New year means only one thing – a change to the WorkoutWednesday hashtag! We’re now #WOW2023, and it was Lorna’s turn to kick the next year of challenges off with a focus on the latest Tableau features. This challenge uses the image role function introduced in 2022.4 and the dynamic role visibility feature introduced in 2022.3 (so you need to make sure you’re using at least 2022.4 to complete this).
Setting up the data source
Lorna provided an excel based data sheet which I downloaded. It contains several tabs, but the two you need to relate are Player Stats and Player Positions, relating as Lorna describes on both the Game ID and the Player Name
The data needs to be filtered to just the men’s competition, so I did this by adding a data source filter (right click on the data source -> Edit Data Source Filter) where Comp = Rugby League World Cup. Doing this meant I didn’t have to worry about adding fields to the Filter shelf at all.
Building the scatter plot
For the basic chart, simply add All Run Metres to Columns and Passes to Rows, then add Game ID and Name to the Detail shelf.
We need to identify which player and game is selected when a user clicks, so we need parameters to capture these.
pSelectedGameID
integer parameter defaulted to 0
pSelectedPlayer
string parameter defaulted to nothing/empty string/ ”
Show these parameters on the canvas, and then manually enter Brandon Smith and 21.
We now need calculated fields to reference the parameter values
Is Selected Player
[Name] = [pSelectedPlayer]
Is Selected Game
[Game ID] = [pSelectedGameID]
Both return a boolean True / False value, and we can then determine which combination of player/game each mark represents, which we need in order to colour the marks.
Colour : Scatter
IF [Is Selected Game] AND [Is Selected Player] THEN ‘Both’ ELSEIF [Is Selected Player] THEN ‘Player’ ELSEIF [Is Selected Game] THEN ‘Game’ ELSE ‘Neither’ END
Add this field to the Colour shelf, change the mark type to Circle and adjust the colours accordingly. Manually sort the order of the values so that the light grey ‘Neither’ option is listed last (which means it will always be underneath any other mark).
While not stated in the requirements, the marks for the selected player are larger than the others, so add Is Selected Player to the Size shelf, and adjust the size range to suit.
Adjust the tooltip and name the sheet Scatter.
Building the Bar Chart
On a new sheet, add Player Image and Game ID to Rows and All Run Metres and Passes to Columns. Add Is Selected Player to Filter and set to True. Edit the title of the sheet so it references the pSelectedPlayer parameter, and align centre.
Set the Player Image field to use the actual image of the player stored at the URL, by clicking on the ABC datatype icon to the left of the field in the data pane, and selecting Image Role -> URL
This will change the data type icon and update the view to show the actual player image
Add Is Selected Game to the Colour shelf on the All marks card and adjust accordingly. Remove the tooltips.
We need to show the axis titles at the top, rather than bottom. To do this add another instance of the All Run Metres field to the right of the existing one. Make dual axis and synchronise axis. Repeat with the Passes field by adding another instance to the right of the existing one and making dual axis again.
Set the mark type on the All marks card back to bar.
Right click on the All Run Metres bottom axis, remove the title, and set the tick marks to none. Repeat for the Passes bottom axis.
Right click on the All Run Metres top axis, and just set the tick marks to none. Again repeat for the Passes top axis.
Adjust the font of both axis title (right click axis -> format; I just set to Tableau Book) and then manually decrease the height of the axis.
Finally click the Label button on the All marks card and check the Show mark labels check box.
Then remove all column and row divider lines.
Adding the interactivity
On a dashboard, add a Vertical Layout Container, then add the bar chart into it and then add the scatter plot underneath. Remove the container that contains all the legends and parameters – we don’t need to show any of these. Hide the title of the scatter plot.
Add a dashboard parameter action to set the pSelectedPlayer parameter on select of a circle on the scatter plot. Set this parameter to pass the Name field into the parameter, and when clearing the selection, set the value to empty string/ nothing / ”
Select Player
Add another similar dashboard parameter action, which sets the pSelectedGame parameter in a similar way. This time, the Game ID field is passed into the parameter which is then set to 0 when the selection is cleared.
