How to Build your first Advanced Dashboard in Tableau?

Many technologies, apps, and websites rely mainly on data that has been produced by various mediums. Data is a collection of facts or figures, that can be processed using various technologies. The confluence of technological advancements and surging demand for smart devices in recent years have made data more popular. We have various tools that help us in processing and visualizing the data to get hidden insights out of it.

Advance Tableau Dashboard - Table of Contents

• What is Data Visualization?
• What is Tableau Dashboard?
• Procedure
• Dashboard Worksheet

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What is Data Visualization?

Data visualization is an approach to represent a vast amount of data in a graphical format. This graphical representation of data makes users understand it very easily and effectively. It visualizes data by using visual elements such as maps, charts, and graphs to provide an accessible way to spot and understand trends, patterns, and outliers in data.

What is Tableau Dashboard?

Tableau dashboard is a group of various views which allows you to compare different types of data simultaneously. Datasheets and dashboards are connected ones if any modification happens to the data that is directly reflected in dashboards. It could be the best way to visualize and analyze the data.

Procedure for Building your First Dashboard in Tableau

Tableau is often regarded as the grandmaster tool of data visualization software and is used to build dashboards that communicate clearly. Dashboarding with tableau allows even non-technical users to create real-time and interactive visualizations within a fraction of time. Using tableau you can create dashboards that do not require any programming support for sharing them on either the tableau server or tableau desktop.

Introducing the Dashboard Worksheet

Dashboard worksheet replaces the creation of multiple, complementary worksheets. Tableau dashboards combine all the worksheets into an integrated view and make it one worksheet for access.  

The tableau tool window appears as shown in the figure below. On the top, we have an option named a new dashboard menu. After clicking on that menu we will find a new worksheet or new dashboard option, that enables us to create a new dashboard in tableau. After that, we have some sources on this window, which include the dashboard shelf on the top-left half, and access to another object is provided by the bottom half in order to control several operations in the dashboard workspace.

 

Figure 1: Tableau’s Dashboard Worksheet

Now we are going to create the dashboard using the sample superstore plan, which shows the sales and profits for different segments and subcategories of products across all the states. Following are the steps to create the dashboard according to the objective.

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Step1: Using add worksheet icon which is at the bottom of the workbook you can create a blank worksheet. Drag the dimensions sub-category to the row shelf and segments to the column shelf. Drag and drop the measures profit to the size shelf and the measures sales to the color shelf, this worksheet is referred to as a master worksheet. Now rename the worksheet with the sales profit, then chat appears as follows.

Step 2: To know the order details of the sales across the states create another and drag the measure sales to the columns shelf and state dimensions to the row shelf as shown in the image. To arrange the sales in descending order apply the filter to the state field and rename the worksheet as Sales_State.

3: To create a new dashboard link click on create a blank dashboard which is at the bottom of the workbook and rename the dashboard as Profit_Dashboard.

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Step 4:  When you drag the two worksheets to the dashboard you will have three small icons, then click the middle icon, which gives you a quick view of how to use a filter by hovering the mouse over it.

Step 5: Check the subcategories in the dashboard which represent the segment named consumers and named machines. 

By following the above-mentioned five steps one can create effective dashboards in tableau.

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