Clearly and Simply

Tag: tableau

  • The Next Level of Interactive Microsoft Excel Dashboards

    A highly interactive Microsoft Excel Replica of Tableau’s Seattle Real Estate “Around the Sound” Dashboard

    Around the Sound Dashboard - IntroA couple of weeks ago I had the privilege to contribute to Chandoo's great Excel School. Chandoo and I discussed Excel dashboards in general and how to add interactive features. If you are subscribed to the dashboard module of Chandoo's Excel School, you will soon be able to watch the whole interview.

    Prior to our discussion, I prepared a simple interactive dashboard based on an example taken from the Tableau Software Visual Gallery: Around the Sound – Seattle Real Estate Prices. After our interview, I spent some more time with the model and enhanced this dashboard with more analytical features.

    We already had a post discussing interactivity on Excel dashboards: Bluffing Tableau Actions with Excel. However, the model I developed subsequent to my discussion with Chandoo includes more, hopefully helpful functionality. Thus, I thought you might be interested.

    Today’s post describes the enhanced model and provides the Excel workbook for free download. 

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  • Another Look at Site Catchment Analysis with Tableau 6 (Part 3)

    Techniques to Get Past the Limitations – Part 3: Performance Tips and a Wish List

    © halmackenreuter / pixelio.deThis is the third and final part of a guest post series by Richard Leeke from Equinox Ltd.

    The first two articles of this series focused on three different techniques for doing different levels of aggregation with Tableau: Table Calculations, Data Blending and Parameter Lookup Tables.

    However, these articles only discussed one of the caveats raised in Robert’s original Site Catchment Analysis with Tableau 6. I can’t do anything about the second – missing functionality of triggering an action after the change of a parameter. But in this article I discuss the various techniques I used to optimize the performance of the Tableau workbook. Whilst the discussion focuses on the Site Catchment Analysis discussed in this series, there are several that are general hints which may apply to lots of your Tableau workbooks. I actually only worked out a couple of these while working through this analysis, but have already adopted them in other workbooks with great success.

    So, today’s article wraps up my guest post series with a couple of tips to increase Tableau’s performance and (especially for the Tableau folk reading this blog) a little wish list for future versions of Tableau.

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  • Another Look at Site Catchment Analysis with Tableau 6 (Part 2)

    Techniques to Get Past the Limitations – Part 2: Data Blending and Parameters for Lookups

    © Niko Korte / pixelio.deThis is the second part of a guest post series by Richard Leeke from Equinox Ltd.

    The first part of this series described one approach to overcoming the restrictions in Robert’s Site Catchment Analysis with Tableau 6, in this case using table calculations. If you look at the roadblocks Robert has described in his approach, table calculations are probably the first idea that comes to your mind if you are trying to overcome the issues. But whilst that approach achieves the analytical outcome Robert was seeking, it does not get the workbook back to the performance Robert had achieved with version 5.2.

    However, there are other options, too: you could either use data blending or even a nifty little trick to let parameters do the required lookups. Each of those techniques makes the workbook quicker, as I explain below. Each of the three approaches comes with its own pros and cons, but all of them are well worth having a closer look.

    Today’s article describes those 2 alternative approaches and again provides the Tableau workbook on Tableau Public and for free download.

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  • Another Look at Site Catchment Analysis with Tableau 6 (Part 1)

    Techniques to Get Past the Limitations – Part 1: Table Calculations

    © Ulrich E. K. Schmidt / pixelio.deClearly and Simply proudly presents another guest post: Richard Leeke is kind enough to contribute a series of 3 articles on how to overcome the limitations of my fragmentary and imperfect Site Catchment Analysis with Tableau 6. Richard is a co-founder of Equinox Ltd, a New Zealand based IT consulting firm, where he specializes in performance engineering. And Richard is one of the most active members in the Tableau Forums with an impressive number of almost 1,300 posts so far. A real Tableau expert. Enjoy.

    I read Robert’s excellent Site Catchment Analysis with Tableau 6 post discussing the pluses and minuses of Tableau 6 compared with 5.2 and despite being really pleased with what version 6 has delivered, I could immediately relate to the limitations Robert had encountered.

    I was fortunate enough to be on the Technology Preview programme for the new Tableau Data Engine and the alpha programme for the rest of version 6, so I have had a few months’ head-start on most of the Tableau community in terms of learning how to get the most out of the new version. One of the things that I have come to realize is that there are lots of completely different ways to tackle the same problem, so I couldn’t resist the challenge of seeing if I could get past any of the limits which Robert described. I managed to do so, and along the way learned a lot and also developed a couple of new (to me, at least) techniques which will be invaluable in my own analysis.

    Today’s article describes how to use aggregate table calculations to overcome the limitations of Robert’s site catchment analysis. As always, including the workbook for direct access here on the blog via Tableau Public and for free download. 

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  • The History of FIFA World Cup Host Elections

    FIFA World Cup Host Elections since 1930 – the applicants, the winners and some additional statistics visualized using Tableau Software

    © Rainer Sturm / pixelio.de

    Most of the Tableau related articles here on Clearly and Simply include how-to-tutorials or workarounds. Today’s post is different.

    In the light of recent events, today’s article will be straitened to a very simple, yet hopefully interesting visualization: The FIFA World Cup Host Elections over the course of time. The applicants, the withdrawals, the winners and additional interesting statistics of the football associations in the applying countries, like the number of players, the number of clubs and the officials.

    As always including the visualizations for direct access using Tableau Public and the option to download the workbook.

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