Select Game
If you test clicking on the scatter plot, you should now see the bar chart data disappear (although some white space about the height of the title remains) and you’ll also see that the circle selected is ‘highlighted’ compared to all the others.
To resolve the highlighting issue, navigate back to the scatter plot sheet, create a new calculated field called Dummy which just contains the string ‘Dummy’. Add this field to the Detail shelf.
Navigate back to the dashboard, and add a dashboard highlight action, that on select on the scatter plot, targets the same sheet on the same dashboard, but only focus on the Dummy field.
Deselect Marks
To make the whole section where the player bar chart is displayed, completely collapse, we need another parameter
pShowPlayerDetail
boolean parameter defaulted to false
We also need a boolean calculated field called
Show Player Detail
TRUE
Add this to the Detail shelf of the Scatter plot sheet.
Then navigate back to the dashboard, and create another parameter dashboard action, which on select of a circle on the scatter plot, sets the pShowPlayerDetail parameter based on the value from the Show Player Detail field. When the selection is cleared, reset the parameter to False.
Show Player Detail
Finally select the bar chart on the dashboard, then click the Layout tab on the left and side, and tick the Control visibility using value check box, and in the drop down select Parameters – > pShowPlayerDetail.
Now when a circle is clicked on, the bar chart section will completely disappear and the scatter plot will fill up the whole space.
Finalise the dashboard by adding the title and legend. My published viz is here.
Sean set the challenge this week to build a custom relative date filter. He uttered the words “this week is pretty straightforward” which always makes me a bit nervous…
The premise was to essentially replicate the out of the box relative date filter. I had a good play with Sean’s solution, hovering my mouse over various fields, to see if there were any clues to get me started. I deduced the filter box, was a floating container, which stored multiple other worksheets and some parameters used to drive the behaviour.
I worked out that I think I’d need to build at least 4 sheets – 1 for the main chart, 1 to manage the date part ‘tabbed’ selector at the top of the relative date control, 1 to manage the radio button selections within the relative date control, and 1 to display the date range.
So let’s crack on.
Building the initial chart
I used the Superstore data from v2022.1, so my dates went up to 31 Dec 2022.
We need to create a line chart that shows the dates at a user defined date level – we need a parameter to control this selection
pDateLevel
string parameter containing the relevant date parts in a list, and defaulted to ‘Week’. Notice the Value fields are all lower case, while the Display As as all proper case. The lower case values is important, as this parameter will be fed into date functions, which expect the string values to be lower case.
Then we need a new date field to show the dates at the level specified
Display Date
DATE(DATETRUNC([pDateLevel], [Order Date]))
Then add this field onto Columns as a continuous exact date (green pill) and add Sales to Rows. Show the pDateLevel parameter and test the chart changes as the parameter does.
Name this sheet Chart or similar. We’ll come back to it later, as we need to ensure this data gets filtered based on the selections made in the relative date control.
Setting up a scaffold data source
So there were no additional data source files provided, and also no ‘you must do it this way’ type instructions, so I decided to create my own ‘scaffold’ data source to help with building the relative date control. Doing this means the concept should be portable if I wanted to add the same control into any other dashboards.
I created an Excel file (RelativeDate_ControlSheet.xslx) which had the following sheets
DateParts
A single column headed Datepart containing the values Year, Quarter, Month, Week, Day
Relative Options
3 columns Option ID (containing values 1-6), Option Type (containing values date part, n periods, to date) and Option Text (containing values Last, This, Next, to date)
I added both of these sheets as new data sources to my workbook (so I have 3 data sources listed in my data pane in total).
Building the Date Part Selector
From the DateParts data source, add the Datepart field to both the Rows and Text fields. Manually re-sort by dragging the values to be in the required order.
