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How to Create a Procurement Dashboard in Tableau

Cody Schneider•

A procurement dashboard in Tableau can transform your spending data from a chaotic spreadsheet into a powerful decision-making tool. Instead of manually tracking purchase orders and supplier performance, you can build a visual hub to spot cost-saving opportunities, manage supplier risk, and streamline your entire purchasing process. This article provides a step-by-step guide to building your first procurement dashboard in Tableau, from preparing your data to assembling the final interactive view.

Why a Procurement Dashboard is a Game-Changer

Before jumping into the build, it's important to understand what you gain from this effort. A well-designed procurement dashboard isn’t just a collection of charts, it’s a command center for your entire supply chain. It answers critical questions at a glance:

  • Where is our money going? Get immediate visibility into total spend, broken down by category, department, and supplier.

  • Are our suppliers performing well? Track key metrics like on-time delivery rates, quality scores, and contract compliance.

  • Are there hidden savings? Pinpoint areas of maverick spending, identify opportunities for supplier consolidation, and negotiate better terms with data-backed insights.

  • How efficient is our process? Monitor purchase order (PO) cycle times to identify and eliminate bottlenecks.

By centralizing this information, you empower your team to move from reactive problem-solving to proactive, strategic decision-making.

Step 1: Gather and Prepare Your Data

The quality of your dashboard depends entirely on the quality of your data. The most common challenge is that procurement data often lives in different systems: your ERP, accounting software, and maybe a few "master" spreadsheets. Your first task is to bring it all together.

What Data Do You Need?

At a minimum, you'll want to collect the following information. You can typically export this into a single Excel or CSV file.

  • Purchase Order Data: PO Number, PO Creation Date, PO Approval Date, PO Status (e.g., Open, Closed, Pending), Order Amount.

  • Supplier Information: Supplier Name, Supplier ID, Supplier Category (e.g., IT Hardware, Marketing Services, Office Supplies), Country/Region.

  • Item Details: Product/Service Description, Quantity Ordered, Unit Price.

  • Invoice & Payment Data: Invoice Number, Invoice Date, Payment Date, Payment Status (e.g., Paid, Due).

  • Supplier Performance Metrics: On-Time Delivery Date, Actual Delivery Date, Quality Score (if available).

Data Cleaning and Structuring For Tableau

Once you've exported your data, a little preparation goes a long way. This cleanup process is often the most time-consuming part, but it prevents countless headaches later.

  • Standardize Names: Ensure supplier names are consistent. "IBM," "Int'l Business Machines," and "IBM Inc." should all be standardized to one name.

  • Check Data Types: Make sure dates are formatted as dates, numbers as numbers, and text as strings. Tableau is smart, but it's best to fix inconsistencies now.

  • Handle Nulls: Decide what to do with blank cells. Should they be filled with a zero, or left empty? For example, a blank "PO Approval Date" could indicate an unapproved PO.

  • Create a Flat File: For simplicity, try to consolidate your data into one large table (a "flat file") where each row represents a unique line item on a purchase order. Tools like Excel's VLOOKUP or Power Query can help you join your PO ledger with your supplier master list.

Step 2: Connect to Your Data in Tableau

With your clean dataset ready, it’s time to bring it into Tableau.

  1. Open Tableau Desktop.

  2. On the startup screen, under the "Connect" pane on the left, choose the appropriate data connector. If you saved your file as an Excel spreadsheet, select Microsoft Excel. If it’s a CSV, select Text File.

  3. Navigate to your saved file and click "Open."

  4. Tableau will now show you the Data Source screen. You'll see the sheets or tables from your file on the left. Drag the main table of your cleaned data onto the canvas that says "Drag tables here."

  5. You can now see a preview of your data at the bottom. Scan the columns to ensure everything looks correct. Tableau automatically assigns a data type (e.g., # for number, calendar icon for date) based on what it detects. If something is wrong, simply click the icon and change it.

Once you are happy with the preview, click on a blank worksheet tab at the bottom (e.g., "Sheet 1") to move into the report-building canvas.

Step 3: Build Your Dashboard Visualizations

This is where your dashboard comes to life. We’ll build several key charts, or "vizzes," one by one. The goal is to start with a high-level overview and then allow for a more detailed analysis.

Chart 1: KPI Scorecards (The Big Numbers)

Every good dashboard starts with Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) at the top for an at-a-glance summary.

  1. Create 'Total Spend':

    • In the "Data" pane on the left, find your spending metric (e.g., 'Order Amount').

    • Drag 'Order Amount' onto the "Text" box on the Marks card.

    • Rename your sheet "Total Spend" by double-clicking the tab at the bottom.

  2. Create 'Number of Suppliers':

    • Create a new worksheet.

    • Right-click your 'Supplier Name' dimension and choose "Create" > "Calculated Field..."

    • To count unique suppliers, the formula is: COUNTD([Supplier Name]) Give it a name like "Unique Suppliers."

