How to Create a Mobile App Dashboard in Tableau
Tracking your mobile app’s performance shouldn’t mean being chained to your desk. Creating a mobile-friendly dashboard in Tableau gives you the freedom to check key metrics like installs, user engagement, and revenue anytime, anywhere. This guide will walk you through a step-by-step process for building a powerful and clean mobile app dashboard in Tableau, from planning your layout to publishing the final result.
Plan Your Dashboard Before You Build It
Jumping straight into Tableau without a plan is a recipe for a cluttered and confusing dashboard. A great mobile dashboard is focused and answers specific questions quickly. Before you drag your first field onto the canvas, take a few minutes to think about two key things: your audience and your layout.
Who is this Dashboard For? And What Do They Care About?
Is this dashboard for the marketing team, the product team, or the executive leadership? The answer determines which Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are most important. Don't try to cram every possible metric into one view. Focus on the vitals.
Here are some common KPIs for a mobile app dashboard, categorized by function:
User Acquisition: Where are your users coming from?
Installs by Source (Organic, Paid, Referral)
Cost Per Install (CPI)
App Store Impressions and Page Views
User Engagement: Are people actually using your app?
Daily Active Users (DAU)
Monthly Active Users (MAU)
Average Session Duration
DAU/MAU Ratio (Stickiness)
Top Screens or Features Used
User Retention: Are users coming back?
Retention Rate (Day 1, Day 7, Day 30)
Churn Rate (Users lost over a period)
Monetization: Is the app generating revenue?
Total Revenue
Average Revenue Per User (ARPU)
Conversion Rate (e.g., from free user to paid subscriber)
Pick the top 5-7 most critical metrics for your audience. For a general "app health" dashboard, you might focus on DAU, 30-Day Installs, Day 7 Retention, and Revenue - a great starting point for any app manager.
Sketch the Layout: Think Vertical
Mobile screens are tall and narrow. Your dashboard design should reflect that. Trying to squeeze a widescreen desktop dashboard onto a phone screen is an exercise in frustration - nobody likes pinching and zooming just to read a number. The best mobile dashboards are designed to be scrolled, not explored with a magnifying glass.
Grab a pen and paper (or your favorite wireframing tool) and sketch a single vertical column. Place your most important summary metrics, often called "Big Ass Numbers" (BANs), right at the top. Follow these with charts that provide more context, like trendlines or user funnels.
Gather and Connect Your Data
Now that you have a plan, it's time to gather the necessary data. Your app performance data likely lives in several different places. You’ll need to connect Tableau to these sources or combine them into a single file or database first.
Common data sources for mobile app analytics include:
App Store & Google Play: Download performance reports directly from App Store Connect and the Google Play Console for install and impression data.
Analytics Platforms: Tools like Google Analytics for Firebase, Mixpanel, or Amplitude are essential for in-app behavior like screen views, events, and session data.
Attribution Tools: Platforms like AppsFlyer, Adjust, or Branch help you track where your installs are coming from (which campaigns, channels, etc.).
Backend Databases: Your own database might store user information, subscription status, and purchase history.
For this tutorial, let's assume you've combined your key metrics into a single spreadsheet or table with columns like Date, DAU, Installs, Sessions, Ad Spend, and Revenue. Open Tableau Desktop and connect to your data source.
Step-by-Step: Build a Mobile Dashboard in Tableau
With a clear plan and your data connected, you're ready to start building. We'll create a simple dashboard featuring KPI cards, a daily trend chart, and a monthly performance overview.
Step 1: Create a New Dashboard and Set the Mobile Size
Forget worksheets for a moment and start in the Dashboard pane.
Click the "New Dashboard" icon at the bottom of the screen.
In the Dashboard pane on the left, under "Size," click the dropdown menu.
Select a preset phone layout like "Generic Phone" or choose "Fixed size" and enter custom dimensions that mimic a typical phone screen, like 414 pixels (width) by 896 pixels (height) for an iPhone 11/XR. This simple step forces you to build for the mobile form factor from the very beginning.
Step 2: Build the Big KPI Cards (The BANs)
People glancing at a mobile dashboard want quick answers. Big numbers are perfect for that.
Let's create a KPI card for Daily Active Users (DAU).
Create a new worksheet and name it "DAU KPI".
Drag your "DAU" measure to the Text mark on the Marks card.
