Transcription
In this video, I'm going to show you how to make this awesome interactive dashboard in Tableau in just 10 minutes. First, we're going to build the charts. Second, we're going to customize them to get the look that we want. Third, we're going to place them in the dashboard using containers. And lastly, we'll add some interactivity. Let's get started.
If you're new here, my name's Andy. I created this channel to help you become great at Tableau. And today, I'm going to show you how to build a beautiful Tableau dashboard. If you enjoy this video, please give it a like and don't forget to click on subscribe. I create lots of content and I don't want you to miss out on anything. Here we go.
So, we're a European company and we've been tasked with building a sales dashboard that tracks things like monthly sales, some KPIs, top-selling products, and which regions are performing the best. The data set looks like this. We have the order ID, the date, what product was bought, who the customer is, and so on. This data set is available in the description.
First, let's go ahead and build all of the charts. First, we want to filter down to just the latest year. So, drag Order Date to the filters, click on Years, and then Next, and choose the latest year, and click on OK. Now, we want this filter to apply to every sheet that we create. So, let's go ahead and click on that filter, choose Apply to Worksheets, and then All Using This Data Source. That way, we don't have to remember to reapply this filter with every new sheet that we build.
Let's build those KPIs. Drag Sales to the text. Drag Profit on top of that number so that you see Show Me. And then we want to get the count of customers. So, right-click and drag Customer ID to the Measure Values shelf and choose CALC Distinct of Customer ID. Click on OK. We want to rearrange these so that the numbers go across rather than down. So, drag Measure Names from the Rows to the Columns. We want Sales to be first before Profit. So, on the Measure Values shelf, drag Sales above Profit. And we want our Customers to say the number of customers, not distinct count of customer ID. So, right-click on that header and choose Edit Alias. I'm going to rename it Number of Customers. Click on OK. Click on the Text shelf and in the alignment, instead of Automatic, choose Center Horizontal and Center Vertical. Let's make the text nice and big for our headers. So, right-click on one of the headers and choose Format. Change the font to 14 point. But we want the text to be bigger as well. So, click on the Text shelf and then the three dots on the Measure Values. Let's make these maybe 22 point. In the Format pane, choose the Borders option. Set the Row Divider to None. And now we have nice and clear KPIs. Rename the sheet KPIs.
The second sheet we want to build is our map. I'm going to double-click on Country. Drag Sales to the Color shelf. And now we have each country colored by sales. But I don't like this color blue. I want to make it more like my company's blue color. So, right-click on the Sales field in the Data pane, go to Default Properties, and then Color. And we like to use the standard blue color. Click on OK. I want to clean up this map. So, right-click in the map and choose Background Layers. Drag the Washout to 100. Click on the Color Shelf and change your border to white. But we still have these lines go around the outside of the map. So, close the Background Layers. Right-click in the map and choose Format. In the Borders option, set the Row Dividers to None and the Column Dividers to None. Now we have a nice, clean-looking map. Let's rename this sheet Sales by Country.
On to our next sheet. In this one, we want to create a line chart of sales by month. Right-click and drag Order Date to the Columns. Choose Discrete Months. Click on OK. Drag Sales to the Rows. Now I want to see little circles on each month. So, I'm going to hold my Control key down and duplicate the Sales field on the Rows. On the first Sales shelf, change the Mark Type from Automatic to Line. On the second Sales shelf, change the Mark Type to a Circle. Click on the Color shelf, set the color to white, and set the border to blue. Right-click on the second SUM(Sales) field on the Row Shelf and choose Dual Axis. Right-click on either of the axes and choose Synchronize Axis. Right-click on the axis on the left-hand side and choose Edit Axis. Let's get rid of the title. Right-click on the axis on the right-hand side, choose Edit Axis, and let's get rid of the title. Right-click on Order Date at the top of the view and choose Hide Field Labels for Columns. Now, we don't need the axes on both sides. So, I'm going to right-click on the axis on the right and uncheck Show Header. Lastly, we want to clean up the view a bit. So, right-click in the view and choose Format. I'm going to go to my Borders and I'm going to turn my Row Dividers off and also set my Column Divider to None. I'm going to go to my Lines. I'm going to turn my Grid Lines on and then back off. Turn my Zero Lines off. And I'm going to set my Axis Ruler to a line. Lastly, I want to change the formatting of my months. Right-click on any of the months and choose Format. In the Dates option, let's choose Abbreviation. And that gives us the three-letter months. Rename the sheet Sales by Month.
