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Chart Refinements in Tableau

This section covers additional chart refinements in Tableau beyond the basics.

Outcomes:

• Understand continuous vs. discrete dates
• Modify chart display options
• Create a combo chart

Links:

• See Datacamp Analyzing data in Tableau
• Problem Datafile

Continuous or Discrete Dates

We have a two approaches to showing dates in Tableau. These depend on if the date is continuous or discrete.

Continuous groups by time period (i.e, all Jan 2020, Feb 2020, March 2020, …, Jan 2021, Feb 2021, etc…)

Discrete splits into groups (i.e., Jan 2020 & 2021, Feb 2020-2021, March 2020-2021)

In general, use lines for continuous data, and bars for discrete dates

Chart Display Options

There are a wide variety of chart display options that can be modified in Tableau to improve the appearance and readability of charts. Some key options include:

• Title
  • Edit font, size, color, and alignment
• Caption
• Text
  • Change size / font /color for a cell
• Axis
  • Hide an axis
  • Label
    • Font, size, alignment, and rotation
    • Marks style
    • Set interval, min, and max values
    • Format date values
  • Data
    • Group dimensions and edit the grouped field
    • Relabel a dimension value using an alias
    • Exclude data (by range, null values)
• Tooltip
  • Add field to a tooltip
  • Edit font and layout of a tooltip

Combo

• Best for
  • 2 measures (one must be a date!)
  • 0-1 measures
• Process
  • Add 2 measures to row. Then, go to marks and change one type of bar. Then, right-lick the right-pill and change to a dual axis.
• Pre-attentive attributes
  • Position on a common scale
• Limits
  • Requires date information!
• Advanced features
  • Synchronize axis

Process:

• Drag a date dimension onto Columns or Rows
• Drag a measure onto the other shelf (Rows for vertical, Columns for horizontal)
• Drag a second measure onto the same shelf (Rows for vertical, Columns for horizontal)
• Go to Marks and change one type of bar. Then, right-click the right-pill and change to a dual axis. Note that you may need to synchronize the axes by right-clicking on one of the axes and selecting “Synchronize Axis.”
  • Note that the order is important here! The bar chart should generally be the first measure added (on the left) so that the line goes on top of it.
• (If needed) Change the mark type to line