Manually type in MIN(1) into the Rows shelf and edit the axis to be fixed from 0-1. Align the text centrally.
We’re going to need another parameter to capture the date part that will be clicked.
pDatePartSelected
string parameter defaulted to ‘quarter’ (note case)
We also need a new calculated field to store the value of the date parts in lower case
Datepart Lower
LOWER([Datepart])
and then we can use these fields to work out which date part has been selected on the viz
Selected Date Part
[pDatePartSelected] = [Datepart Lower]
Add this to the Colour shelf, and adjust colours accordingly (False is white).
Remove headers, column/row dividers, gridlines and axis, and don’t show tooltips.
Finally, we’re going to need to ensure that when a value is clicked on in the dashboard, it doesn’t remain ‘highlighted’ as we’re using the colouring already applied to define the selection made.
In the DateParts data source, create new calculated fields
True
TRUE
False
FALSE
and add both these fields to the Detail shelf, along with the Datepart Lower field. We’ll refer to all these later when we get to the dashboard.
Building the Relative Date Radio Button Selector
In the Relative Options data source, create the following fields
Row
IF ([Option ID] %3) = 0 THEN 3 ELSE ([Option ID] %3) END
Column
INT([Option ID]<=3)
These fields will be used to define where each entry in our scaffold data source will be positioned in the tabular display.
We then need to get all the text displayed as is expected, but firstly we need to define the parameter that will capture n number of days, which is incorporated into the label displayed
pSelectPeriods
integer parameter
We can now create
Option Label
IF [pDatePartSelected] = ‘day’ THEN IF [Option ID]=1 THEN ‘Yesterday’ ELSEIF [Option ID] =2 THEN ‘Today’ ELSEIF [Option ID] = 3 THEN ‘Tomorrow’ ELSEIF [Option Type] = ‘n periods’ THEN [Option Text] + ‘ ‘ + STR([pSelectPeriods]) + ‘ ‘ + [pDatePartSelected] +’s’ ELSE UPPER(LEFT([pDatePartSelected],1)) + MID([pDatePartSelected],2) + ‘ ‘ + [Option Text] END ELSE IF [Option Type] = ‘date part’ THEN [Option Text] + ‘ ‘ + [pDatePartSelected] ELSEIF [Option Type] = ‘n periods’ THEN [Option Text] + ‘ ‘ + STR([pSelectPeriods]) + ‘ ‘ + [pDatePartSelected] +’s’ ELSE UPPER(LEFT([pDatePartSelected],1)) + MID([pDatePartSelected],2) + ‘ ‘ + [Option Text] END END
This looks a bit convoluted and could possibly be simplified… it grew organically as I was building, and special cases had to be added for the ‘yesterday’/’today’/’tomorrow’ options. I could have added more detail to the the scaffold to help with all this, but ‘que sera’…
Add Column to Columns and Row to Rows. Add Option ID to Detail and Option Label to Text. Manually re-sort the columns so they are reversed
We’re going to need to identify which of the options has been selected. This will be captured in a parameter
pOptionSelected
integer parameter defaulted to 2
and then we need to know if the row of data matches that selected, so create a calculated field
Selected Relative Date Option
[Option ID] = [pOptionSelected]
Manually type in to columns Min(0.0), then change the mark type to shape and add Selected Relative Date Option to the Shape shelf, and amend the shapes to be an open and filled circle. Change the colour to grey.
As before, remove all headers, axis, gridlines, row/column dividers and don’t show the tooltip. Also we’ll need those True and False fields on this viz too – you’ll need to create new calculated fields in this data source, just like you did above, and then add them to the Detail shelf.
Restricting the dates displayed
Now we need to work on getting the line chart to change based on the selections being made that get captured into parameters. But first we need one more parameter
pAnchorDate
date parameter, defaulted to 31 Dec 2022
From playing with Sean’s solution, what date is actually used when filtering can vary based on the date part that is selected. Eg if you choose Month, next 2 months, anchor date of 15 Dec 2022 and choose to display data at the day level, you’ll see all the data for the whole of December rather than just up to 15 Dec (there is no Jan 23 data to display – so you actually only see 1 month’s worth of data). Based on these observations, I created another calculated field to run the filtering against.