One more sheet. In this one, we want to look at sales by product. Drag Sub-Category to the Rows, Sales to the Columns. Sort descending. Right-click on the header for the Sub-Category and choose Hide Field Labels for Rows. Right-click on the axis and choose Edit Axis and get rid of the title. Change the view from Standard to Entire View. Right-click in the view and choose Format. Go to the Lines and turn your Grid Lines on and back off. Set the Zero Lines to None. To add a bit of context for these bars, let's go to the Analytics pane and drag on an Average Line for the table. We can now color-code the bars based on whether they're above or below the average. Go back to the Data pane and create a new calculated field. I'm going to call this Above Average Sales. My formula is SUM(Sales) is greater than or equal to WINDOW_AVG(SUM(Sales)). The WINDOW_AVG(SUM(Sales)) represents the value of my reference line. Click on OK. Drag the Above Average Sales field to the Color Shelf. And notice we now have two colors. Choose the Color Shelf and Edit Colors. I'm going to set the True to be blue, so those that are above average are blue. And I want the False to be gray. So, I'm going to choose Seattle Grays, False, and then the light gray. Click on OK. Let's rename this sheet Sales by Product.
And now we have our four sheets built. If I go back to the dashboard, this is the view we're looking at. So, we can refer back and forth to this as we build our dashboard. Create a new dashboard and we're going to make it 1200 by 600. Start by holding the Shift key down and dragging in a vertical container. Go to the Layout tab and set the position to 0x0y, 1200 wide, and 600 tall. We put this container in here so that we have a bit more control over how the sheets are aligned in the dashboard. If you want to learn more about containers, I'll post the link in the description to a whole series of videos I have.
So, inside of the dashboard, let's start by dragging in a Text object to use as our title. I'm going to call this European Sales Dashboard. Highlight the text and let's make it a nice big font and change the color. Click on OK. Now, we want to have the map on the right-hand side. So, I'm going to drag my Sales by Country field to the right inside of that container. Let's edit the width of the map. Let's make it 375. Notice there's a color legend in the back. We'll take care of that in a minute. So, now, referring back over to our dashboard, we have our map on the right and we have our title across the top. But now we need this other section here. So, I'm going to drag in a vertical container to the left of my title. Grab my title and drag it into that vertical container. Now we can drag our KPIs underneath of the title. Next, we want to put the Sales by Month and the Sales by Product side by side. Drag in a horizontal container below the KPIs. Drag in your Sales by Month into that horizontal container and then your Sales by Product to the right of that in your container. Now we can do a bit of formatting. Let's set the dashboard height to 85. Let's set our KPIs to fit the entire View and then let's edit the height of those to be 115. Right-click on the title and choose Hide Title. On the Sales by Product, let's edit the width of that to be 400. And now we're looking pretty good.
But I want to have these nice gray borders around the outside and have the grade between the objects to make them pop a bit more. For that, it's just a bit of formatting. Choose Dashboard on the menu and choose Format. We want the shading to be a light gray. Close that view. Choose our title, click on the Layout tab, and let's set the outer padding to 10. Change the background to be white. Set our inner padding to 10 and then turn on a light gray border. Go to our KPI sheet again. Turn our light gray border. Set the inner padding to 10 and then set the outer padding to 10. And set the background color to white. On our Sales by Month again, turn on the light gray border. Set the background to white. Set the outer padding to 10. Set the inner padding to 10. Sales by Product sheet. Set the border to gray. So, the background to white. Set the outer padding to 10 and set the inner padding to 10. Sales by Country. Same steps. Light gray border. Background is white. And then our inner and outer padding are both 10.
Now, remember we have a color legend in the background that's tied up in this tiled object down here on the bottom left. Right-click on that tiled object and choose Remove from Dashboard. Click on Delete Containers. And there we go. We now have the dashboard looking exactly the way we'd like it.
It's time to add a bit of interactivity. Let's say I want to be able to filter the other charts based on one of the months I pick. Click on the Sales by Month sheet and choose the filter option. Now, when I click on a month, you'll see all of my charts change based on that month. Let's do the same thing for Sales by Product. Click on the filter. So, now when I click on a product, all the other charts will update based on that product. Let's change Sales by Country. Turn on the filter. Click on Finland. And now all of the charts will update based on the sales for Finland.
And that's all there is to it. In just a few minutes, we've created a beautiful interactive dashboard in Tableau. If you found this useful, please give it a like. And better yet, leave me a comment with something you've learned in this video. And don't forget to click on subscribe. I don't want you to miss any content I create. Until next time.