Creating an Interactive Dashboard

A simple and easy way to display categorical outliers is by using a heat map.

Step 1

Connect to the Superstore sample.

Step 2

Hold down the CTRL key, and select Department, Category, Customer Segment, Sales, and Profit, and then click Show Me.

Step 3

In the Show Me dialog box, select the Heat Map chart.

The Show Me function creates a heat map.

Step 4

Right-click one of the Customer Segment labels at the top, and select Rotate Label so that the labels display more clearly.

Step 5

Right-click the sheet tab, select Rename Sheet, and type Heat Map.

In this example, you can drill into customer-based detail. One way to do this is to focus on the top 25 customers in sales.

Step 1

For Tableau Desktop 7.0 and later, select Worksheet > New Worksheet.
For Tableau Desktop 6.1 and earlier, select Edit > New Worksheet.

Step 2

From the Dimensions pane, drag the Customer Name and State fields to the Rows shelf.

Step 3

From the Measures pane, drag Sales onto the Columns shelf.

Step 4

On the Rows shelf, right-click Customer Name and select Sort.

Step 5

In the Sort dialog box, under Sort order, select Descending.

Step 6

In the Sort dialog box, do the following tasks:

1. Under Sort by, select Field. Keep the default settings of Sales and Sum.
2. When finished, click OK.

Step 7

Right-click the sheet tab, select Rename Sheet, and type Customer Details. Now you have a long bar chart of every customer from Sample - Superstore data source, along with how much they have spent.

Next, you create the dashboard that filters the customer list to only the results you want.

Step 1

For Tableau Desktop 7.0 and later, select Dashboard > New Dashboard.  
For Tableau Desktop 6.1 and earlier, select Edit > New Dashboard.

Step 2

In the Dashboard pane, double-click Heat Map, then drag Customer Details to the right side of the dashboard and release when a grey bar appears.

The two worksheets are placed side by side.

Step 3

Drag the Color Legend to the bottom of the Heat Map so it is easy to read.

Step 4

Click the menu arrow on Heat Map and select Use as Filter.

With this selection, the Customer Details are filtered based on your selections in the Heat Map.

Step 5

Click any label on either axis in the heat map to see the Customer Details view refresh to display data about your selection.