[Head-n-Tail Analysis (Part 1): The Toolkit]

In Part I, I explained what head-n-tail analysis is. Here I will show how you can make an analysis dashboard of your own data in no time.

To make it simple, I made a dashboard template (on English Premiere League teams TV revenue) for download. All you need to do is to plug in your data and generate a dashboard of your own in 30 seconds.

Assume that you have your data ready in an excel file with one dimension and one measure. Make sure the data is on "Sheet1". Here is a few data sets for you to try: File1 and File2.

Then follow these 3 steps: (based on File1)

1.Edit Data Source (data connection) to load your excel file. The data must be on "Sheet1".


You may see columns with nulls and  red ! sign. They are the old dimension and measure along with those associated calculated fields. Just ignore them and click "Go to worksheet".



2.Replace the old dimension "Team" and the old measure "TV Revenue" by those in your data using Replace References. In this case, "Team" is mapped to "Product" and "TV Revenue" is replaced by "Sales".



3.Edit "Number of Rows" to be that of your table (excluding header row). There are 13 rows in this example.


Voila, you have your Head-n-Tail analysis dashboard for coffee sales by product.

You can customize titles, text and colors later at your convenience. Individual charts and worksheets are available for you to add to other dashboards if needed. And your data source can be any database, not limited to excel files.

Give it a try and see if you can beat 30 seconds.


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  1. Hi Alexander,

    It was kind to provide a template, and the dashboard is quite engaging. Thank you!

    For those seeking to learn the reason why it is best to accomplish this with a TOP N set & Calculated Field, I can refer to a recent post titled "Master Tableau Approach".

    It describes a decision model for identifying the best of five distinct approaches to answering complex data questions in Tableau. And this "Top N and Others" solution is the answer to question #3.

    http://redheadedstepdata.io/master-tableau-approach/

    Keep up the great work! I hope there will be more Best of Tableau Web coming in the future :)

    Thanks!,
    Keith

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks Keith for the comment and reference! Those master tableau approaches are quite good. Need to practice them to master them.

    ReplyDelete

(Refresh the page if you want to view the gif image multiple times. Or go to Tableau Public and click the button at the top-right corner.)

Jake and I collaborated on a dashboard. He told me that he learnt a way to create an in-place help page in Tableau. He first saw it at a conference somewhere and couldn't recall who the speaker was. So I am blogging here about it but the credit goes to somebody else. If anyone knows who the original creator is, leave a comment below.

The key idea is to float a semi transparent worksheet on top of the dashboard, where a help text box is strategically placed on top of each chart. This way, we can explain how to view each chart and what data points are important, etc. This worksheet is collapsible by a show/hide button. 

Below I would like to show how this worksheet can be constructed.

1. Sheet with a single data mark.

  • Double click the empty space in Marks panel and add two single quotes. Make the null pill a text label. This creates a single null mark.
  • Set the view as "Entire View"

2. Create an show/hide button

  • Go to the target dashboard
  • Drag a floating vertical container to the dashboard, making it cover all the area of interest.
  • Drag the Single Null Mark sheet and drop it into the above container. Hide the sheet title.
  • Create an open/close button for the container and place the button at the top-right corner.

3. Add annotations

  • Format the sheet background opacity as 70% in the layout manager             
  • Select area annotations and place them anywhere of interest. 
  • Write help text and format it to highlight important messages.  
  • The text can serve as functional guide and/or insight guide.

Here is an example. Feel free to download the workbook and explore. Click the "i" button at the top-right corner to view the in-place help. 

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