Geographic data in Tableau

This blog is to test how map features are working in Tableau. The data itself is very small.

Data consists of sales value, postal code and city.

The cities are neighbour cities in the capital area. Postal codes situate scattered.

Sales is a measure and code a dimension.

The sales are reported here per postal code in text format.

Select a map under show me from top right hand corner.

The dots are accurately placed in the map.

To make the map darker, select map – map layers.

Open style drop down list and select another style for example normal.

Now the map is more readable.

To enlarge the dots on the map, select size under marks. Draw the parameter to right.

The dots are larger and again easier to read.

Also city as dimension is possible and accurate, but not as useful as per postal code.

Map functionality in Tableau works very smoothly and is intuitive. Data in this text was vary small, but provides two geospatial dimensions.

Accounting data in Tableau

In this blog I test how accounting data can be reported in Tableau.

The data itself is same as in my earlier blog posting.

Accounts are increasing in credit. Sometimes correction postings must be made, the debit postings need to be eliminated when counting the total revenue.

Let’s finish the theory and start Tableau.

Connect to data.

Change the data type of account to string, as we are not going to calculate anything with account number.

Go to the worksheet sheet1.

Create the calculated field in analysis – create calculated field. Add also ZN function to count the zeroes correctly.

As stated, the income accounts are increasing in credit side. Therefore to calculate the total we need to have credit minus debit.

Move account to rows and change it to dimension. Account is not a measure, we not counting like total of account numbers.

Drag the tot calculated field on top of abc’s next to account numbers.

Drag date to columns and select the lower month.

Take the account to columns and change it to dimension.

Select text table in the top left hand corner under show me. This not very graphical, but we can see that the numbers are correct.

The values are now in text format. Months are in Finnish.

Here we see the totals of the two income accounts per month. Debit postings have already been deducted.

Change the graphics stacked bars under show me. For stacked bars Tableau advise user to have one or more dimension and one or more measure.

To have account numbers and total balance as labels inside the bar, drag the account and calculated field tot to label under marks.

Tableau is for data visualization. As the data here is very limited, we cannot benefit features in Tableau. The results are the same as in Power BI.