24 Tableau Tips I learned/Re-learned today
(You can also find the article on my website together with other articles and more interesting things)
The importance of Sharing
I think that one of the best way to learn something is by sharing. There are a lot of great free online content, and I really like when I find someone really knowledgeable about a tool practically.
If it is a practical aspect, like what I learned in this episode in Tableau, I like to redo the lecture by myself, go through what I have learned and then write about it myself to teach other from my point of view.
This article is regarding VizConnects video “VizConnect Tableau Design Tips” by Zak Geis. VizConnect is a great initiative that “share tips and tricks from Data Enthusiasts and Tableau Evangelist”, you can find their youtube page here.
What I found from this video was that there were so many small tips that I haven’t thought of before in Tableau. This led me to wanting to write this Series about the 24 Tableau tips that I Learned/Re-learned today.
24 Tips learned from VizConnects Tableau Tips By Zak Geis
Tip 1: Change connection source to Extract Worksheet-page
If you want to change your connection from Live to Extract you do not have to go to the data source page. Instead you can just right click the data source and Extract Data from there which will save you some time if you have many data sources.
Tip 2: Show Mark Labels without adding field
If you have a measure already in the row or column shelf, instead of having to drag a field to the Label mark it is much quicker to add Mark Labels but just checking the Mark Labels tick box. One can then format the labels as normal below.
Tip 3: Turn of (Disable) Tooltip Completely
If you think that Tooltips are annoying, or just want to temporary disable them, you don’t have to go in and remove the Tooltip text completely. A much quicker way is just to press the “Show Tooltips” button in the Tooltips settings to disable them.
Tip 4: Match Label and Chart Color
If you feel like you want to have your labels and chart colored in the same color, the “Match Mark Colour” is the right thing to check for you. The best use case for this is probably when you have a bar chart that is colored by different groups/segments and you want the label to stay coherent with this.
Tip 5: Use Excel to create a base for parameter actions
This is a really cool thing that I learned from Zak today, that you can involve Excel to create a baseline, similar like a Lookup Table for a lot of things in Tableau, really quickly.
You begin by adding a header and some categories in Excel like the left picture above, as a Lookup table. You can then just copy the values and paste them anywhere on one of your pages and you will get a new connection called “Clipboard” (Renamed to Category in the left picture above).
You will now have a new table in your Tableau workbook, that you can do a lot of things together with for example Parameter Actions later.
Tip 6: Create a new Parameter for the Tip 6 to use later
To make use of the new table created by Excel, the best use case is to create a Parameter from the new Category Variable created in the new Category Table from Excel.
This can serve as a basis for creating better UX experience later. You can create a calculated field based on this, and later involve this parameter when creating parameter actions and more.
Tip 7: Create (Inline) Calculated field to use parameter above
In this use case you can now use the parameter created by the table from Excel in an Inline Calculated field. This way you can do a nice UX design to color for example a bar chart depending on which parameter that is chosen.
Tip 8: Save Hexdecimal colours for colours you use frequently
Another tip that I think is important if you are into design is to save hexdecimal colours for colours that you use frequently. This way you can have a coherent design between your different dashboards with colours that you prefer.
Tip 9: Drop field above field when “Flipping”
This is a simple trick, but if you want to switch out/flip one of the measures to another measure, drop the new measure above the old one, instead of dragging away the old one and then dragging in the new one.
Tip 10: More control with Floating Dashboards
I think everyone thinks different regarding floating or Tiled Dashboards. But one thing with floating dashboards is that you get more control over your dashboards than with tiled dashboards.
For me personally, I have to spend much more time with tiled dashboard to fix so everything is correct, compared to floating dashboards.
Tip 11: Use floating containers and drop objects with shift
If you are now using floating dashboards, make use of containers and also drop new worksheets in these containers by holding shift and then letting go inside the containers.
Tip 12: Case + Parameter in Calculated Field = Dynamic Filters
This is one of the best way to use parameter actions. By utilizing Case-statements together with parameters you can create dynamic filters. When the parameter Sales Category is Sales, the Sales Measure will be filtered, when Profit, the Profit Measure will be filtered and so on.
Tip 13: Copy and Paste Formatting between Worksheets
If you have spent a lot of time on formatting one page and have the same visual on the next page, but with other values/measures, a good way to keep the formatting is by pressing copy formatting when right clicking the worksheet in the bottom.
