[Sequel to this post: Labeling Trellis Chart Anywhere]

To many people, the most difficult part of creating a trellis chart is to label it. Especially labeling it in the same sheet and with sparse data is even harder.

This week's #B2VB project prompted many to create trellis charts for the data set about unemployment in OECD countries.

Here I would use the same data set to show 

  • How to label a trellis chart in a single sheet.
  • How to place the labels in a uniform way in spite of missing data.
To make it simple, we take three steps to explain how it works. 
  • Create a trellis chart without labels.
  • Create labels only in a trellis.
  • Integrate them via dual axis.
When you become familiar with the steps, you can start building from the 3rd one.

1. Creating a Trellis Chart

First let's create a trellis chart without labels.
The fields are as follows:
The Rows are calculated along Country Name. 6 is from the fact that we have 6 columns. This number can be a parameter.
The Columns are calculated along Country Name.

2. Create Trellis Chart with Labels Only

Secondly, let's create a trellis chart to place labels only. All the labels are created regardless of missing data. You may notice from the previous chart that Israel and Turkey don't have data at the beginning months.
We add a new axis Window_Max(1). The table calculation is set to compute along Date.

The reason why we use a table calc Window_Max(1) for an axis, is due to the fact that for some country, data are missing for some of the dates. Window_Max(1) will fill those voids with value 1.

The labels are created as follows
This way, we only keep the first value of the windows calculation. Note that it is calculated along Date dimension.

3. Dual Axis

The third step is putting them together via dual axis. The labeling axis is fixed to be from 0 to 1. No syncing the axis please.
Here is the resulting trellis chart:
This is another example using the above technique https://twitter.com/aleksoft/status/1483572295373312001
The demo workbooks can be downloaded here and here.

Feel free to leave comments below or contact me at twitter @aleksoft.

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Labels: Trellis Chart
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  1. Hi Alex,
    Here's another question. Let's say that the label has a calculation. For example, I want to show an upward arrow, when the last record in the partition is greater than the running average. However, if the label is set up to appear only in the first record of the partition (because of the if statement, that says to show the label when first()=0) then the calculation run on the last record in the partition is excluded. Thoughts?

    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.

(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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