CASE [pOptionSelected] WHEN 1 THEN ([Order Date] >= DATEADD([pDatePartSelected],-1,[Compare Date]) AND [Order Date]< [Compare Date])
WHEN 2 THEN ([Order Date]>= [Compare Date] AND [Order Date] < DATEADD([pDatePartSelected], 1, [Compare Date]))
WHEN 3 THEN ([Order Date]>= DATEADD([pDatePartSelected],1,[Compare Date]) AND [Order Date] < DATEADD([pDatePartSelected],2,[Compare Date]))
WHEN 4 THEN ([Order Date]> DATEADD([pDatePartSelected],-1*[pSelectPeriods],[Compare Date]) AND [Order Date]<= [Compare Date])
WHEN 5 THEN ([Order Date] >= [Compare Date] AND [Order Date]< DATEADD([pDatePartSelected],[pSelectPeriods],[Compare Date]))
WHEN 6 THEN ([Order Date] >= [Compare Date] AND [Order Date]<= [pAnchorDate]) ELSE FALSE END
This returns a boolean true or false. Add this field to the Filter shelf of the line chart and set to True.
If you show all the parameters on the view, you can play around manually altering the values to see how the line chart changes
Building the data range display
On a new sheet, add Dates To Show to the Filter shelf and set to True. Then add Order Date as a discrete exact date (blue pill) to Text and change the aggregation to Min. Repeat adding another instance of Order Date and change the aggregation to Max. Format the text accordingly.
Note at this point, I have reset everything back to be based on the original defaults I set in all the parameters.
Finally, there’s one additional sheet to build – something to display the ‘value’ of the option selected in the relative date filter control.
On a new sheet, using the Relative Options datasource, add Selected Relative Date Option to Filter and set to True. Then add Option Label to Text. Add row and column dividers, so it looks like a box.
Putting it all together
On a dashboard, add the Chart sheet (without title). Position the pDateLevel parameter above the chart, and add the input display box we built last, next to it (remove the title). Add a title to the whole dashboard at the top. Then remove the container that contains all the other parameters etc which don’t want to display.
You should have something similar to the below.
Change the title of the pDateLevel parameter and then adjust the input box so it looks to be in line – this can be fiddly, and there’s no guarantee that it’ll be aligned when it gets published to server. You may have to adjust again once published. You can try using padding – ultimately this is a bit of trial and error.
Now add a floating vertical container onto the sheet (click the Floating button at the bottom of the Dashboard panel on the left and drag a vertical object onto the canvas). Resize and position where you think it should be. Add a dark border to the container and set the background to white.
Now click the Tiled button at the bottom of the dashboard panel on the left, and add the Date Part Selector sheet into the container. Remove the title, and also remove any legend that automatically gets added.
Now add a line : add a blank object beneath the date part selector. Edit the outer padding of this object to be 10 px on the left and right and 0 px on the top and bottom. Change the background colour to grey, then edit the height of the object to 1px.
Now add the radio button chart beneath the line (fit entire view)., and again delete any additional legend, parameters added
Now add a Horizontal container beneath the radio button chart. Then click on the context menu of the radio button chart and select parameter > pAnchorDate to display the anchor date on the sheet. Hopefully this should land in the horizontal container, but if it doesn’t, you’ll have to move it. Add the pSelectPeriods parameter this way too.
Change the titles of these parameters as required, then add another line blank object using the technique described above, although delay changing the height for now.
Add the Date range sheet below, and fit to entire view, and now you can edit the height of the line blank object to size 1px.
