Just wrote a post on Placing Labels on Tiled Map last week. Again, found that this tiled map has non-aligned labels by Michael Mixon. Otherwise, it is a great viz with very good uses of dual axis, color schemes and drill downs. BTW this viz is part of the #MakeoverMonday week33 project.
Seems like that placing labels in an aligned position on tiled map has been a challenge for many.

We can't use dual axis as described in the previous post, since it's already been used in this viz. We have to find another way.

A close look revealed that the original label was laid on the area chart at year 2009:

  • IF MIN([Year]) = 2009 THEN ATTR([US Tile Map].[Abbreviation]) END

The data mark at 2009 is of variable height for different states. This makes the label position variable, thus non-aligned.

Instead, the value of the other axis [% Change since 2003] at year 2003 is invariably zero for all states. So we made the following change:
1.Change the formula to:
  • IF MIN([Year]) = 2003 THEN ATTR([US Tile Map].[Abbreviation]) END
2.Move the label to the other axis which is a bar chart.

Now we have an aligned state label for each of the tiles. Click image to view the interactive version.
The key here is to found a common data mark in all tiles, and place the label on it. In case we couldn't find one, we may create one in some way.

To summarize, there seem two options to create labels in tiles:
1. Dual axis: create a single mark measure that's fixed over all tiles.
2.When dual axis is already used, try placing labels in the Label/Text shelf of one data mark, which is common in all tiles.

BTW, made some tweaks to the Zoom window to provide a bit more details.

That's all for this tweak.
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(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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