is the behaviour I observed in Ann’s workbook, and so ultimately tried to replicate.

  1. When at the week level, if multiple points are selected, the days then displayed should start from the first day of the first week selected (which will be a Sunday as we’re working with how the US standardises a week start), and finish on the last day of the last week selected (which will be a Saturday).
  2. When at the week level, if a single point is selected then the 7 days in that week only should be displayed.
  3. When at the day level, if multiple points are selected, the days then displayed start from the first day of the week the first day is in and end on the last day of the week the last selected day is in (so you may get more days than actually selected). eg if the 1st day selected is a Tuesday and the last day selected is a Friday, the ‘drill in’, will start on the previous Sunday, and end on the following Saturday. This isn’t necessarily what you may expect to happen.
  4. Based on the above, when at the day level, a single day is selected, the ‘drill in’ will show the 7 days in the same week. Once you’re down to displaying the 7 days in the same week, clicking on any single day or selecting a couple of days, won’t appear to do anything as the same results are displayed.

Being aware of the above, will explain why some the calculations I end up with look the way they do.

Ok, let’s get on with the build…..

Ann stated that she’d hardcoded to the ‘last 52 weeks’, but essentially it looked like she was displaying data for all of 2019. This wasn’t really something the challenge was testing, so I simply started by adding a data source filter for the year 2019 (right click on data source -> Edit data source filters). I also had to set the date properties of my data source to set a week to start on a Sunday as I’m UK based, so my week’s are defaulted to start on Mondays (again right click on data source -> Date Properties). As a result of my year filter, I didn’t seem to have the same starting/ending dates as Ann, but as already stated, this wasn’t the main aim of the challenge, so I didn’t stress about it.

I decided quite early on that I was going to also use a Parameter Action to decide the level I was at (ie had I drilled in or not). I wasn’t entirely sure when I started how many ‘levels’ I might need, so chose to use an integer parameter for this. I ended up only needing 2 levels, so a boolean could have worked equally as well, or, as I type, I think I could have used this parameter to store the ‘date level’ (day or week) I want to display my dates at, which would have made some of my calculations easier to read. I’m not going to do this though.

Drill Down

Integer parameter set to 0 by default.

Now I want to define a date field that I’m going to use on the axis, that will vary depending on the ‘level’ we’re at.

Date to Plot

IF [Drill Down]>0 THEN DATETRUNC(‘day’, [Order Date]) ELSE
DATETRUNC(‘week’, [Order Date])
END

Note – I used >0 as I wasn’t sure if I’d have levels 0, 1 & 2… as it turns out I just used 0 & 1 in the end.

Add Date to Plot to Columns as a Continuous, Exact Date and Sales to Rows and we’ve got our starting point

Change the Drill Down parameter to 1 and the chart will change to display at the day level

Drilling Down on selection

On selection, we want to add the selected dates into a set, so first up, we need to define that set.

Right click on Date to Plot and Create -> Set

Selected Dates

Select some random dates so we can test with. These will get set properly later based on the Set Action we define on the dashboard.

Based on the dates in the set, we need to determine a min and a max date we can then use to restrict the dates being plotted on the chart.

Min Date

{FIXED:MIN(IF [Selected Dates] OR [Drill Down]=0 THEN DATETRUNC(‘week’,[Date to Plot]) END) }

This either gets the 1st day of the week based on the earliest date in the set, or the 1st day of the week of the whole data set (when we’re at the ‘starting’ level with Drill Down =0).

We also need

Max Date

IF [Drill Down]=0 THEN
{FIXED:MAX(DATEADD(‘day’,-1,[Date to Plot]))}
ELSE
DATEADD(‘week’,1,{FIXED:MAX(IF [Selected Dates] THEN DATETRUNC(‘week’,[Date to Plot]) END)})-1
END

If we’re at the starting level (Drill Down = 0) then we want the last day within the latest week in the data set (this field is used in the title display, so necessary to get this to display right), otherwise we need to get the last day of the week associated to the maximum date in the set.

Now we need to be able to restrict the dates displayed in the chart based on these

Dates to Include

[Order Date]>= [Min Date] AND [Order Date]<= [Max Date]

Add this to the Filter shelf and set to True.

Your display shouldn’t change, as we’re still at ‘level 0’, even though our set has random dates selected. If you now manually change Drill Down to 1, you should see a change

Setting up the dashboard actions

Ok, now we’ve got the basic idea, let’s get it all working properly with dashboard actions before we sort out all the other bits n bobs.

