Tableau Visualization -- How to build Waterfall chart

Waterfall chart can be used in accounting to show trends in the horizontal time span usually as result of positive and negative influences in sequential order. We will look at the product's profit over years.

To start, lets have profit in row and  product and time in column:

As you can see, some product creates positive profit and some creates negative profit.

Now let's add a new table calculation off profit to get the running total of the profit:

Now the chart looks like this:

We want to distinguish the negative from the positive. To do that we create condition on profit by adding a new calculated field ('profitable ?') with the following formula: SUM([Profit])>=0

This will create a binary output: greater than 0 or less than 0

Putting 'Profitable ?' into the color windows, the chart is colored:

Now change the view from automatic to ''Gnatt" and the chart changes:

Put profit into size windows so that all of the Gnatt size will change based on the profit amount:

Now you might notice that all of the blue color Gnatt bars are growing downwards while the yellow ones are growing upwards. This is because the blue color happens to represent negative profits. Some user maybe okay with the way this chart looks, while others may prefer to flip the blue bars and make it go upwards just like the rest. To do so, let's create another calculated field call 'Negative profit' with the following formula:
-[Profit]

Put 'negative profit' into size windows and now all of the bars are facing the same direction:

Thanks

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Tableau Visualization -- How to build Gnatt Chart

Gnatt chart can be useful in showing status of large number of items and things with respect to time. An example of that is displaying the various flight time from each route and determine which has the longest delay or longest flight time as reflected on the chart by the size of each Gnatt.

In my example, i am going to show for a given year, how are the order to ship time is like for each product in the warehouse.

So start with product dimension (Row section) and order date (Column section):

change the order date display format to 'exact date'

Now to figure out the exact order to ship time, we simply go a date diff between order date and ship date. This is similar to timestampdiff function in SQL, but in tableau we use a different syntax by create a new calculated field called 'Time to ship' with the following formula:

DATEDIFF('day',[Order Date],[Ship Date] )

Sometimes, there are different types of shipping. So if you want to make a distinction among the dimension with certain categorization, we simply put the categorizing field into the color window. So in this case, different product has different ship mode that we want to distinguish by, so simply drop ship mode into the color section as shown below and the chart is colored.

Now move 'time to ship' field into size windows. The size of each bar will start to differ more noticeably based on the number of days differ.

We also want to include the ship date as part of the display in details for validation purpose. So we pick ship date and drop it into detail windows

Now the chart is done. We can move the mouse over any bars and the detail information will display from the details:

here you can see the time to ship for applicance is 17 days and it shows you the date ordered and the date shipped

Thanks

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Tableau Visualization -- How to build lollipop Chart

Lollipop chart is a fancy and cute chart that has become pretty popular. It is named such way because the shape of the graph consist of a bar attached to a circle, forming a shape of Lollipop. This chart can be useful to provide visualization for your measure numbers in terms of 'how long' it occupies the horizontal axis and the precious location of the measure numbers on the horizontal axis as a dot. The length of the bar is determined by the size of the measure number and the location of the dot on the axis is also determined by the same measure number. Lets take a look at this graph that I start with:

Here, I have sales from the measure which I put on the column section along with Region as the dimension. In the row I have Product, another dimension.

Now, right-click on either 'sales' field and check 'Dual-Axis':

Now chart transformed:

Notice on the left side where i highlighted, there are 2 'sales' under marks windows. Click on each of those 2 highlighted icons, it will open up marks options that you can set for the displays of each of 'sales' field.

So first one is to set the first 'sales' as bar display:

And second 'sales' as circle display

Adjust the size of each of the fields, it changes the graph into looking like a lollipop by making the size of the bar smaller and size of the circle bigger:

Now, let's create another field called profit ratio, which is calculated by taking Sales and dividing it by profit:

After that, drag and drop profit ratio into color windows:

Now we have create a Lollipop chart that gives you 2 different visualization of the sales and also displays the color divergence based on the profitability. If you move the mouse over to any point on the graph, it will display the detail numbers on the chart including regions, product, sales and profit ratios.

Thanks, until next time

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Tableau Visualization -- How to build Dot chart

Dot chart is a pretty typically statistical graph where each data point on the graph are marked in a circle shape. Making dot chart in Tableau is pretty simple and standard.

Lets start with sample data set and we put 'state or province' as dimension then 'sales' and 'profit' as measures all into the row section of the report and set the display under 'Mark' as circle:

Then, drag and drop both sales and profit from rows into the highlighted vertical axis on the graph:

After this action, you will see that 'Measure name' and 'Measure value' appears on the row and column section automatically, we will put 'measure name' in to color window under 'Marks':

Now the graph becomes like the following, which we will move the 'measure value' into column section:

Now we get the following view:

Pivot the graph and we get the final view:

This view displays the sales and profit of each state on the graph separated by 2 dots in different colors

Thanks

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Tableau Visualization -- How to build Pareto chart

Pareto chart can be very good for highlighting certain items from a very large set of factors based on certain criteria, Tableau has a very powerful way of creating pareto chart.

We will start with a simple dimension (product name ) in Column and measures (sales) in rows, in order for the chart to make sense, there should be a lot of products:

Now in our particular example, we are comparing the running total and percent of total of the sales per product. So we create table calculation on sales. In this case, percent of total is the secondary type calculation after running total:

The graph changes afterwards to the following:

Now in this example, we are trying to compare the running sum of sales and total sum of sales, if when Total Sum/running is greater than 0.8, we should recognize those product item as above 80%  of all. So in this case we will create a new calculated item called In Top 80% with the following formula: RUNNING_SUM(SUM([Sales])) / TOTAL(SUM([Sales]))<= 0.8

Unlike writing in SQL where we may have to put it in a case statement, here in Tableau since the condition is expecting a binary output: yes or no, and nothing else, the above formula is a simpler way to do so. It will divide the entire set with either > 0.8 or <=0.8

Now move it over to color box under marks, this will automatically divide the entire product list into 2 colored groups based on whether the divided value is greater than or less than 0.8

like so:

Now change the fitting from normal to entire view in order to see the big picture:

Entire picture:

Now lets add a reference line in the graph by right clicking on the vertical Axis, and we set the line value at 0.8 and make it constant.

This will drop a line at the graph at around 80% area on the graph and it will stay constant:

Now, let's sort the graph by product in ascending order by sales:

Now the Pareto chart is done:

Thanks

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Tableau Visualization -- How to build thermometer chart

Thermometer is a cool visual that allows audience to visually look at different matrix that the difference can be visually indicated by the different color, size in one chart as if it was like Thermometer.I experimented a few ways to build a basic thermometer chart using tableau, this is a pretty cool visual.

1. Lets start with 2 dimensions and 2 matrix. Here I am using customer segment and region as dimension and sales and profit as matrix by putting the dimensions in column section and matrix in row section. The report will automatically look like the following:

2. Drag and drop both matrix columns into the Y (Vertical axis) of the chart:

The chart will automatically transform to the following view after dropping both matrix. You will notice that 'Measure Names' and 'Measure Values' automatically appear in the following highlighted area

3. Move 'Measure Names' to Color windows under 'Marks':

The chart will look at the following after done:

This time drop measure name under size windows:

And you get the following chart that the 2 bars stack on each other:

4. Now unstack the bars by going to analysis--> stack marks --> off

Now you get your thermo chart:

Thanks

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