Tableau will show a sum of all DAUs. To show only the most recent day's value, drag your "Date" dimension to the Filters shelf. Select "Relative date" and choose "Yesterday" or "Today," depending on your data freshness.
Click on the Text mark to format the number. Make the font large (e.g., Tableau Bold, size 28) and center it. You can also add descriptive text by editing the label and typing "Daily Active Users" below the number.
Right-click on the sheet and select "Hide Title". You don't need worksheet titles taking up valuable screen space.
Repeat this process for your other 2-3 main KPIs (e.g., Revenue, Installs, Churn). Give each its own worksheet (e.g., "Revenue KPI," "Installs KPI").
Step 3: Visualize Trends with a Line Chart
After your KPIs, users often want to see how these numbers are trending over time.
Create a new worksheet named "DAU Trend".
Drag your "Date" dimension to Columns. Right-click it and make sure "Day" (the continuous, green option) is selected.
Drag your "DAU" measure to Rows.
That’s it! You have a line chart. Add a date filter for the "Last 30 Days" to keep it focused.
Clean up the chart for mobile viewing. Hide the axis labels by right-clicking on them and unchecking "Show Header". You can also remove grid lines to make it cleaner. The title of the worksheet will serve as the chart's label on the dashboard.
Step 4: Visualize Performance Breakdowns with a Bar Chart
Next, let's look at a breakdown, for instance, revenue by acquisition channel.
Create a worksheet called "Revenue by Channel".
Drag your "Revenue" measure to Columns.
Drag your "Acquisition Channel" dimension to Rows.
Click the "Sort descending" button in the toolbar to see your best-performing channels at the top.
To add more value, drag the "Revenue" measure again to the Label mark to show the actual values on the bars.
Hide the axes and clean up gridlines to optimize the view for a small screen.
Step 5: Assemble Your Mobile Dashboard
Now for the fun part: bringing it all together.
Go back to your empty dashboard canvas.
From the left pane, find a Vertical Layout Container under Objects and drag it onto the canvas. This container is the key to ensuring everything stacks neatly.
Drag your four KPI worksheets ("DAU KPI", "Revenue KPI", etc.) into the vertical container. A handy way to arrange them into a 2x2 grid is by using a Horizontal Container for each pair inside the main Vertical Container.
Below your KPIs, drag in your "DAU Trend" worksheet.
Finally, add your "Revenue by Channel" bar chart at the bottom.
Add a simple dashboard title at the very top using a Text Object. An example title is "Daily App Performance Snapshot".
If you want to allow users to filter, drag the Date filter from one of your worksheets onto the dashboard. Display it as a single-value list or compact list instead of a range slider, which can be hard to use on a phone.
Step 6: Publish and Test on a Real Device
A preview on your computer screen is good, but it’s not the real thing. To truly understand the user experience, you need to test it on an actual phone.
Publish the dashboard to your Tableau Server or Tableau Cloud account.
Open the Tableau Mobile app on your phone and navigate to your newly published dashboard.
Scroll through it. Can you read everything easily? Are the charts clear? Do the filters work without tiny, fussy movements? Make adjustments in Tableau Desktop and republish as needed based on your testing.
Best Practices for Effective Mobile Dashboard Design
As you build, keep these mobile-first principles in mind:
Design for a Single Tap: Assume your user is quickly glancing at the dashboard. Insights should be immediately obvious without requiring complex interactions, drilling down, or cross-filtering.
Go Heavy on Readability: Use large fonts, clear chart titles, and a high-contrast color palette. Avoid cluttered tooltips that display too much information when a data point is hovered or tapped.
One Main Idea Per Chart: On a widescreen, you can get away with combo charts. On mobile, stick to basics like simple line charts, bar charts, and KPI numbers. Each visual should serve one primary purpose.
Optimize Your A-Game Above ‘the Fold’: Put the most important information at the top so it's visible without any scrolling. Your main KPIs and the most relevant time trend should be instantly accessible.
Final Thoughts
Creating an effective mobile app dashboard in Tableau is about focusing on clarity and simplicity. By starting with a clear plan, choosing the right phone-sized canvas, and using simple, impactful visualizations, you can build a tool that delivers critical insights to your team wherever they are.
Building dashboards manually in BI tools is powerful, but often the most time-consuming part is getting all your data sources connected and properly prepared. At Graphed we simplify this first, biggest step. We use AI to automatically connect to sources like Firebase, app stores, and ad platforms, and we let you build dashboards just by describing what you need in plain English - no manual chart-building or data blending required.