Next select the container object (it will have a blue border when selected like below) and use the context menu to select Add Show/Hide Button
This will generate a little X show/hide floating object. Use the context menu of this object to Edit Button
I used powerpoint to create the up/down triangle images, which I then saved and referenced via the ‘choose an image’ option
I then added a border to this option and positioned it (through trial and error) where I wanted it to be.
Adding the interactivity
The final step is to now add all the required dashboard action controls.
At least, this is the final step based on how I’ve authored this post. In reality, when I built this originally, I added the objects to the dashboard quite early to test the functionality in the various calculated fields I’d written, so it’s possible you may have already done some of this already 🙂
We need to set which date part has been selected on the control. This is a parameter action
Set Date Part
On select of the Date Part Selector sheet, set the pDatePartSelected parameter, passing through the value of the associated Datepart Lower field.
Add another parameter to capture which radio button has been selected
Select Relative Date Option
On select of the Relative Date Selector sheet, set the pOptionSelected parameter, passing through the value of the associated Option ID field (ensuring aggregation is set to None).
Then we need to add dashboard filter actions to stop the selected options from being highlighted when clicked. Create a filter action
Deselect Dale Part Selecteor
on select of the Date Part Selector view on the dashboard, target the Date Part Selector sheet directly, passing the fields True = False, and show all values when the selection is cleared
Apply a second filter action using the same principals but with the Relative Date radio button selector sheet instead.
And with all that, the dashboard should now be built and functioning as required.
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
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.
It was Ann’s turn this week to post the weekly #WOW challenge. There’s a fair bit going on here, so let’s get cracking.
Building the main chart
There’s essentially 3 instances of this chart. I’ll walk through the steps to create the Sales version. All the fields just need to be duplicated to build the Orders & Quantity versions.
First up we need a parameter to store the date the user selects. This needs to be a date parameter that allows all dates and is set to 8th May 2019 by default: Order Date Parameter
Based on this parameter value, we need to work out the day of the week of the parameter date, the date 12 weeks ago, and then filter all the dates to just include the dates that match the day of the week. So we need
Day of Week
UPPER(DATENAME(‘weekday’,[Order Date Parameter],’Monday’))
(the UPPER is necessary for the display Ann has stated).
Dates to Include
[Order Date]>=DATEADD(‘day’,-84,[Order Date Parameter]) AND [Order Date]<= [Order Date Parameter]
This identifies the dates in the 12 week period we’re concerned with.
I played around with ‘week’ and ‘day’, as I noticed when playing with Ann’s published solution that sometimes there were 12 dates displayed, other times there were 13, but this is just down to how the number of days in a month fall, and whether there’s actually orders on the days.
Weekdays to Include
[Day of Week] = UPPER(DATENAME(‘weekday’,[Order Date],’Monday’))
This identifies all the dates that are on the same day of the week as the Order Date Parameter.
Add both Dates to Include and Weekdays to Include to the Filters shelf and set both to True.
Add Order Date to Rows and set to be a discrete exact date. Add Sales to Text. Sort Order Date by Sales DESC
The colouring of the cells is based on 4 conditions
being the max value
being above the average value
being the min value
being below the average value
I used table calcs to work this out, giving each condition a numeric value
Colour:Sales
IF SUM([Sales]) = WINDOW_MAX(SUM([Sales])) THEN 1 ELSEIF SUM([Sales]) = WINDOW_MIN(SUM([Sales])) THEN 4 ELSEIF SUM([Sales]) >= WINDOW_AVG(SUM([Sales])) THEN 2 ELSE 3 END
Add this to the Colour shelf and change it to be a continuous (green) pill, which will enable you to select a ‘range’ colour palette rather than a discrete one. Temperature Diverging won’t be available for selection unless the pill is green; on selection, the colours will automatically be set as per the requirement. Change the mark type to Square.
We also need to identify an above & below average split so create
Sales Header
UPPER(IF [COLOUR:Sales]<=2 THEN ‘Above Average’ ELSE ‘Below Average’ END)
Note the carriage return/line break, which is necessary to force the text across 2 lines.