You can then paste it on the new worksheet by pressing Paste Formatting when right clicking that worksheet, and all the formatting from the first worksheet will follow along.
Tip 14: Manually Sorting
If you want to sort in a special way (Not Ascending or Descending regarding to a specific field), you can sort fields manually as well. Just click on sort, and then chose “Sort By Manual” and you can move your measures up and down regarding to which one you want to have first.
Tip 15: Use Transparent Shapes from PowerPoint
This is a really neat tip that I really like, which makes use of PowerPoint to enhance the UX in Tableau. What you first do is that you create a shape in PowerPoint. You remove all the outline and filling so that it becomes transparent.
You then save it as a shape in your Tableau repository so you can use it inside Tableau.
Use this shape now for for example dynamic headers. By adding this transparent shape, you will be able to press each of the headers, but nothing will show as they are all transparent shapes.
If you then connect this to Parameter Actions, you can get a really nice User Experience, instead of the “Boring” Filter that you probably normally would use.
Tip 16: Save things quicker to your Tableau Repository
If you often take long time on you to find your Repository Location, a quicker way might be to open it up directly from Tableau by clicking “File — Repository Location”.
If you want to save a Shape from the internet, or PowerPoint, you can save the picture somewhere you can find it quickly, like on your desktop. Then open up the Repository Location like above, open up the shapes folder, and then just paste your picture in there.
Tip 17: Parameter Actions
This tip is just on how to use Parameter Action as it is a very important aspect if you want to do UX Design. First go into Dashboard → Action -> Change Parameter.
After this add which sheet this action should origin from, then you select which parameter that you want to use for the action, and which field that should change when the action is performed.
This is another way to go around the “Boring Filters” in Tableau, and make something more user friendly.
Tip 18: Go to specific sheet from Dashboard
My eighteenth tip is very simple. But if you are in a dashboard and want to go to a specific sheet related to one of the visualizations you can just press the Sheet Icon on the left of the Visualization.
Tip 19: Search for Specific Fields in the Sidebar
If you want to search for a specific sheet on a dashboard, you can just use the search bar above all the measures/dimensions etc. and search for what you want to find specifically.
Tip 20: Make Charts sorted by Parameter
If you decide to sort your chart after the Calculated field, that is connected to a Parameter, they will be sorted automatically when you use the Parameter action that is connected to this Calculated Field.
Tip 21: Good website for Custom Shapes/KPI’s — alt-codes.net
If you want to find custom shapes to use for example in headers or similar, than Alt-Codes.net is a great site. You can example just copy an icon from here and then insert it in a text field to get the specific icon in a header or similar.
Tip 22: Create Labels for when the field is “Selected” and “Not Selected”
Use the Parameter that was created earlier, by creating two calculated fields, one that is equal to the parameter, and one that is not equal to the parameter, you can create a nice UX for the use.
You can then add both of these headers into the label field and use different colour schemes, which will make them different colours depending on if the parameter is selected or not.
Tip 23: Copy Calculated Fields from one data source to another
If you want to copy fields from one data source to another, you can just press the calculated fields, press copy, and then paste below the other fields on the other data source.
Tip 24: Get rid of Tableau Highlighting
This was one of the other things that I found really cool, and really enhances the user experience from Zak’s video. This is a way to change the custom highlighting that Tableau makes of other values that are not chosen when you press in a specific field to not highlight at all.
The first step is to create two calculated fields, that you change to discrete dimensions. I will follow Zak’s example and call them Zero and One.
The most important thing is that the values of the calculated fields can never be the same, which works in this case. You then create a parameter action as below, where you set the target field of the one to be zero.
First chose parameter action as normal.
Here chose Zero as target field and One as field.
Below is the before and after of the highlighting vs no highlighting.
Before only the value chosen was fully highlighted, while the other values were partially highlighted.
After
Afterwards all the values are highlighted.
Conclusion
I hope that these tips in this list will help you in your future dashboard building, I will for sure use many of tips in the future when I build my dashboards.
By using simple tips as parameter actions, Excel lookup tables and transparent shapes in PowerPoint you can make the User Experience much better and more as a “Normal Application”.
Even if the design elements in Tableau is the best in their class, it can sometime be a bit clumsy in terms of User Experience which these tips to some extend can help with.
Thank you for reading
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Have a great week everyone
//Elias
