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Tableau 10 Business Intelligence Cookbook

Tableau 10 Business Intelligence Cookbook

By : Donabel Santos, Paul Banoub
3.8 (5)
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Tableau 10 Business Intelligence Cookbook

Tableau 10 Business Intelligence Cookbook

3.8 (5)
By: Donabel Santos, Paul Banoub

Overview of this book

Tableau is a software tool that can speed up data analysis through its rich visualization capabilities, and help uncover insights for better and smarter decision making. This book is for the business, technology, data and analytics professionals who use and analyze data and data-driven approaches to support business operations and strategic initiatives in their organizations. This book provides easy-to-follow recipes to get the reader up and running with Tableau 10, and covers basic to advanced use cases and scenarios. The book starts with building basic charts in Tableau and moves on to building more complex charts by incorporating different Tableau features and interactivity components. There is an entire chapter dedicated to dashboard techniques and best practices. A number of recipes specifically for geospatial visualization, analytics, and data preparation are also covered. By the end of this book, you’ll have gained confidence and competence to analyze and communicate data and insights more efficiently and effectively by creating compelling interactive charts, dashboards, and stories in Tableau.
Table of Contents (11 chapters)
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Preface
Preface
What this book covers
What you need for this book
Who this book is for
Sections
Conventions
Reader feedback
Customer support
Free Chapter
1
1. Basic Charts
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1. Basic Charts
Introduction
Creating a bar chart
Creating a stacked bar chart
Creating a line chart
Creating a scatter plot
Creating a heat map
Creating a text table (crosstab)
Creating a highlight table
Creating an area chart
Creating a pie chart
Creating a bubble chart
Creating a word cloud
Creating a tree map
2
2. Advanced Charts
2. Advanced Charts
Introduction
Creating a histogram
Creating a small multiple chart
Creating a shared axis chart
Creating a combo chart (dual axis chart)
Creating a bullet chart
Creating a bar in bar chart
Creating a donut chart
Creating a unit chart
Creating a box and whisker chart
Creating a sparkline with indicators
Creating a KPI text table
Creating a waterfall chart
Creating a population pyramid
3
3. Interactivity
3. Interactivity
Introduction
Creating a motion chart
Creating a dynamic column/row trellis chart
Creating a top/bottom N filter
Comparing one to everything else
Dynamically displaying dimensions
Dynamically displaying and sorting measures
Creating a custom date period filter
4
4. Dashboards and Story Points
4. Dashboards and Story Points
Introduction
Creating a filter action
Creating a highlight action
Creating a URL action
Creating an Infographic-like dashboard
Creating story points
5
5. Maps and Geospatial Visualization
5. Maps and Geospatial Visualization
Introduction
Adding data layers to map
Creating custom territories
Working with Web Map Service (WMS)
Using path to display movement in map
Mapping custom polygons
Importing custom geocoding
Using a custom image background
6
6. Analytics
6. Analytics
Introduction
Adding a constant line
Adding a trend line
Using a reference line
Adding a reference band
Performing cluster analysis
Visualizing forecast
Performing linear regression with R
7
7. Data Preparation
7. Data Preparation
Introduction
Using the Data Interpreter and pivot
Using the legacy Jet driver
Using schema.ini to resolve data type issues
Pivoting columns
Using union
Using join
Using blend
8
A. Calculated Fields Primer
A. Calculated Fields Primer
Different ways to create calculated fields
Calculated field window
Functions in Tableau
Function syntax
Word of caution
Different types of calculated fields
Dealing with NULLs
Tidbits
Conclusion
9
B. Resources
B. Resources
Data sources for recipes in this book
Articles and white papers
Blogs and additional resources
10
Index
Index

Creating a text table (crosstab)

A text table is also often referred to as a crosstab, a shortened term for cross tabulation. Another common term that can be used to describe text tables is a spreadsheet. A text table is a series of rows and columns that have headers and numeric values. Text tables are great when the audience requires to see the individual values. A limitation of text tables is that it requires attentive processing—whoever is using the text table needs to focus on reading and comparing the numbers because any patterns or insights are not very easy to spot.

In this recipe, we will create a text table that shows the top 20 movies from 2007-2011, based on the worldwide gross amount.

Creating a text table (crosstab)

Getting ready

To follow this recipe, open B05527_01 – STARTER.twbx. Use the worksheet called Text Table, and connect to the HollywoodMostProfitableStories data source.

Getting ready

How to do it...

The following are the steps to create the crosstab:

  1. Change the default number format of Audience score %. You can do this by right-clicking the field Audience score % in the Measures section of the side bar, selecting Default properties and then Number Format…. In the window that shows up, set the following:
    • Number (Custom)
    • Decimal places: 0
    • Suffix %
  2. From Dimensions, drag Film to Rows.
  3. From Dimensions, drag Year to Rows.
  4. From Dimensions, drag Film to Filters. This will open a window with several options for filtering the Film field.
  5. Select the Top tab. Choose By field: and specify Top 20 by Average Rotten Tomatoes %, as shown here:
    How to do it...
  6. From Measures, drag Worldwide Gross Amount to Text in the Marks card.
  7. Right-click on the Worldwide Gross Amount pill in the Marks card, and choose Format.
  8. Format the Pane tab to use:
    • Currency (Custom)
    • Decimal places: 0
    • Prefix: $
    How to do it...
  9. Double-click on Audience score % in the Measures pane. This adds this measure to the text table. This also introduces a new Measure Values shelf in your canvas.
  10. From Measures, double-click on Rotten Tomatoes % to add this to the text table.
  11. Change the Rotten Tomatoes % aggregation to Average. You can do this by right-clicking on this pill in the Measure Values shelf, going to Measure (Sum), and changing this to Average.
  12. From Measures, double-click on Audience Score % to add this to the text table.
  13. Change the aggregation of Audience Score % to Average.
  14. From Measures, double-click on Profitability to add this to the text table.
  15. Rearrange the pills in the Measure Values shelf by dragging them manually to have the following order:
    How to do it...
  16. Right-click the Film pill in Rows, and click on Sort….
  17. In the Sort window, select:
    • Sort order Descending
    • Sort by field Worldwide Gross Amount using Aggregation of Sum

How it works...

A text table is simply a series of text values and numbers in a grid. This is a pretty common request for organizations that are very numbers-oriented, and have just started transitioning to a more visual culture.

To create a text table in Tableau, usually you identify the dimensions you want to place in your Rows and/or Columns. There are a couple ways to create the text table:

  • Drag the measures onto the middle canvas until you see the Show Me icon, and then let go of the mouse
  • Drag the first measure onto Text in the Marks card, and double-click on the rest of the measures you want to add

Both of these actions introduce the Measure Names and Measure Values pills in your visualization.

Note

Measure Names and Measure Values are discussed in more detail in Appendix C, Working with Tableau 10.

Measure Names, which is discrete, gets placed in your Rows or Columns as a header, and Measure Values gets placed onto the Text property in your Marks card:

How it works...

There's more...

Tableau places limitations on creating text tables. By default, for example, only six columns will display properly. If you have more than six columns, the leftmost columns get concatenated.

There's more...

To adjust this, you need to go to the Analysis menu, then Table Layout, then Advanced. There you can adjust the number of rows and column labels.

There's more...

Tableau still, however, restricts this number. The maximum you can use is sixteen (16). Ultimately, if you need more columns and want to display all the numbers in the table, but not necessarily support visual analysis, then perhaps Tableau isn't the tool that is meant to do that job. Tableau is a great tool for visual analysis and exploration, so it is best to use it as such.

See also

  • Please refer to the Creating a highlight table recipe in this chapter
End of Section 8
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