LOD

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. ...

In a previous post I walked through a LOD (level of detail) based alternative to the LOOKUP table calculation. In that example I was looking at sales last month, and in a recent Tableau Forums question someone was asking if it could be extended to determine average sales from the previous three months. The answer was “yes” and you can check the whole thread on the Forums, including other options. The main difference from my previous post is that we needed to extend the group numbers from two to four, so that any given month falls into 4 “higher level groups” that we can target with a LOD. We then chose which LOD to use based on the index (_i). ...

The LOOKUP table calculation in Tableau is really handy when you want to show or use a value from a previous row in the view. For example if you are showing sales per month and need to use the sales figure from the previous month to calculate month-on-month growth. In the example above our calculation for “Sales last period” is: ...