How to Create a Daily Report in Tableau

Switching from weekly to daily reporting can feel like going from a blurry photo to a high-definition video of your business performance. Suddenly, you can react to trends as they happen, not a week after the fact. This guide will walk you through exactly how to build and automate a daily report in Tableau, transforming your data from a historical archive into a practical, day-to-day decision-making tool.

First, Why Should You Bother with a Daily Report?

Monitoring your business on a daily cadence gives you immediate feedback on your efforts. It helps you answer critical, time-sensitive questions without waiting for a Monday morning meeting:

Did our new ad campaign cause a traffic spike yesterday?
How are today's sales tracking against our daily goal?
Is a specific product suddenly flying off the virtual shelves?
Did our website session duration drop after the latest update?

A well-built daily report in Tableau puts these answers at your fingertips, enabling you and your team to be more agile, proactive, and data-informed.

Step 1: Connect to Your Data Source

Before you can build anything, Tableau needs access to your data. Your approach here depends on where your data lives and how often it updates.

Live Connection vs. Extract

When you connect to data in Tableau, you have two primary options: a Live connection or an Extract.

Live Connection: This creates a direct link to your database or file. When you or a user opens the report, Tableau sends a query to the data source and loads the most recent data. This is great for data that changes constantly, like inventory levels or real-time sales transactions. The downside is that performance can be slower, as it depends on the speed of your database.
Extract (.hyper file): This takes a snapshot of your data and saves it as a highly compressed file within Tableau. Reports built on extracts are typically much faster because Tableau isn't waiting on an external database. For a daily report, you can schedule this extract to refresh every night or early every morning, so you start each day with a fresh snapshot.

Recommendation for Daily Reports: For most daily reporting needs, using a scheduled Extract is the best choice. It balances data freshness with optimal dashboard performance, ensuring your report loads quickly for end-users.

Preparing Your Data for Time-Based Analysis

The most important requirement for a daily report is a reliable date or timestamp field. Ensure your data source has a column that clearly marks when each event (like a sale, a website session, or a new lead) occurred. If your dates are inconsistent or formatted as text, you'll need to clean them up in Tableau Prep or at the source before you begin building.

Step 2: Build the Core Views for Your Daily Report

With your data connected, it's time to build the individual charts (which Tableau calls "worksheets" or "views") that will make up your dashboard. The most critical part here is filtering your data to show only the relevant daily period.

How to Filter for "Yesterday" or "Today"

Let's say we want to create a line chart showing sales hour-by-hour for yesterday. Instead of manually selecting the date every morning, you can use Tableau's powerful Relative Date filter.

Here's how to set it up:

Drag your date field (e.g., Order Date) from the Data pane onto the Filters card.
A filter dialog box will appear. Select "Relative date" and click Next.
In the next window, you get several options. Click on the "Days" tab.
Select the radio button for "Yesterday."
Click OK.

That's it! This worksheet is now dynamically filtered to always show data from the previous day. You don't need to touch it again. It will automatically show Monday's data on Tuesday, Tuesday's on Wednesday, and so on.

You can use this same logic to filter for "Today," "Last 2 days," or any other rolling time period.

Example Views for a Daily Sales Report

Once you've mastered the relative date filter, you can create several worksheets to combine into a powerful dashboard:

1. Yesterday's Sales Trend (Hourly Line Chart)

Columns: Order Date (set to show HOUR)
Rows: SUM(Sales)
Filters: Order Date set to "Yesterday" using the relative date filter

2. Yesterday's Top 5 Selling Products (Bar Chart)

Create a Set: Right-click Product Name in the Data pane > Create > Set. Go to the "Top" tab and configure it to show the Top 5 by Sales. Let's call this set "Top 5 Products."
Columns: SUM(Sales)
Rows: Product Name
Filters: Add the "Top 5 Products" Set to the Filters card. Also add your Order Date relative filter for "Yesterday."

3. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

Create a new worksheet.
Drag Sales onto the Text mark on the Marks card.
Drag Order Date to the Filters card and set it to show "Yesterday."
Format the text to be large and bold. Label the sheet "Total Sales (Yesterday)."
Repeat this process for other key metrics like Profit, Number of Orders, or Average Order Value.

Step 3: Assemble Your Views into a Dashboard

A dashboard is where you combine all your individual worksheets into a single, cohesive report. This part is more art than science, but the goal is to present information clearly and logically.

Click the "New Dashboard" icon at the bottom of the Tableau window.
From the dashboard pane on the left, you will see a list of your worksheets. Drag and drop them onto the canvas.
Arrange the views logically. A common layout places KPIs at the top, a main trend chart in the middle, and more detailed breakdowns (like top products) at the bottom or on the side.
Tidy up titles, remove unnecessary legends, and ensure a consistent color scheme. The goal is clarity, not clutter.

Step 4: Automate the Report with Publishing and Subscriptions

Building the report is only half the battle. Its real value comes from being delivered automatically to the right people every day. This is handled by publishing your workbook to either Tableau Cloud (Tableau's SaaS offering) or a self-hosted Tableau Server.

Follow these steps to schedule your automatic daily send:

From Tableau Desktop, go to Server > Publish Workbook.
Log in to your Tableau Cloud or Server. Choose a project, give the workbook a name, and be sure to set permissions for who can view it.
Under "Data Sources," click Edit. If you used a data extract, this is where you'll manage the refresh schedule. You can set the extract to refresh on a recurring schedule, such as every morning at 5:00 AM. This ensures the data is up-to-date before your team starts their day.
Click Publish.
Once published, open the dashboard in your web browser. In the top-right corner, find and click the "Subscribe" button (it looks like an envelope).
Add the recipients who should receive the report. You can choose to send a PDF or an image of the dashboard.
Under "Schedule," select a pre-configured daily schedule (e.g., "Daily - Morning") or create a new one.
Click Subscribe.

Your stakeholders will now receive an email with the updated daily report in their inbox every morning, without you having to lift a finger.

Best Practices for Effective Daily Reports

Keep it Focused: A daily report shouldn't include every metric you track. Only show the handful of critical metrics that can realistically change day-to-day and require timely action.
Provide Context: A number by itself is meaningless. Compare "yesterday's sales" to the "day before" or the "same day last week" to show whether the number is good, bad, or normal.
Design for a Quick Look: Use clear titles, large fonts for KPIs, and visual cues like color (e.g., green for up, red for down). Your audience should be able to grasp the key takeaways in under 60 seconds.
Make it Actionable: The ultimate goal is for someone to make a better decision. Your report should clearly highlight performance in a way that prompts a question or an action, not just a casual glance.

Final Thoughts

Building an automated daily report in Tableau empowers your team with timely information, moving them from reactive analysis to proactive strategy. By connecting your data, using relative date filters to isolate daily activity, assembling key views into a dashboard, and automating delivery with scheduled subscriptions, you can create a powerful asset for your business.

While Tableau is a fantastic tool for deep analysis, this process does involve a learning curve and significant setup time. We built Graphed because we believe getting daily insights shouldn't feel like a full-time job. Instead of building worksheets and configuring subscriptions, you can connect your data sources in a few clicks and just ask for what you need - like, "Show me a dashboard of yesterday's sales trend from Shopify compared to Facebook Ads spend" - and get a live, interactive report in seconds.