Antichaos
Tableau, Data Analyse & Visualisatie
When you start tuning a Tableau dashboard or SQL query for performance, one thing jumps out quickly: COUNTD can slow things down.
The count-distinct is an extremely useful function which looks simple on the surface, but under the hood it forces the engine to do extra work that adds up fast. Understanding why this happens – and what alternatives you can use – makes a big difference in keeping your dashboards responsive.
[Read more…] about Why is COUNTD so slow – and how can I fix this?Recently I ran into a small but surprisingly tricky problem: how do you visualize something that’s in progress? A standard bar chart works usually perfectly for completed values, but what about the final bar isn’t finished yet because e.g. the year isn’t finished yet,
Fading it out, changing the shape or adding a label like “in progress” didn’t feel right. I wanted something that instantly communicates “this is still ongoing”.
Inspired by how Spotify shows an ongoing song I started experimenting with using a sine wave to bring that bar alive. Instead of a static column, the last bar gently oscillates – hinting that it’s active, not finished.
In this post, I’ll walk through how to create this effect in Tableau step by step.
If you don’t need an ‘in progress’ viz, you can always use it for something else….
A couple of years ago, Tableau introduced one of its most highly requested features ever: Dynamic Parameters. This feature made it possible to populate a parameter with values directly from a data source, rather than being limited to static, manually entered values.
This works great, but as soon as this was available a new request came up: adding manual values to the list – especially the ‘All’ value.
[Read more…] about Add ‘All’ and more options to a Dynamic ParameterTableau containers don’t exactly have the best reputation. Most people either ignore them or wrestle with them. But once you actually get along with containers (and their friends: borders, background colors, and padding), they turn into your dashboard’s interior designers.
In this post, I’ll show you four small but powerful ways to use the Tableau containers to make your dashboards look sharper, cleaner, and maybe even a little more fun.
[Read more…] about Tableau Container Art – 4 examples of formatting dashboards without imagesA powerful way of creating flexible, user-friendly dashboards is by letting your users decide how they want to view the data. Instead of forcing them to view at a certain chart type, you can give them the option to chose between different visualizations- bar charts, line charts, etc, or variations on a chart, based on their need, or preference.
