Tableau

Two data tools I really enjoy working with are Tableau and Databricks. Tableau lets you visually explore and communicate your data. And Databricks is a cloud-based data and AI platform. If you’ve started to learn about or work with Tableau Next, then you’ll be aware that it reboots the Tableau product stack on the power of data cloud and agentic AI (a data and AI platform). But if you’re not fortunate enough to be there yet, or you already work with Databricks, then this series of blog posts could be for you! ...

In previous blog posts I introduced the use of expander tables in Tableau when needing to handle a single row in multiple ways, along with three specific use cases. In this post, part three of the series, I’m going to cover three more use cases. Let’s take a look… 4. To create custom sub totals or grand totals Here I have a view showing sales by country and region. I’ve turned on grand totals and sub totals for rows so that I get the overall total and a sub-total per country: ...

In a previous blog post I introduced the use of expander tables in Tableau when needing to handle a single row in multiple ways. You may have heard of expander tables before under the more generalised term of “scaffolding”. In this blog post I’m going to cover some different use cases for expander tables. If you didn’t read part 1 yet, go ahead and have a skim through that… ...

In a recent VizIt Sydney and Tableau User Group presentation, Fantastic Tableau tricks, and how to avoid them, I talked about expander tables and their benefits when working with data in Tableau. In this blog series I’ll cover: expander tables in more depth (part 1); and use cases they can help with (parts 2+) But first up… Why might you need to use an expander table? When working with data in Tableau it’s not unusual to find that you need to treat a single row of data in more than one way in the same view. A common example is where a row has both an opened date and a closed date, and you need to plot items opened and closed per date. Each item, or row, needs to be counted twice. Another example is where you have multiple measures per row, you need to use more than one on the same view, and a dual axis or the built in Measure Names and Measure Values pills aren’t flexible enough. ...

In my last blog post I looked at a LOD equivalent of RANK / INDEX table calculations in Tableau. That approach was limited to ranking a very small range of whole numbers, and left me considering other options. This post outlines another LOD approach using spatial functions**!** WARNING: As before I will stress that you should rarely need a LOD-based equivalent of rank or index, and can often use table calculations when you don’t think that you can. That said, there are scenarios where a LOD equivalent can be useful: onward use of the calc or use in spatial functions being the cases I’ve seen on the Tableau community forums. And it’s also a fun challenge! ...

Is there a level of detail expression equivalent of a particular table calculation in Tableau? This question comes up on the Tableau community forums every now and then, and almost always intrigues me. Often a level of detail (LOD) expression isn’t really necesary, but occaisionally an alternative to table calculations is necesary. And like a mountain to be climbed, or a trail to be explored, I’m fascinated by whether it is even possible to implement LOD equivalents to some common table calcs. ...

An Easter themed #PreppinData for 2024 week 13. Preparing sales of products in the 12 weeks running up to Easter to allow for easy comparison of the period across years in Tableau Desktop. A nice one step solution this week (see screenshot at the end of this post): a FIXED level of detail calc to get the first sale date per year; then date calcs to get the week, day and day order. ...

#PreppinData 2024 week 12, graduate student loan repayment calculator. Good to try out the “value ranges from two fields” option within a “new rows” step. Like some others my interest figure is a little different from the supplied output, however the calc appears to be the same. I also shortcutted the join onto repayment info for undergraduates with a filter (down to just the undergrad row), and joiner fields allowing a simple join on 1=1. ...

Week 11 of #PreppinData, and the question: what if there were 13 months in a year? Nice concept to have consistent 28 day months, with 4 weeks per month and each month starting on a Monday and ending on a Sunday. As we found out when we expanded the two row data set though … it’s not as neat as it seems, ending up with a spare day (or two in a leap year). ...

My solution for the #PreppinData 2024 week 10 challenge follows below. Cool to check out the New Rows step this week to fill in the missing days in the data set.