Tutorial on Building an Interactive Dashboard in Tableau

Overview

• Objective: Learn to add visualizations, filters, and a context filter to a Tableau dashboard and format it for interactivity.
• Presenter: Dr. Jennifer Canis

Creating a Dashboard Sheet

• Steps to Create:
  • Click on the dashboard icon or "Dashboard" along the top menu, then "New Dashboard".
  • A dashboard acts as a collection of views for simultaneous data comparison.

Organizing the Dashboard with Containers

• Purpose: Containers help organize sheets and arrange visuals evenly.
• Types of Containers:
  • Vertical Containers:
    • Add by clicking "Vertical" under objects and dragging to the white area.
    • Add a second vertical container by repeating the drag action.
  • Horizontal Containers:
    • Add three at the top and two at the bottom by clicking "Horizontal" and dragging to the left or right.
• Resizing Containers: Drag lines to adjust sizes of containers.

Adding Visualizations to the Dashboard

• Process:
  • Drag relevant sheets onto the dashboard. E.g., "Sales by Year and Quarter", "Category", "Top 10 Customers".
  • Remove unnecessary legends by clicking the 'x' in the top-right corner of each.
• Adjusting Visualization Sizes:
  • Change dashboard size from default (1000x800) to 1300x900.
  • Use "Fit to Entire View" for full utilization of container spaces.

Making the Dashboard Interactive

• Adding Filters:
  • Apply filters to visualizations for dynamic data interaction.
  • Click the filter icon on visualizations like "Total Sales by Quarter and Year", "Revenue by Category".
• Excluding Filters:
  • "Top Customers and Sales" does not need filtering by all other data.
• Using Filters:
  • Click criteria like "Year 2019" to reflect changes across all visuals.
  • Double-click to reset drill-down selections.

Addressing Top 10 Customers Issue

• Problem: Top 10 customers are calculated for the entire company, not per division.
• Solution: Add a context filter:
  • Go to "Top Customers in Sales" sheet, click "Division", and "Add to Context".
  • Filters data for top 10 customers per division (e.g., Russia).

Utilizing the Dashboard

• Tooltips:
  • Automatically generated by Tableau, can be edited for additional information.
• Drill-Down Example:
  • Select multiple features (e.g., "2021 Q2", "United States", "Materials Processing") to reveal specific company orders and product lines.
  • Double-click selections to reset.

Finalizing the Dashboard

• Adding a Title:
  • Click "Show Dashboard Title" and edit via a pop-up box.
  • Formatting options include font size, bold, centering, and color.

Conclusion

• Series Summary: Concludes the tutorial series on building a Tableau interactive dashboard.