Creating Dashboard

Overview

Time: min

Objectives

• How to create Dashboard in Tableau

• A dashboard is a collection of sheets or views. The benefit of dashboards is that we can compare variety of data at one glace.

• The things that we focus on while creating a dashboard are –ContentandLayout. Let us take an example of a dashboard which has sales, profits and discount sheetsall together.

How do you imagine the dashboard to look?

• Quite chaotic because we will have so many factors to focus on. Dashboards should have homogeneity with respect to content.
• Sticking to one measure while creating a dashboard gives us the proper content.The resultant dashboard will be more relevant.
• To start with dashboards, we first need 4 or 5 visualizations ready (which we have already done in the previous section).
• Now, to open a dashboard either click on the below highlighted icon from the panelon the bottom of the page or on the toolbar where it says dashboard.

• This is how the dashboard looks like. On the left side, we can see the size option. We select ‘automatic’ from the drop down. Now the dashboard will fit any screen its displayed on (laptop/desktop/tablet/phone).
• We can see all the sheets that we created earlier listed in the sheets column.

• Next, we focus on the layout. We need to plan how we are going to arrange the sheetsto make the most sense out of them. Generally,most english speaking countries have a habit of reading from left to right.
• We can either glance the dashboard in a ‘Z’ pattern or a ‘N’ pattern.Deciding a layout for dashboard should have a logical approach.
• For example, in our case we are designing a sales dashboard. Our first chart, sales by category, gives a high-level view of sales. So,we would want to have that in the first quadrant (considering we have 4 sheets).
• To start with dashboard, first drag the Sales by Category sheet on the dashboard. It will take up the whole screen.
• Drag the second sheet, Sales by Sub-categoryand place it in the second quadrant. Repeat the process for the rest of the sheetsand place them in the third and fourth quadrants.

• To avoid visual clutter, we only retain ink that is absolutely necessary.So,we retain ‘Year of Order Date’legendand remove all the other legends.
• We can adjust the year of order date legend by expanding the more options and selecting the floating option. By doing so it is not fixed anymore and can be moved anywhere across the dashboard.
• We then arrange the years in a single row by navigating to more options, arrange items and selecting the single rowoption.Also, click on the filter icon of every sheet in the dashboard.

Key Points