Lecture 18: Dashboards in Tableau

Dashboards in Tableau

• Tableau is designed for dashboards, and they make it easy
• Most of what we’ll cover today you could probably figure out yourself by clicking “New Dashboard” at the bottom and clicking around
• So we’ll keep this brief and then get to trying stuff out

Creating a Dashboard

• Create your visualizations and tables
• Then down at the bottom, next to the Sheets, there’s a + icon for “New Dashboard”
• Click it!

Adding Worksheets to the Dashboard

• From here you’ll see:
• The Layout option (in a sec)
• Your worksheets - drag them in!
• Options at the bottom to add navigation, images, text, web pages

Adding Worksheets to the Dashboard

Layout

• Tableau Dashboards can be laid out for desktop, mobile, or tablet
• Check your Size options, and try Device Preview with a few things on
• Also check the Layout tab for other options
• Keep the audience in mind, and whether some visualizations might not translate to tiny sizes!

Layout

• You can “float” elements of the dashboard but this isn’t generally a good idea
• What is a good idea is moving things like legends (if you have them) close to where the actual viz that uses them is
• You don’t want the legend for Viz B sitting next to Viz A - confusing!

Formatting

• Format \(\rightarrow\) Dashboard brings up the formatting panel for things like overall coloring, fonts, etc.
• You can also format the individual worksheets included by clicking on them as normal
• Any re-decoration you want to do at this point is on the table!

Formatting

Filters

• You can add interactive filters to look at different parts of the data, and apply those filters broadly
• Select a viz that uses the variable you want to filter on and hit the “use as filter” button (looks like a funnel) and then the down arrow and Filter to select the variable to filter on
• A filter will appear. On the down arrow for THAT, you can change the kind of filter you get (dropdown, etc.) and also which worksheets the filter applies to - can update the whole dashboard at once with one filter if you like!

Considerations for Dashboards

If you’re planning to end up with a dashboard…

• Hold off on annotations until the end; what looks good on a single image might get cramped on multiples
• Consider how you might reduce the number of legends required to understand things. Lots of legends can get confusing
• Try to make dashboard and worksheet formatting consistent
• Use a grid layout! Don’t get wild
• Consider including the “Export to PDF” option