9 Tableau Workbooks

This module addresses:
–Tableau dashboard tutorial
–Filtering across workbooks
–Formatting for mobile devices
–Design considerations
–Embedding Tableau Workbooks on WordPress

Building a Dashboard

Building a Dashboard

Transcript for building a Tableau dashboard

Read: Dos and Donts of Dashboard Design Concepts

DashBoard Design by Ravindra Kumar, 2013

Role:
1) Strategic
2)Analytical
3)Operational

1.Dashboards for strategic purposes

The primary use of dashboards today is for strategic purposes. The popular “executive dashboard,” and most of the dashboards that support managers at any level in an organization, are strategic in nature. They provide the quick overview that decision makers need to monitor the health and opportunities of the business. Dashboards of this type focus on high‐level measures of performance, including forecasts to light the path into the future. Although these measures can benefit from contextual information to clarify the meaning, such as comparisons to targets and brief histories, along with simple evaluators of performance (for example, good and bad), too much information of this type or too many subtle gradations can distract from the primary and immediate goals of the strategic decision maker.

Dashboards for analytical purposes

Dashboards that support data analysis require a different design approach. In these cases the information often demands greater context, such as rich comparisons, more extensive history, and subtler performance evaluators. Like strategic dashboards, analytical dashboards also benefit from static snapshots of data that are not constantly changing from one moment to the next. However, more sophisticated display media are often useful for the analyst who must examine complex data and relationships and is willing to invest the time needed to learn how they work. Analytical dashboards should support interactions with the data, such as drilling down into the underlying details, to enable the exploration needed to make sense of itthat is, not just to see what is going on but to examine the causes. For example, it isn’t enough to see that sales are decreasing; when your purpose is analysis, you must be made aware of such patterns so that you can then explore them to discover what is causing the decrease and how it might be corrected. The dashboard itself, as a monitoring device that tells the analyst what to investigate, need not support all the subsequent interactions directly, but it should link as seamlessly as possible to the means to analyze the data.

3.Dashboards for operational purposes

When dashboards are used to monitor operations, they must be designed differently from those that support strategic decision making or data analysis. The characteristic of operations that uniquely influences the design of dashboards most is their dynamic and immediate nature. When you monitor operations, you must maintain awareness of activities and events that are constantly changing and might require attention and response at a moment’s notice. If the robotic arm on the manufacturing assembly line that attaches the car door to the chassis runs out of bolts, you can’t wait until the next day to become aware of the problem and take action. Likewise, if traffic on your web site suddenly drops to half its normal level, you want to be notified immediately.

As with strategic dashboards, the display media on operational dashboards must be very simple. In the stressful event of an emergency that requires an immediate response, the meaning of the situation and the appropriate responses must be extremely clear and simple, or mistakes will be made. In contrast to strategic dashboards, operational dashboards must have the means to grab your attention immediately if an operation falls outside the acceptable threshold of performance. Also, the information that appears on operational dashboards is often more specific, providing a deeper level of detail. If a critical shipment is at risk of missing its deadline, a high‐level statistic won’t do; you need to know the order number, who’s handling it, and where it is in the warehouse. Details like these might appear automatically on an operational dashboard, or they might be accessed by drilling down on or hovering the mouse over higher‐ level data, so interactivity is often useful. The ways that dashboard design must take different forms in response to different roles are clearly worth your attention.

Advanced: Filters to Control Worksheets
–Click upper righthand menu on graphic, see Filters, select the appropriate data source. Here it would be total incomes under $25,000.
–Filter is created and placed at the bottom of graphic. You can format and move the filter.
–Drag by tab in upper center of filter object. Move it to the top of the filtered graphic. “Super Filter”: Add a Filter to Control All Cities on Worksheet

Filters on Dashboards
When we click through a filter, we see that by default, it only applies to the view it came out with. We can make this filter apply to the entire dashboard.
–Click on the filter (down triangle icon), open the menu.
–Apply to Worksheets, select “all related data sources”
Now when we make a selection, it applies to the whole dashboard
Similarly, we can make a view act as a filter for the dashboard. Click on the view to bring up the header bar, and click the filter icon. Now if we select a header such as Second Class, all the relevant views are filtered.

Exercise: Format Workbook for A Phone

A majority of our readers – some 70% – will view these stories on their phones. Jon Schleuss said the Los Angeles Times receives about 55 percent of its traffic on mobile devices.

Let’s format this workbook for mobile. The design choices will be radically different.
–Duplicate your workbook
–Design it with the mobile template on the left: See Upper Left Tab: Dashboard: Device Preview. Switch to Phone
–Before doing any radical surgery to your graphics, consider duplicating them and bringing in the new versions into the mobile template.

Tableau Expert Megan Putney

Megan Putney, head of Northwest Arkansas Tableau Users Group and an executive at Mikes Hard Lemonade. See her LinkedIn profile

The Northwest Arkansas Tableau Users Group

Last week’s meeting is here. September meeting is here

Embedding Tableau Workbooks on WordPress

–Post on WordPress.
Create a new post
Paste your Tableau Public embed code in the Content box
Scroll down, change the Admin Label to My Mind-Blowing Tableau Graphic (or something more humble). Save and Exit
Change Page Layout (upper right corner) to Fullwidth. Publish
Revel in your nerd powers

8 Tableau Maps

10 WordPress