How to Create a Dashboard in Tableau

Edited 6 days ago by ExtremeHow Editorial Team

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In today's data-driven world, the ability to effectively visualize data is crucial. Tableau is a powerful tool that helps create stunning visualizations to convey the stories behind the data. One of Tableau's most striking features is its ability to create dashboards. A dashboard is an interactive display of data and visualizations that allows users to gain insight at a glance. This guide will walk you step-by-step through the process of creating a dashboard in Tableau. By the end of this guide, you will have a comprehensive understanding of how to create a dashboard from scratch.

Understanding Tableau

It is important to have a basic understanding of Tableau before creating a dashboard. Tableau is a data visualization software that allows users to create interactive and shareable dashboards. These dashboards provide actionable information and can be created with minimal coding knowledge.

The Tableau ecosystem includes some key components:

• Tableau Desktop: The primary tool where you connect to data and create visualizations.
• Tableau Server: A platform for sharing your dashboards within your organization.
• Tableau Online: A cloud-based version of Tableau Server.
• Tableau Public: A free platform for anyone to find, use, and share publicly available visualizations online.

This guide will focus on using Tableau Desktop to create dashboards.

Getting started with Tableau

To start using Tableau, you'll need to install it on your computer. If you haven't installed Tableau Desktop yet, you can download it from the Tableau website. Once installed, open Tableau Desktop to get started.

When you open Tableau Desktop, you will see the landing page, which allows you to connect to various data sources such as Microsoft Excel, a CSV file, or a SQL database. For this guide, let's assume we have a dataset in an Excel file that contains sales data.

Connecting to data

To create a dashboard, you first need to connect Tableau to your data source. Follow these steps to connect to an Excel file:

1. Click Connect in the left menu, then select Excel.
2. Go to the location of your Excel file, select it, and click Open.
3. Once the file is loaded, you will see the available sheets in your Excel file. Drag the sheet you want to use to the canvas area, marked Drag sheet here.
4. Tableau will automatically scan and preview the data from your selected sheets.

Building sheets

Before you can create a dashboard, it's important to create different sheets, each representing a different visualization of your data. These sheets will later be combined to form your dashboard.

Creating visualizations

Let's create some basic visualizations:

1. Bar chart

Suppose you want to create a bar chart to show sales by product category. Follow these steps:

1. Go to the Data pane on the left.
2. Drag a product category to the column shelf.
3. Drag Sales to the Rows shelf.
4. Tableau automatically creates a bar chart. You can fine-tune it using the Marks card and other features.

2. Line chart

To create a line chart showing sales over time, follow these steps:

1. Start a new sheet by clicking the tab with the + sign at the bottom.
2. Drag Order Date to the Columns shelf.
3. Drag Sales to the Rows shelf.
4. To ensure that the order date is displayed as a continuous measure, right-click on it and select Convert to Continuous if necessary.

3. Pie chart

To show region-wise sales distribution with a pie chart, follow these steps:

1. Create a new sheet by clicking the tab with the + sign.
2. Drag the region to the color shelf below the Marks card.
3. Drag Sales to the Angle shelf.
4. Change the drop-down box from Automatic to Pie from the Marks card.

Creating a dashboard

After creating the required sheets, proceed to create your dashboard:

1. Click the New Dashboard button, represented by a rectangular icon with a plus sign, below the existing sheet.
2. The dashboard workspace will appear with a blank canvas.
3. On the left, you’ll see the sheets you’ve created under the Sheets list.
4. Drag the desired sheets to the dashboard canvas. Arrange them as you like. You can resize the visualizations and adjust their layout by interacting with the borders.

Customizing the dashboard

Tableau offers many features to enhance the look and functionality of your dashboard. Here are some of the key customization options:

1. Adding filters

Filters allow users to interactively control data visualization within a dashboard.

1. Select the sheet you want to filter.
2. Drag the field you want to use as a filter to the Filter shelf on the dashboard.
3. Once the sheet is selected, click the drop-down arrow on the filter field and select Show Filter. A filter control will appear on the dashboard, allowing users to interactively adjust the displayed data.

2. Using verbs

Actions create interactivity between the visualizations in your dashboard.

1. Go to Dashboard > Actions.
2. In the dialog box, select Add action.
3. Choose the type of action you want, such as a Filter action that allows you to filter data in one chart by clicking on another chart.
4. Configure the parameters and source/destination sheets accordingly.

3. Designing the layout

Adjust the layout of your dashboard to make sure it's user-friendly:

• Use containers to hold sheets for a structured layout.
• Adjust the dashboard size for optimal visibility on different devices or mediums.
• Include text boxes and images for titles, subtitles, or branding purposes.

Publishing and sharing your dashboard

Once you're satisfied with your dashboard, Tableau offers several options for sharing and publishing:

• Tableau Public: Allows you to share your dashboard publicly. Simply click File > Save to Tableau Public.
• PDF/Images: Dashboards can be exported as PDF or image files for non-interactive sharing.
• Tableau Server/Online: For sharing within an organization, dashboards can be uploaded to Tableau Server or online.

Conclusion

Creating dashboards in Tableau involves understanding your data, preparing different visualizations, and combining them on a dashboard canvas with user interaction in mind. With the tools that Tableau offers, you are able to present your data in engaging, practical ways. These dashboards help stakeholders make decisions by allowing them to interact with data and uncover insights intuitively. This guide serves as a foundation for creating dashboards, and as you continue to explore Tableau, you will find many advanced features and functionalities that enhance your data visualization skills.

Additional resources

To further enhance your Tableau skills, consider the following resources:

• Tableau Learning Portal for tutorials and training videos.
• Tableau Community for forums and discussions with other Tableau users.
• Check out the Tableau public gallery for inspiration and examples of dashboards created by others.

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