How to easily build an UpSet Chart in Tableau

There are many organizations, very big ones, which are aware that things are changing within the business, but they simply cannot point it out exactly where and how. Which data basis do they have, how to measure it, how to visualize it, how to understand the numbers?

Running a business means numbers, a lot of numbers and figures, graphics and excels. This is how you play the game and that is why you need to learn their language. The success of a business relies on two pillars: people and numbers. Any human action must be quantified, and any business objective must be put into practice.

Once you understand the mechanism, you understand that data and data analytics are essential. We have more ways to go in the process of digital transformation of companies in Romania and at btProvider we took seriously this role and this challenge.

Talking to many business owners in our daily activities we realize that many of them are facing a disconnection between their vision of growth and how exactly to materialize every action. Vision, intuition, and networking are great, but even greater is to gather information and data about actions, measure them and then take more conscious initiatives, based on facts.

These blog articles are dedicated, yes, to all people who want to better understand their data, work more efficiently with data, and to those who create dashboards, reports, and graphics. Here is another type of chart – The UpSet Chart, or the UpSet Plot as Data Specialists name it.

This bar chart is not upset😊, it is meant to highlight the dots and number of orders according to a selected category in the top left of the page. Let’s see which are the steps for creating an UpSet Bar Chart in Tableau. We imagined that we want to visualize the number of orders in an office: furniture, office supplies and technology.

Steps:

Step 1: Connect to data

→ In Tableau Desktop, connect to Superstore sample data provided by Tableau.

Step 2: Create the visualization

Lower Bar

→ Create a calculated field named Number of Orders, using the formula below, and add it to Columns:

COUNTD([Order ID])

→ Create a parameter named Category Parameter, set its type to String, values to List and add -> Furniture, Office Supplies, Technology.

→ Create a calculated field for each category as per below:

Furniture

{ FIXED [Order ID]:MAX(IF [Category]=’Furniture’ then 1 else 0 END)}

Office Supplies

{ FIXED [Order ID]:MAX(IF [Category]=’Office Supplies’ then 1 else 0 END)}

Technology

{ FIXED [Order ID]:MAX(IF [Category]=’Technology’ then 1 else 0 END)}

→ Create a calculated field named Category List and add it to Rows:

IF [Furniture?]=1 then ‘Furniture’ else ” end

+’-‘+

if [Office Supplies?]=1 then ‘Office Supplies’ else ” end

+’-‘+

if [Technology?]=1 then ‘Technology’ else ” end

→ Create a calculated field named Color Concat and add it to Color, change the Unselected category to grey:

IF CONTAINS([Category List],[Category Parameter]) then ‘Selected’ else ‘Unselected’ END

→ Hide the Headers and change the view to Entire View.

Lower Bar

→ Add Category to

→ Add Number of Orders to

→ Create a calculated field named Color and add to Color, change the Unselected category to grey

IF [Category]=[Category Parameter] then ‘Selected’ else ‘Unselected’ END

→ Change the view to Entire View

Dot Plot

→ Create a calculated field named Index, add it twice to the Columns and create Dual Axis (Dimension, Continuous)

FLOAT(IF [Category]=’Furniture’ then 1

ELSEIF [Category]=’Office Supplies’ then 2

ELSEIF [Category]=’Technology’ then 3 END)

→ On Marks, Index 1 will be Line, add Index on Path (Dimension, Discrete)

→ On Marks, Index 2 will be Circle, add add Index on Detail (Dimension, Discrete), and Color to Color

→ Add Category List to Rows

→ Remove the Headers, change View to Entire View

→ Add a all 3 elements to a Dashboard

→ Add a Dashboard Action, select Add Parameter Action, select only the Upper Bar sheet from the Source Sheets, as Parameteter select Category Parameter and for Field pick Category.

For even more clarity here is a video tutorial created by our Data Specialist, Ana-Maria Scarlat.

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