Chapter 3|Analyses - Exercises

Exercises - Analyses
With Tableau you can create views manually as well as automatically. You can use Show Me to create
views automatically. When you drag fields to the view, the data is displayed using marks. Each mark
represents the intersection of all the dimensions in the view. You can also drill down or up within a
hierarchy and apply filters in Tableau Desktop.

Business Scenario
A Retail Company Manager wants to analyze the sales data over different periods of time to see, when
the company crossed profit margin in a year. In order to implement this scenario he can perform drilling
over time hierarchy and can apply filter to sales data as per the profit margin. To get started, he first
needs to create a view:

Exercise 3.1: Create View

Overview
In this exercise you will:

 Create basic view to analyze yearly sales.

 Create nested view to analyze the quarterly sales by drilling the yearly sales view.
 Create Dual Axes and Combination Charts and remove them.
 Create small multiple views to analyze quarterly sales by year and customer segment.
 Modify this view to show data for orders in 2012 and 2013 and having sales at the most
$700,000.
 Create a color encoded view on Region.
Note: You will perform this exercise using Tableau’s sample data source, Sample-Superstore-English
(Extract).

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The final result should resemble the following image:

Detailed Instructions

Basic View

1. Open Tableau 8.2 by double clicking the Tableau 8.2 shortcut icon on your desktop.
2. On the Home page, under Saved data sources, click Sample-Superstore-English (Extract).
3. In the Data pane, under Dimensions, locate and drag Order Date to the Columns shelf.
4. In the Data pane, under Measures, locate and drag Sales to the Rows shelf.

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The view should resemble the following image:

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Nested View

5. To drill down to quarter level, click + icon preceding Year (Order Date) field in the Columns
shelf.
Nested view is displayed as shown in the following image:

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Dual Axes

6. In the Data pane, under Measures, locate and drag Profit to the right side of the view until a
vertical dotted line appears, and then release the cursor to create dual axes.

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After adding measure as dual axes, your view should resemble the following image:

Combination Charts

7. Click the SUM(Profit) in the Marks card.

8. Under Automatic drop down list in Marks card select Bar as shown in the image below:

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Your view should resemble the following image:

Small Multiple Views

9. In the Rows shelf, click the SUM(Profit) drop down and select Remove.
10. In the Data pane, under Dimensions, drag Customer Segment to the Rows shelf.

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You can now see multiple small graphs as shown in the image below:

Filter Data

11. Drag the Order Date dimension to the Filters shelf.

12. In the Filter Field [Order Date] window, click Years.
13. Click Next.
14. In the Filter [Year of Order Date] window, on the General tab, keep 2012 and 2013 check boxes
selected and clear 2010 and 2011 check boxes.
15. Click OK.
16. Similarly, drag the Sales measure to the Filters shelf.
17. In the Filter Field [Sales] window, select Sum.
18. Click Next.
19. In the Filter [Sales] window, click At Most.
20. In the At Most text box, type 700000.
21. Click OK.

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Your view should resemble the following image:

Region Color Encoded View

22. In the Data pane, under Dimensions, locate and drag Region to the Color in the Marks card.

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Your worksheet will now look like the below image:

23. On the File menu, select Save.

24. In the Save As window browse to the Documents\My Tableau Repository\Workbooks and save
workbook as Yearly Sales View.

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Exercise 3.2: Show Me

Overview
In this exercise you will:

 Use Show Me to build a scatter plot that displays sales versus profit graph for each State and
Department.
 Color encode the view by State.

Note: You will perform this exercise using Tableau’s sample data source, Sample-Superstore-English
(Extract)

Your final view should resemble the following image:

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Detailed Instructions

Basic View

1. On the Home page, under Saved data sources, click Sample-Superstore-English (Extract).
2. In the Data pane, under Dimensions, holding the CTRL key, select Department, State, Profit and
Sales measures.
Note: State dimension is available under Mapping Items.
3. Click Show Me on the toolbar.
4. Select the Scatter Plots view as shown in the image below:

Note: Show Me automatically creates a scatter plot with the fields you selected.

5. In the Data pane, under Dimensions, locate and drag State to the Color Marks card.

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The final view should resemble the following image:

6. On the File menu, select Save.

7. In the Save As window browse to the Documents\My Tableau Repository\Workbooks and save
workbook as Sales vs. Profit View.

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Exercise 3.3: Mark Properties

Overview
In this exercise, you will edit the mark properties to enhance the visualization. You will perform the
following:
 Create a scatter plot view that displays Profit versus Order Quantity graph for each order date.
 Color encode this view by Region.
 Apply a filter on Region so that only the data for Central, East and West is displayed.
 Make the mark size corresponding to the priority of order
 Change the mark shape from default to X
 Change the mark color for West region to dark grey
 Make the transparency of graphs 80 percent
 Highlight marks for East region

Note: You will perform this exercise using Tableau’s sample data source, Sample - Superstore - English
(Extract).

Your final view should resemble the following image:

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Detailed Instructions

Create view

1. On the Home page, under Saved data sources, click Sample-Superstore-English (Extract) data
source.
2. In the Data pane, under Measures, locate and drag Profit to the Columns shelf.
3. In the Data pane, under Measures, locate and drag Order Quantity to the Rows shelf.
4. In the Data pane, under Dimensions, locate and drag Order Date to the Marks card as shown in
the image below:

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Your view should resemble the following image:

Color Encode the View

5. In the Data pane, under Dimensions, locate and drag Region to the Color in the Marks card.

Apply Filter

1. In the Marks card, click the Region drop-down, and select Filter.

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2. In the Filter [Region] window, on the General tab, keep Select from list radio button selected.

3. Keep Central, East and West check box selected and deselect South and International check
box.
4. In the Filter [Region] window, click OK.
Compare your view with the following image:

Change Mark Size

5. In the Data pane, under Dimensions, locate and drag Order Priority to the Size in the Marks
card.

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Your view should resemble the following image:

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Change Mark Shape

6. In the Marks card, click Shape.

7. Select x mark type as shown below:

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Your view should resemble the following image:

Change Mark Color

8. In the Region shelf, double-click West.

9. In the Edit Colors [Region] window, under Select data item, click West.
10. Select grey color.

11. Click OK.

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Your view should resemble the following image:

Change View’s Transparency

12. Click the Color field in the Marks card.

13. In the transparency box, type 80%.

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Your view should resemble the following image:

Highlight Marks

14. In Region shelf, select East.

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The final view should resemble the following image:

15. On the File menu, select Save.

16. In the Save As window browse to the Documents\My Tableau Repository\Workbooks and save
workbook as Mark Properties-Example.

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