Charts in Tableau

As introduced in the video, different chart types can be used to display different types of information. Each of the chart types mentioned in the video can be created using Tableau.

Creating charts can be as quick as double-clicking your dimensions or measures. For more control, you can drag and drop elements.

Go to: (Optional)Creating charts: making your first charts in Tableau (2.34) [1]

This video is a short introduction to creating charts in Tableau.

In the following examples, we’ll revisit the Global Superstore data and use it to create several chart types. We recommend you follow these steps, creating a new worksheet for each chart.

Creating bar charts

You can create a bar chart by placing a dimension on the Rows shelf and a measure on the Columns shelf, or vice versa.

For your first chart, let’s analyse sales by category. In the data pane, double-click Sales and then double-click Category.

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Drill down into subcategories by dragging them into the Columns shelf, to the left of Category.

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At this stage, the chart isn’t very easy to read. Remember what we said about adjusting the orientation and ordering columns? To do that, click Swap in the toolbar and then use the Sort icon to order the bars.

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Your chart should look like this.

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That’s much better. You can see which categories are selling well and which aren’t, but that tells only half the story. Let’s augment the chart with additional data; that is, our profits.

To add profits to the chart, drag Profit from the data pane until the Show Me cursor appears.

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When you drop Profit, Tableau will display data on the Color shelf.

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What stands out in the table above? That’s right, tables might be our best-seller – but they are not profitable.

At this stage, our chart has quite a lot of small sub-categories under Office Supplies at the bottom of the chart. They could distract your users. This data is still useful, but perhaps we don’t need to see it right now. In Tableau, we can group data.

To group data:

1. Hold down CTRL and click each of the sub-categories to select them.
2. Click on Exclude to remove unnecessary bars.

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This action doesn’t alter the underlying data. It changes only the presentation of the chart.

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Creating line charts

Line charts are used to visualise changes over time. Let’s create a line chart to look at our sales over time on Tableau.

In a new worksheet, drag Order Date into Columns, and Sales into Rows. Tableau will aggregate the dates by year and then aggregate Sales as SUM to display a simple line chart.

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Your chart’s looking a bit sparse. Let’s adjust the time scale to see the data plotted in months rather than by year.

1. Click the drop-down arrow in the Year (Order Date) field on the Columns shelf.
2. Select Month May 2015.

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You’ll see a continuous range of values over the four-year period.

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Creating scatter plots

In Tableau, you create a scatter chart by placing at least one measure on the Columns shelf and at least one measure on the Rows shelf.

To create a scatter chart:

1. Open a new sheet.
2. Drag the Profit measure into Columns and the Discount measure into Rows. By default, Tableau will aggregate these measures as a sum and create the relevant horizontal and vertical axis, placing one mark on the scatter plot.

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To expand these, go to Analysis and uncheck Aggregate measures.

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You can add more data to scatter charts, just as you could with bar charts. Drag Segment to Color to help identify the segment your outliers belong to.

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To focus on a single segment, you can click on a specific option in the legend and select the segment to focus on (e.g. Corporate).

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We can also add filters. To add a filter for Segment, drag this into the Filters shelf. In the pop-up window, click OK.

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To show the filter, click the field drop-down menu in the data pane and select Show Filter. You’ll see a list of filters to the right of the chart. You can select or deselect these to show specific data.

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References

_{1. Creating your first chart [Video]. Tableau Training; 2016 Aug 15. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2D7e9APvTw}