    • Drag your new "Unique Suppliers" measure onto the "Text" box on the Marks card.

  3. Create 'Average Spend per PO':

    • Create another new worksheet.

    • Find your 'Order Amount' measure. Instead of just dragging it, right-click and drag it to the "Text" mark. A dialog box will appear. Select "AVG(Order Amount)" for the average.

Don’t worry about formatting just yet. Right now, you just have three worksheets, each showing a single number. We'll arrange them later.

Chart 2: Spend by Supplier Category (Bar Chart)

Now, let's find out where the money is really going.

  1. Create a new worksheet and name it "Spend by Category."

  2. Drag the 'Supplier Category' dimension from the Data pane to the Columns shelf.

  3. Drag the 'Order Amount' measure to the Rows shelf.

  4. Tableau will automatically create a bar chart. Click the "Sort" button on the toolbar to instantly see your highest-spending categories at the top.

  5. To make it more intuitive, drag 'Order Amount' again, but this time drop it on the Color box on the Marks card. This applies a color gradient, making high-spend bars darker.

Chart 3: Spend Over Time (Line Chart)

Understanding spending trends is crucial for forecasting and budgeting.

  1. Create a new worksheet and name it "Spend Over Time."

  2. Drag 'PO Creation Date' to the Columns shelf. Tableau might default to YEAR(PO Creation Date). Right-click it and select "Month" (the second option, which gives you a continuous month axis like "May 2023").

  3. Drag 'Order Amount' to the Rows shelf.

  4. You now have a line chart showing how your total spend has trended month-over-month.

Chart 4: Supplier Performance Scatter Plot

This chart is slightly more advanced but provides huge value. It helps you quickly segment suppliers into categories like "strategic partners" (high value, high performance) and "risky partners" (high value, low performance).

For this to work, you'll need a performance metric like 'On-Time Delivery %'. If you don't have it, you can create a calculated field to get it. For example:

SUM(IF [Actual Delivery Date] <= [On-Time Delivery Date] THEN 1 ELSE 0 END) / COUNT([PO Number])

Once you have that metric:

  1. Create a new worksheet and name it "Supplier Quadrant."

  2. Drag 'On-Time Delivery %' to the Columns shelf.

  3. Drag 'Order Amount' to the Rows shelf and change its aggregation to SUM().

  4. Drag 'Supplier Name' to the Detail box on the Marks card. Now, each mark on the chart represents one supplier.

  5. To add context, go to the "Analytics" pane (next to the "Data" pane). Drag "Average Line" onto the chart, placing it over the "Table" option for both SUM(Order Amount) and SUM(On-Time Delivery %). This creates quadrants, making it easy to spot who is above or below average on both metrics.

Step 4: Assemble Your Interactive Dashboard

Now that you have the individual components, it's time to put them all together on a single canvas.

  1. Click the "New Dashboard" button at the bottom of the screen (the icon with four squares).

  2. In the Dashboard pane on the left, set the Size. "Automatic" can work, but a fixed size like "Laptop Browser" often gives you more control over the final layout.

  3. You’ll see all your worksheets listed on the left. Simply drag and drop them onto the dashboard canvas.

    • Start by putting your three KPI scorecards horizontally at the top.

    • Place the "Spend by Category" and "Spend Over Time" charts side-by-side underneath the KPIs.

    • Put the "Supplier Quadrant" at the bottom for detailed analysis.

  4. Make it Interactive: Select one of your charts on the dashboard, like the "Spend by Category" bar chart. Click the small "Use as Filter" funnel icon that appears in its border. Now, when a user clicks on a category bar (e.g., "IT Hardware"), all the other charts on the dashboard will automatically filter to show data for only that category. This is an incredibly powerful way to explore your data.

  5. Add Titles and Filters: Drag a "Text" object to the top and give your dashboard a title, like "Procurement Performance Overview." You can also add global filters by going to the menu: Analysis > Filters > and selecting a dimension like 'PO Creation Date.' This will create a filter card you can place on the dashboard, allowing users to select a specific time period to review.

Final Thoughts

Building a procurement dashboard in Tableau transforms raw transaction data into a strategic business asset. By following these steps, you can create a centralized view that provides real-time visibility into spending, supplier performance, and process efficiency, empowering you to make smarter, data-driven decisions that directly impact the bottom line.

This entire process, from gathering data to arranging the final charts manually, can be a heavy lift. As your data sources grow - from accounting software to shipping logs to ERPs - keeping it all connected and updated becomes a major task. At Graphed, we’ve found a way to simplify this. Bypassing the need for manual chart-building, you can connect your data sources to Graphed and use simple, conversational language to ask for what you need - like, "Show me my top 10 suppliers by total spend this quarter." Our platform creates the dashboards instantly, turning hours of tedious work in tools like Tableau into a quick 30-second conversation.