How To Create A Tableau

Visualization and Reporting are essential features in today's data-driven world. Tableau is one of the leading and widely used BI tools in the industry. This blog post will discuss how to build dashboards on Tableau and perform various business transformations to analyze data.

In this article, you will be introduced to Tableau, its key features, and the steps required to carry out the creation of Dashboards in Tableau.

Introduction to Tableau
- Key features of Tableau
Pre-Requisites
Understanding Tableau Dashboards
What one can do with Tableau Dashboard?
Purpose of a Dashboard in Tableau Desktop
Pros and Cons of Tableau Dashboard
Limitations of the Tableau dashboard
Procedure for Creating Dashboard in Tableau
- Tableau Dashboard Step 1: Click On New Dashboard Button
- Tableau Dashboard Step 2: Add Sheet to Dashboard
- Tableau Dashboard Step 3: Add Another Sheet
- Tableau Dashboard Step 4: Customize Dashboard by Adding Interactions
- Tableau Dashboard Step 5: View the Dashboard
- Tableau Dashboard Step 6: Share Dashboard
Best Tableau Dashboard Examples
- Sales Analytics Tableau Dashboard
- Marketing Analytics Tableau Dashboard
- Customer Service Tableau Dashboard
- Financial Analytics Tableau Dashboard
Conclusion

Introduction to Tableau

Tableau is a widely used Business Intelligence tool in the current market. It's popularity is due to its capability of handling Big Data and is relatively simple to deploy, learn and use. Tableau generates insights from the raw data and creates a visual masterpiece for business to make data-driven decisions.

Official documentation regarding Tableau can be found here.

Different Tableau Offerings - Tableau Dashboard — *Image Source: https://intellipaat.com/mediaFiles/2015/11/tableau1.png*

Key Features of Tableau

Tableau Dashboard: Tableau dashboard has an intuitive dashboard with self-explaining wizards, allowing non-technical users to create visualization easily. Dimensions, charts are simple drag and drop on drawing space to perform analysis.
Collaborative Sharing: Tableau allows users to collaborate with their peers for collaborative work or review. Users can also share to the cloud, which makes the dashboard accessible from anywhere.
Data Sources in Tableau: Tableau has more than 200+ connectors that help users connect to external data sources like RDBMS, Cloud, spreadsheet, etc., securely. Tableau also provides several monitoring features such as data connectivity, auto-refresh, etc.
Advanced Visualizations (Chart Types): Tableau has a vast collection of advanced visualization techniques. Some of them are:
- Charts
- Tables
- Graphs
- Maps

Advanced methods to visualize data:

Area Chart
Bar Chart
Box-and-whisker Plots
Bubble Cloud
Bullet Graph
Cartogram
Dot Distribution Map
Heat Map

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Pre-Requisites

Tableau Desktop or any related Tableau subscription to use.
Basic understanding of Data and Visualization.
Tableau sheets created to be used in Dashboard.

Understanding Tableau Dashboards

Tableau Dashboards are the collection of different views or visualization where each view showcases a different kind of data at the same time. It allows users to get a holistic view of all the data on one screen. Creating dashboards is just about dragging views from the sheets section to the visualization area.

Creating or designing a dashboard is not only about putting visualization elements that are offered by Tableau. A dashboard should have the most relevant data that is suitable for quick consumption of information by a user. Tableau provides a lot of mechanisms for interactivity including tooltips and filters, Making use of them without cluttering the viewable area will lead to a pleasant dashboard experience.

What One Can Do With Tableau Dashboard?

The following things are listed below that one can use in Tableau Dashboard:

Self-Reliant:Tableau Dashboard does not require any complex setups and is easily customizable so that users can fit all the features and visualizations needed for Data Analysis.
Centralized Data:Users can customize Tableau Dashboard to view all the data in a centralized form because Tableau follows the concept of centralized data.
Visual Discovery: Users can use Tableau Dashboards to explore and analyze data by adding different types of charts, trends, graphs, etc. All the features are available via drag and drop.
Data Analytics: Tableau Dashboards simplify data and allow users to easily understand data and analyze it at a faster pace.

