Quick tip Tuesday - two little nuggets to aid efficiency

by Adi McCrea

First on the list – the ‘Show Me’ tab.

Show Me or not Show Me, that is the question. The answer? Like most things, it depends.

Show Me can be a great help at the very beginning of your Tableau journey. Clicking it gives some ideas about the sorts of charts that are available for your data. We also get an idea of what we need to do to create these charts in the combination of dimensions or measures.

You can also work with show me in reverse. Click a measure in the data tab while show me is open and it will show you specific chart options for that data. Select more than one measure and the available charts will begin to grow.

 

       

Remember that Show Me is absolutely not a definitive list! The joy (and power) of Tableau is in giving the user absolute control over whatever they want to create. And I do mean whatever. The possibilities are endless so don’t ever compromise the vision you had in your head to fit a prescriptive list of available charts – the data drives the viz, not the tool!

Describe sheet

Sticking with the topic of being data driven, another tip for keeping your data, it’s structure and how you’re working with it at the forefront of your mind is by making use of the sheet description option. Here’s how:

                                              

 

Two very useful little methods for keeping your mind in check when you get started in Tableau.

Happy vizzing.

Ta for now.