Having access to data has recently become one of the most common requirements in organizations around the world. Data gives us real information about the activity of our company, but also answers to the most frequently asked questions such as ” why is this happening?”. Our organization’s data is a source of information needed to meet the challenges of the business environment and to make informed decisions regarding the solution of certain problems. Data allow us to visualize and understand what is the relationship between certain departments and what are the effects that different external economic, political or social factors produce and influence the activity of our organization.
Tableau Software is one of the most advanced tools for data analysis, exploration, and visualization. The advantage that Tableau offers to organizations is to analyze and visualize data in an easy to understand way. The flexibility that Tableau offers users to build analytics and explore data helps them browse and observe data quickly, in a clean and interactive visualization. In today’s article we will use the Show / Hide Expand Hierarchy Labels functionality from Tableau, and we will see how we can build an analysis with comprehensive information, but easy to explore.
Show / Hide Expand Hierarchy Labels feature allows users to add a larger amount of information to their analysis without crowding the final visualization with a lot of elements. But how is this possible? First, in Tableau, the hierarchies have the role of displaying data in an organized and logical way, on different levels. Hierarchies are automatically created by Tableau based on the detail levels of the existing fields in the dataset.
Using the Show / Hide Expand Hierarchy Labels feature in an analysis adds extra interactivity to the final visualization. This technique allows end users to decide which categories and sub-categories from a data set will be viewed. Basically, Show / Hide Expand Hierarchy Labels offers the possibility to choose to display a certain hierarchy and the levels of detail within it.
Show / Hide Expand Hierarchy Labels transforms the classic hierarchies from Tableau into dynamic hierarchies. Thus, users add calculated fields or parameters to structure the dimensions and measures in the data set according to the information that will be analyzed. The structures built within the hierarchies can be extended one by one, so that the final visualization can be crossed as easily as possible.
Next, we will build an analysis in which we will use the Show / Hide Expand Hierarchy Labels feature and we will analyze the categories and subcategories from a data set.
→ In Tableau Desktop, connect to Superstore sample data provided by Tableau.
→ Right click on Category and select Create -> Set. Name it Category Set and select a value.
→ Create a calculated field named Category to Show with the formula:
IF [Category Set] THEN [Category]
ELSE ”
END
→ Create another calculated field named Category Set Value with the formula:
{ MAX( [Category to Show] )}
→ Create a calculated field named Cat & SubCat with the formula:
IF [Category Set] THEN [Sub-Category]
ELSE [Category]
END
→ Drag the Sales on Columns.
→ Drag the Category, Category to Show and Cat&SubCat on Rows.
→ Sort the Category descending by Sales.
→ Drag the Category Set on Color and on Size.
→ Drag the Category Set Value on Detail.
→ Go to Worksheet -> Actions -> Add Action -> Change Set Values. Name this action Update Category Set. For Run action on -> Select. For Target Set -> Category Set. From Clearing the selection will -> Remove all values from set.
→ Now when you select a category you will see all the subcategories within this category.
By Adelina Popescu
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