A viewer to my two button sheet swap video left a comment and asked me how to do single button sheet swap. Here is the solution.

It takes the following steps. Assume we have two worksheets built from two data sources. But they can be built from the same data source as well. 

Two filters with a parameter

First let's create a parameter [Sheet Select] with 1 and 2 as list of values.

Then for each sheet we set up a specific filter for it. For Sheet1 we have

[Sheet Select] = 1

For Sheet2 we have

[Sheet Select] = 2

Then place the filter in the filter shelf of the respective sheet and select the option True. By controlling the value of the parameter [Sheet Select], we can decide which sheet to show.

Creating a button sheet

Actually we duplicated the same sheet 2 more times and named the sheets for three different action types: Hover, Select, Menu. You can remove any of the sheets that you don't need.

This button sheet has a made-up data source with a single row of value 1 in a single column "Sheet". You can create this in an Excel or CSV file and import it into Tableau.

Then we need to create three new fields: True, False and Circular Value. And put them all the three in the Detail card. The Sheet field is a placeholder which allows an editable Label. We will put the button name in the label.

True and False fields have content exactly as their names.

The field Circular Value is created which will change to a value other than the current parameter [Sheet Select]. When the parameter is 1, the Circular Value is 2. Vice versa.

The components of the dashboard

The dashboard for sheet swap is composed of 3 button sheets and 2 chart sheets. You can always remove the buttons that you don't need.

The two chart sheets must be placed in a vertical container. In anytime, only one sheet is visible depending on the parameter value of [Sheet Select]

Caveat: Make sure that you hide the title of each sheet. Use area annotation for the title instead!! Otherwise, you can't hide the sheet.

Set up a Parameter Action

The purpose is to let the dashboard action assign a new value to the target parameter [Sheet Select]. The reference value is from that of the field Circular Value.

Here is the Parameter action set up of the Select button.

For the other buttons Hover and Menu, the set up is similar. Just select the corresponding Run Action On option. And select the corresponding Source Sheet.

De-select the Select button

For the Select button, the regular select action actually will leave the button stay selected after clicking on it. We need a Filter dashboard action to de-select the button. This technique is invented by Simon Runc and Yuri Fal. Here is the setup.

Voila, we are done with it. The resulting demo dashboard can be found here

Multi-sheet swapping via one button

The same technique can be applied to multiple sheet swapping via one button. The parameter [Sheet Select] has to have a list of 1 to N numbers. For the N sheets ready to swap, each needs to have a filter like [Sheet Select] =K where K=1,..., N.

For the Circular Value, the formula is as follows:

[Sheet Select]%N+1

By clicking the Select button, we can flip through all the N sheets in sequence. Same for running the other two button actions: Hover and Menu.

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View comments

  1. "Then for each sheet we set up a specific filter for it. For Sheet1 we have

    [Sheet Select] = 1

    For Sheet2 we have

    [Sheet Select] = 2"

    How can I setup these filters?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Create a calculated field named "Sheet1 filter" with [Sheet Select] = 1. Then place "Sheet1 filter" in the filter shelf.

      Delete

(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.

(Addendum: Jonathan Drummey has a much better Tableau-only solution that I missed from his presentation. I only caught later part of the presentation. You might ask him about it if you know him.)

In a recent presentation, Tableau visionary HOF Jonathan Drummey talked about a solution for a variable row heights in a text table. The question apparently came from a perfectionist tableau designer. Tableau is not really made for text processing.

[Forward: I asked ChatGPT o1-mini who then wrote this. Hope it helps. All the credit and the blame go to ChatGPT.

I went over the plan and it looked decent. Whether it can be done in 30 days or not, it depends on the person and the time he spends on it. By the way, ChatGPT can be a really good study buddy. Ask it questions whenever you have any.]

This comprehensive 30-day plan is designed to take you from a Tableau beginner to an advanced user.

Mundane charts are those basic ones that all data visualization beginners can create, possibly with Show Me in Tableau. They are the boring ones at times because many people tend to create fancier ones just to show off. 

I actually like the mundane ones a lot because they are not only easy to create but also easy to be read by the stakeholders.

Pareto chart is a very powerful tool, providing great insights into the data set and into the business at stake.

A while ago, Sharon came to me asking a question regarding Pareto Chart Multiples. That is, per each category, there is a Pareto chart. And we need to create Pareto charts for all the categories. This chart allows us to quickly view the few most important factors that matter to the majority of output in each category. 

Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923) is the father of the 80/20 rule: 80% of output are produced by 20% of input. It works magically well through all the years.

[Update: The product manager Wilson Po alerted me that the Viz Extension is still a work in progress. It will not be part of the incoming version 2024.1. Instead, it will be released later in 2024. Just be patient]

Tableau 2024.1 is coming. I got a chance to test drive it. As I wrote a bunch of posts on Sankey chart tutorials in the past, I am most excited by the new Sankey chart type. Here I would like to share what I learnt. This is a quick preview. Your comments are welcome.

Buzzfeed recently asked Midjourney to draw images of people in 50 US states.  So the AI drawing tool created 50 images of couples that represent its perception of the people in each state.

I just put the images into a tiled map in Tableau. Each image is added as a background in each tile.

And also I added Viz-in-tooltips to enlarge an image to look at more details.

Feel free to download the workbook and explore it.
1

The folks at Business Expert had a brilliant idea. They asked AI's perception on UK banks as a dog. I am inspired to do the same on US banks.

ChatGPT is asked to confess its perceptions on top US banks as a dog. Then Midjourney is tasked to generate the images. Check out what dog is matched to your favorite bank.

All are put together into a single-sheet Tableau dashboard. Feel free to check it out.

Through my previous post on the new Sankey chart type, I got in touch with Wilson, the product manager leading the development of this new chart type. I made some comments on creating multi-level Sankey via cascading of single Sankey's. He told me it can be done already by dropping more dimensions into the Level card.

As an enthusiastic user of Sankey charts, I am excited to learn that a Sankey chart type is being piloted in Tableau Public (Web Edit only). I wrote about Sankey chart design in multiple posts. Sankey chart may appear in different forms depending on applications. 

I played a little with it just to evaluate it. Here are my initial findings and comments.

1. The basic Sankey

I can quickly create a Sankey with 2 dimensions and 1 measure.
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