First up, let’s manually reset everything by setting the Drill Down parameter to 0 and emptying all the values selected in the set.

Add the sheet onto the dashboard, and create the set action, which is set to target the Selected Dates set and to Keep set values if you click on a blank area of the chart after selection.

However, this on it’s own won’t change the display. We need to set the Drill Down parameter to 1 too.

For this we need another field

Set Drill Down Level

1

Add this to the Detail shelf of the chart.

Then back on the dashboard, add a Parameter Action that targets the Drill Down parameter using the value stored in the Set Drill Down Level field

Now if you select the dates in the dashboard, you should get the desired behaviour, and if you select again, you should filter the days selected further (as per the behaviour described at the top of the page).

Resetting the display

The Reset button is actually another sheet.

I created a ‘fake’ bar chart by adding MIN(1) to Rows, and double clicking in the space below the Detail and Tooltip shelves on the Marks card, and typing the text ‘CLEAR SELECTION’. This creates a ‘pill’ without having it defined explicitly as a calculated field, and I added this to the Text shelf, and centred/formatted appropriately. I then set the axis to be fixed from 0 to 1 and hid it.

I set the colour to #a26dc2 and set the text to ‘match mark colour.

We only want this sheet to display, if we’ve ‘drilled down’, so I need

Show Reset

[Drill Down]=1

which is added to the Filter shelf and set to True.

I also need a parameter action off this sheet, to reset the Drill Down to 0 on selection. For this I need another field

Reset

0

which is added to the Detail shelf.

Depending on what you’ve already been playing around with, there’s a chance this sheet may already be empty. Get the dashboard into a state where you’ve drilled down to the day level, then add this sheet, and add another Parameter Action.

Reset is set to run off the ‘button’ sheet only, to target the Drill Down parameter by using the value in the Reset field.

You should now be able to test all this out and get the desired behaviour.

Adding Animations

To get the chart to transition between selections, we need to use the Animations functionality.

On the Format menu, select Animations and adjust the settings as you choose.

Play around and you should have the main features of this challenge now working

Dynamic Title

The title needs to change based on whether you’re at the weekly or daily level. It also needs to show total and average sales. So for all this I need

LABEL: Level

IF [Drill Down]>0 THEN ‘Day’ ELSE ‘Week’ END

LABEL: Subtitle Level

IF [Drill Down]>0 THEN ‘Daily’ ELSE ‘Weekly’ END

LABEL: Instruction

IF [Drill Down] = 0 THEN ‘SELECT WEEKS TO DRILL DOWN TO DAILY VIEW’
ELSE ‘CLEAR SELECTION USING BUTTON’
END

Total Sales

WINDOW_SUM(SUM([Sales]))

Avg Sales

WINDOW_AVG(SUM([Sales]))

All these fields are added to the Detail shelf of the main chart along with Min Date and Max Date, and then the title is edited and formatted accordingly to reference these.

Tooltips

In a similar manner, the tooltips also need adjusting, they just need to refer to the LABEL: Level field

Colour of the Line

Although not explicitly mentioned, the line colour seemed to change from a lighter shade at the weekly level to more intense at the daily level. To achieve this I created

COLOUR

[Drill Down]

and added to the Colour shelf. This gives a colour legend displaying either 1 or 0 depending at what state you are in the interaction. Set colour values accordingly.

Average Line

Add this to the chart simply by selecting Average Line from the Analytics pane and dragging then dropping onto the Table shelf that appears. Format appropriately.

And apart from other basic formatting to remove gridlines/ axis titles etc, that should be it.

My published viz is here.

Happy vizzin’! Stay Safe!

Donna

Can you show missing selected periods and autosize bars?

Donna ColesLeave a comment

Newly wed Lorna Brown (previously known as Lorna Eden 😉 ) returned for this week’s #WOW challenge.

The requirement was to create a bar chart showing number of orders per subcategory per day/week/month over a user defined number of years. The chart is coloured based on Profit. The bars also need to change size based on what date part was being displayed Lorna already hinted they’d be parameters and set actions involved.

Building the chart

First off let’s create the parameters we need to drive the dates we need to include in the viz.

Select Period

A string parameter listing Daily, Weekly, Monthly. The trick here is to store the datepart of day, week, month as the value, while displaying the required text for selection. Default to Weekly.

Doing this means later we can refer directly to the parameter when we need some date manipulation.