Purpose of Creating a Dashboard in Tableau Desktop

Dashboards make it easier for users to view all the progress, visualizations, and information on one page or screen have a glance at all the data without navigating to other tabs or screens. Dashboards adjust charts as objects on the screen, and these objects are placed as Tiled objects with the help of the easy drag and drop feature. The dashboard can be sized based on the following options: Automatic, Exactly, Range, Pre-sets.

Pros and Cons of Tableau Dashboard

The advantages and disadvantages of Tableau Dashboards are listed below:

Pros

Mobile Support
Multiple Annotations
Multimedia
Filters
Responsive Dashboard
Descriptive Texts
Easy Implementation

Cons

Static and Single valued parameters
Limited Data Processing
Expensive
No custom visual imports
Limited Column Table

Limitations Of the Tableau Dashboard

If the developer's resolution is different from the end-users then it disturbs the screen resolution of the Tableau dashboard. Tableau Dashboards are not responsive. If you refresh the data on the chart, then the whole chart also gets refreshed, and you need to re-run the flow to get to the previous place on the chart or axis.

Procedure for Creating Dashboard in Tableau

Creating a dashboard in Tableau is a straightforward process. In this post, we will be discussing the step by step process to create a dashboard.

Tableau Dashboard Step 1: Click On New Dashboard Button
Tableau Dashboard Step 2: Add Sheet to Dashboard
Tableau Dashboard Step 3: Add Another Sheet
Tableau Dashboard Step 4: Customize Dashboard by Adding Interactions
Tableau Dashboard Step 5: View the Dashboard
Tableau Dashboard Step 6: Share Dashboard

Tableau Dashboard Step 1: Click On New Dashboard Button

At the bottom of the Tableau Desktop, click on the new Dashboard button –

Image Source: https://help.tableau.com/current/pro/desktop/en-us/Img/web_author_new_dashboard_icon.png

Click on Dashboard on the menu bar and select a new dashboard
Change the name of the Dashboard as per requirement.

Tableau Dashboard Step 2: Add Sheet to Dashboard

From the left pane, drag the sheet to include in the dashboard.

Navigation on Left Pane - Tableau Dashboard — *Image Source: https://help.tableau.com/current/pro/desktop/en-us/Img/dashboard_create.png*

Select the sheet or create your data to create a dashboard.

Tableau Dashboard Step 3: Add Another Sheet

Add the second sheet to your Dashboard.
You can also swap the sheet by clicking on the swap sheet button.

Swap Sheets Option - Tableau Dashboard — *Image Source: https://help.tableau.com/current/pro/desktop/en-us/Img/dashboard_swap_sheets.png*

You can add as many sheets as you want to add in Dashboard and any order.

Tableau Dashboard Step 4: Customize Dashboard by Adding Interactions

Tableau provides a lot of options to customize the Dashboard.
You can use filters, shapes, colours, graphs, etc., to customize the Dashboard.

Implementing Filters - Tableau Dashboard — *Image Source: https://help.tableau.com/current/pro/desktop/en-us/Img/action_dashboards4_web.png*

Tableau provides layout containers to help you to group the objects.
Add texts object to give more informations and headers and other metrics
Add images or web pages to link more information about specific targets.
Add Navigation objects to provide navigation from one Dashboard to another and use Blank objects to adjust the spacings.

Navigation of Objects - Tableau Dashboard — *Image Source: https://help.tableau.com/current/pro/desktop/en-us/Img/dashboard_object_drag1.png*

Tableau Dashboard Step 5: View the Dashboard

Once you customize the Dashboard, press F7 to view Dashboard in full screen mode.

Tableau Dashboard Step 6: Share Dashboard

Tableau allows users to share dashboards among peers and colleagues to review and collaborate together for work.

