How to Do Cool Stuff in Tableau

Building dashboards in Tableau is one thing, but making them truly interactive, insightful, and impressive is another. Once you move past basic bar charts and maps, you can unlock features that turn your reports from static displays into dynamic analytical tools. This article will guide you through a few powerful techniques to elevate your dashboards, from creating slick donut charts to building visualizations that appear right inside your tooltips.

Create a Dynamic Donut Chart to Replace a Pie Chart

Pie charts get a bad rap for a good reason - they can be hard to read accurately. A donut chart is a visually appealing alternative that shows part-to-whole relationships while leaving a useful blank space in the middle, perfect for highlighting a key performance indicator (KPI).

Why it's cool

Unlike a pie chart, a donut chart's open center can be used to display crucial context, like the total value or a grand percentage. This makes the chart more information-dense without adding clutter. It's a clean, modern-looking visual that’s surprisingly easy to build.

Step-by-step instructions:

1. Set up the basic structure:
2. Create the dual axis chart:
3. Build the outer donut ring:
4. Create the inner empty circle:
5. Add the KPI to the center:

Now you have a polished donut chart that visualizes your segments and highlights the grand total right in the middle, providing context at a glance.

Build Interactive Hover-Over Charts with Viz in Tooltip

One of Tableau's most impressive features is Viz in Tooltip. It allows you to embed an entire worksheet (like a trend line or bar chart) inside the tooltip of another chart. When a user hovers over a data point, a detailed, filtered chart pops up to give them more context.

Why it's cool

This technique allows you to add layers of information to your dashboard without overwhelming the user. Instead of creating a dozen charts, you can have a high-level summary view (like a map) and let users explore detailed trends for specific segments on demand, simply by hovering.

Step-by-step instructions:

1. Create your primary "source" view:
2. Create your secondary "tooltip" view:
3. Insert the viz into the tooltip:

Now, go hover over any state on your map. You'll see a miniature line chart appear in the tooltip showing the sales trend specifically for that state. This is an incredibly powerful way to provide drill-down detail in an intuitive, space-saving format.

Let Users Choose Metrics with Parameter Actions

Want to let your audience decide whether they see a chart of Sales, Profit, or Quantity? Parameter Actions let you build a single chart that can dynamically change the measure it displays based on a user's click, giving them control over their analysis.

Why it's cool

Instead of building three separate charts and cramming them onto a dashboard, you can build one that serves three purposes. Using Parameter Actions to control the parameter makes the experience feel less like a clunky dropdown filter and more like clicking on interactive buttons.

Step-by-step instructions:

1. Create the parameter:
2. Create the dynamic calculated field:
3. Build your chart with the dynamic measure:
4. Create a controller worksheet (the buttons):
5. Set up the Parameter Action on a dashboard:

Now, on your dashboard, clicking the word "Sales Label" in your Selector view will automatically update the main chart to show Sales. This creates a superior, custom navigation experience for your users.

Final Thoughts

Mastering techniques like dynamic donut charts, Viz in Tooltip, and parameter actions helps you move beyond basic reporting and toward building truly valuable analytic applications in Tableau. These features are designed to add depth and interactivity, empowering users to discover their own insights without cluttering the screen.

While skills in robust BI tools like Tableau are incredibly useful, the initial setup - connecting APIs, cleaning data, and maintaining it - is often the most time-consuming part. Many teams, especially in marketing and sales, need answers much quicker. That's why we built Graphed. We connect to all your key platforms instantly and use AI to let you build sophisticated, real-time dashboards and reports simply by asking for what you want in plain English. No more wrestling with complicated configurations, just connect your data and start asking questions.