Add this to the Rows shelf in front of Order Date, and format to rotate label
Finally we need to show a triangle indicator against the selected date.
Selected Date
IF [Order Date]=[Order Date Parameter] THEN ‘►’ ELSE ” END
Add this to Rows between Sales Header and Order Date
Format to remove all column & row lines, then add row banding set to the appropriate level, and a mid grey colour
Finally Hide Field Labels for Rows, format the font of the date and set the tooltip.
Now we need to set the title to include the rank of the selected date.
Selected Date Sales Rank
IF ATTR([Order Date])=[Order Date Parameter] THEN RANK_UNIQUE(SUM([Sales]))END
Add this to the Detail shelf, and the field will then be available to reference when you edit the title of the sheet
Name this sheet Sales Rank or similar.
You can now repeat the steps to build versions for Orders (COUNTD(Order ID)) and Quantities (SUM(Quantity)).
Dynamic Title
To build the title that will be displayed on the dashboard, create a new sheet, and add Order Date Parameter and Day of Week to the Text shelf. Then format the text to suit
Building the Dashboard
The ‘extra’ requirement Ann added to this challenge, was to display a ‘grey shadow’ beneath each of the rank tables. This is done using containers, setting background colours and applying padding. When building this took a bit of trial & error. Hopefully in documenting I’ll get the steps in the right order…. fingers crossed…
On a new dashboard, set the background colour to a pale grey.
Add a vertical container.
Add the Title sheet into the container, and remove the sheet title
Add a blank object into the container, beneath the Title sheet.
Add another blank object into the container, between the Title and the blank, set the background of this object to dark grey, reduce the padding to 0 and the edit the height to 2.
This will give the impression of a ‘line’ on the dashboard
Now add a horizontal container beneath the ‘line’ and the blank object at the bottom. You may need to adjust the heights of the objects
Set the outer padding of this object to 5.
Add a blank object into this horizontal container. Blank objects help when organising objects when working with containers, and will be removed later.
Add another horizontal container into this container next to the blank object. Set the background to a dark gray and set the outer padding to left 10, top 5, right 5, bottom 0.
Into this dark grey layout container add the Sales Rank sheet. Set the backgroud of this object to white, and the outer padding as left 0, top 0, right 0, bottom 4. Make sure the sales rank sheet is set to Fit Entire View.
Add another horizontal container to the right of the Sales Rank sheet, between that and the blank object. Set the background to the dark grey, and outer padding to left 5, top 5, right 5, bottom 0.
Add the Orders Rank sheet into this container, again set to Fit Entire View, set the background to white and outer padding to left 0, top 0, right 0, bottom 4.
Add another horizontal container, this time between the Order Rank sheet and the blank object. Set the background to dark grey, and outer padding to left 5, top 5, right 10, bottom 0.
Add the Qty Rank sheet into this container, again set to Fit Entire View, set the background to white and outer padding to left 0, top 0, right 0, bottom 4.
Now delete the blank object to the right, and delete the blank object at the bottom. Also delete the container in the right hand panel that has been automatically added and contains all the legends etc.
Set the dashboard to the required 700 x 450 size.
Select the ‘outer’ horizontal container that has all the charts in it, and Distribute Contents Evenly
You may need to adjust the widths of the columns within the ranking charts to get everything displayed in the right way.
But fingers crossed, you should have the desired display.
Calendar icon date selector
The final requirement, is to show the date selected on click of a calendar icon. This is managed using a floating container to store the Order Date Parameter, and using the Add Show/Hide Button option of the container menu.
Select Edit Button and under Item Hidden choose the calendar icon you can get off the site Ann provided a link for.
You’ll just then have to adjust the position of the container with the parameter and the button to suit.
Note – I did find after publishing on Tableau Public, I had some erroneous horizontal white lines displaying across my ranking charts. I’m putting this down to an issue with rendering on Public, as I can’t see anything causing this, and it’s not visible on Desktop.
Donna + DataViz 