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Antichaos

Tableau, Data Analyse & Visualisatie

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Antichaos Blog

The Tableau VizQL Data Service: What It Is, What It Can Do, and When to Use It

Johan de Groot · 23 June 2025 ·

When people think of Tableau, they usually picture dashboards, visualizations, and drag-and-drop analytics. In this traditional setup, users explore data by interacting with dashboards: charts, filters, tooltips, etc. But what if you don’t need the visuals at all—just the data behind them, with all the same calculations, filters, and logic already applied?

VDS: Data instead of Dashboard

That’s where the VizQL Data Service (VDS) comes in.
Rather than returning charts and visuals, it taps into Tableau’s VizQL engine to give you just the data behind any published view.. Instead of clicking through a dashboard, you can get the same data directly—like a spreadsheet or text file—by sending a simple request from another app or script.

In this post, we’ll explore what the VizQL Data Service is, what you can do with it, and how it fits into the broader Tableau ecosystem. A hands-on example is coming soon in a follow-up article!

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Abbreviate long text in Tableau

Johan de Groot · 19 June 2025 ·

When working with text data in Tableau, you’ll often need to clean or reshape strings to better fit your analysis or visual presentation.

Abbreviating text is a common challenge when designing dashboards, reports, or any interface where space is limited. Whether you’re working with long product names, category labels, or freeform text fields, overly long strings can clutter layout and make visualizations harder to read.

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Two Pie Chart Alternatives

Johan de Groot · 12 June 2025 ·

Pie charts — they seem to be everywhere. They show up in presentations, reports, and in every stockphoto about business meetings.

They’re colorful, round, and look super friendly… but despite being one of the most popular chart types, they’re also one of the most frustrating to actually read.

[Read more…] about Two Pie Chart Alternatives

The Case for Clearer Parameter Labels in Tableau

Johan de Groot · 5 June 2025 ·

Parameters are a powerful feature in Tableau — they enable dynamic controls, what-if scenarios, and interactive dashboards. But when it comes to usability, they often fall short, especially in how values are displayed to end users.

By default, parameter values are raw numbers, which can be hard to interpret by users. Whether you’re showing date ranges, filter types, or word lengths, poorly labeled parameters can make a dashboard feel clunky and inaccessible. In this post, I’ll show you a simple way to make a slider-parameter clearer, more intuitive, and more user-friendly.

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Show/Hide – but better

Johan de Groot · 29 May 2025 ·

The default Show/Hide button in Tableau offers a quick way to toggle dashboard elements, but it comes with limitations—especially when dealing with larger components like full-screen visualizations or help panels that can obscure the toggle itself.

In this guide, I show a smarter approach using Dynamic Zone Visibility and Parameter Actions. By setting up separate “show” and “hide” buttons, you gain full control over what appears and when, all without compromising the user experience. This reasults in a cleaner layout and/or more intuitive interactions, this method provides a flexible, user-friendly alternative to Tableau’s built-in toggle.

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