That's it, your dashboard is now ready to use.

Best Tableau Dashboard Examples

There are 4 categories of Tableau Dashboard that are listed below:

Sales Analytics Tableau Dashboard
- E-Commerce Sales Dashboard
- Regional Sales Dashboard
- Executive Sales Dashboard
Marketing Analytics Tableau Dashboard
- Marketing Funnel Dashboard
- Social Media Tracking Dashboard
Customer Service Tableau Dashboard
- Helpdesk Ticketing Dashboard
- Helpdesk Team Performance Dashboard
Financial Analytics Tableau Dashboard
- Profit and Loss Dashboard
- Employee Expense Analysis Dashboard
- Accounts Receivable Analysis Dashboard

Sales Analytics Tableau Dashboard

E-Commerce Sales Dashboard

E-Commerce Sales Dashboard allows users to view the revenue of different categories, and with each category of product, they can also find revenue for each product. It shows the price of the product against the revenue gained over it. It is an essential dashboard for because pricing change in the E-Commerce industry.

Regional Sales dashboard

It helps companies keep track of all the sales from different regions. This dashboard lets you drill down deeper into the data and identify which product from which region is generating maximum sales. It shows the trend of sales in all regions as a snapshot.

Executive Sales Dashboard

Executive Sales Dashboard provides summary details of all the activities. It provides a snapshot of total Sales, profit, shipping, costs, etc. The dashboard is also capable to provide you with details on the supply chain. The average basket size helps executives to set the target for the next expansion.

Marketing Analytics Tableau Dashboard

Marketing Funnel Dashboard

Marketing Funnel Dashboards provide useful information on all the active Marting Campaigns and how well they are performing in terms of revenue, reach, conversion, etc.

Social Media Tracking Dashboard

Every Digital Marketer must have Social Media Tracking Dashboard that allows them to track how well their paid Ads are performing on social media platforms. The dashboard shows the effectiveness of marketing campaigns in multiple social media services – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc on one single page.

Customer Service Tableau Dashboard

Helpdesk Ticketing Dashboard

It provides information on all key performance indicators that a helpdesk management team generally considers. This dashboard delivers information on how well the helpdesk is handling the tickets from customers. Total Open Tickets, Closed Tickets, Average Response Times, Tickets per particular status types, etc are displayed in a clean format.

Helpdesk Team Performance Dashboard

This dashboard is mainly used by managers to monitor the performance of the team and keep track of all the progress of tasks assigned. It provides information on the calls attended by individual members and provides the distribution of incoming and outgoing calls.

Financial Analytics Tableau Dashboard

Profit and Loss Dashboard

Profit and Loss Dashboard showcases information on Revenue, Earnings Before Tax, Earnings After Tax, Cost of doing Sales, etc. It also updates the information in real-time or regular intervals and shows historical data.

Employee Expense Analysis Dashboard

It provides details about the top items for which employees are raising expense requests. It helps companies to set a budget for the employees and how to allocate funds for employees. It shows the top categories of items over the past weeks.

Accounts Receivable Analysis Dashboard

This dashboard is valuable for financial controllers who are responsible for tracking unpaid invoices and their impact on the bottom line. It provides information on the average number of days to settle invoices.

Conclusion

This blog post discussed how you could combine various sheets into a single Dashboard to get an analytical view from the data. However, if you're looking for a more straightforward solution, we recommend using Hevo Data – a no-code data pipeline that can connect multiple sources in an instant.

Integrating and analyzing data from a huge set of diverse sources can be challenging, this is where Hevo comes into the picture. Hevo Data, a No-code Data Pipeline helps you transfer data from a source of your choice in a fully automated and secure manner without having to write the code repeatedly. Hevo with its strong integration with 100+ sources & BI tools, allows you to not only export & load Data but also transform & enrich your Data & make it analysis-ready in a jiffy.

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