Number of Years

A range integer parameter starting from 1 to 4, defaulting to 2

With these, we can define the Date field that we need to plot on our axis

Date to Plot

DATE(DATETRUNC([Select Period],[Order Date],’Sunday’))

This has the effect of truncating every order date to the 1st day of the relevant month or week or just to the day, so for example if ‘month’ is selected all the orders placed in May 2019 will be grouped together under 01 May 2019 etc.

Dates to Include

YEAR([Order Date])>={MAX(Year([Order Date]))}-([Number of Years]-1)

{MAX(Year([Order Date]))} is a shortened notation for the level of detail calculation (LoD)

{FIXED : MAX(Year([Order Date]))}

which basically returns the highest year in the data set, which in this case is 2019. If the [Number of Years] parameter is set to 1 for example, we would expect all of 2019 to display, hence we need to subtract 1 in the formula so we get all orders in 2019.

Adding this to the Filter shelf and set to true will limit the orders to the dates in the years required.

Finally we need the measure

Number of Orders

COUNTD([Order ID])

Right, with those parameters set, we can now build the basic bar chart. For now we’ll just restrict the data to a single Sub-Category directly – we’ll look to adjust this later.

  • Add Dates to Include = True to Filter
  • Add Sub-Category = Tables to Filter
  • Add Date to Plot as a continuous exact date to Rows (green pill)
  • Add Number of Orders to Columns
  • Add Profit to Colour
  • Set Mark Type to Bar
  • Adjust the Tooltip to match
  • Show the Select Period & Number of Years parameters
  • Adjust the Sheet Title to reference the Select Period parameter

Sizing the bars

You’ll see the bars all look a bit overlapped. You might be tempted to adjust the bar size by moving the slider to reduce the overlap, which may well work, but as you change the Select Period parameter you’ll find that what you’re doing is setting the bar width to set width that is the same whether you have 24 marks displayed (monthly for 2 years) or 156 marks (daily for 2 years). The requirement is for the bar to adjust in width, so it’s wider when there’s less marks.

To do this, we need a calculated field

Size

CASE [Select Period]
WHEN ‘day’ THEN 1
WHEN ‘week’ THEN 5
WHEN ‘month’ THEN 10
END

These are just arbitrary values I chose, and you can play around with the values to suit, but the key is you’re choosing a range of numbers with the smallest for ‘day’ and the largest for ‘month’.

Add this field to the Size shelf. and change it to be a Continuous Dimension ie a green pill of just Size rather than SUM([Size]).

Then click on the Size shelf and change from Manual to Fixed, and set the alignment to Centre.

Changing the Select Period parameter you’ll see the bars adjust their width from being very narrow for Daily, wider for Weekly, and wider again for Monthly.

Sub Category Selector

This is based on techniques that have cropped up in a few #WOWs this year.

We’re going to be using Set Actions for this bit, so to start we need a Set.

Right click on Sub-Category -> Create Set. Name the set Selected Sub-Category and just select a single value, Tables for now.

Now on a new sheet, add MIN(0.0) to Columns (type directly in) and Sub-Category to Rows.

  • Change the Mark Type to Shape
  • Add Sub-Category to Label
  • Add Selected Sub Category set to Shape, and adjust the shape and colour to suit
  • Create a calculated field called True and another called False, each containing the value True and False respectively – add these to the Detail shelf.
  • Edit the Axis to be Fixed to start at -0.07 to 1. This is to shift everything to the left.
  • Turn off Tooltips
  • Format to remove all column, row, zero & grid lines & axis rulers.
  • Uncheck Show Header on Sub-Category and MIN(0.0)

Building the dashboard

First up, now we’ve got a Set to store the Selected Sub-Category, remove, the Sub-Category field from the Filter shelf of the bar chart. Add the Selected Sub-Category set to the Filter shelf instead.

Now create a new dashboard sheet and add the bar chart to it.

By default, the Profit colour legend and parameters will be displayed in a vertical layout container to the right of the bar chart.

Remove the colour legend, and position the Select Period parameter above the Number of Years.

Then add the Selector sheet between the two parameters, and remove any additional legends that get added.

Add a dashboard action Deselect against the Selector sheet to stop the un-selected Sub-Categories from fading out.

Add a further dashboard action Select Sub Cat against the Selector sheet to set the value of the Selected Sub-Category set on selection. The dashboard action should be set flagged to Run on single select only, so multiple values can’t be chosen.

Change the vertical layout container to be floating, then adjust the height and set the background colour to white.

Use the Add Show/Hide Button option on the Layout container to enable the collapsible container functionality.

You’ll just need to move things around a bit, adjust the sizes to suit, but that should be pretty much it.

My published version is here.

Keep safe & Happy vizzin’!

Donna