How to Make a Circle Chart in Tableau

A circle chart is a fantastic way to display progress toward a goal or a simple part-to-whole relationship, drawing more attention to the key metric than a standard pie chart. While Tableau doesn't offer a one-click "donut chart" option, creating one is surprisingly straightforward using a clever dual-axis trick. This article will walk you through a clear, step-by-step process to build and format your own circle chart in Tableau, turning your data into a clean, compelling visual.

What Exactly is a Circle Chart?

You’ve seen them everywhere. A circle chart is most commonly known as a donut chart. Think of it as a pie chart with the center cut out. That empty space in the middle isn't just for looks, it serves a practical purpose. It de-emphasizes the sometimes-misleading slice angles of a traditional pie chart and gives you prime real estate to display a key metric, like a total value or goal percentage.

When to Use a Circle Chart

Showing Progress Towards a Goal: They are perfect for visuals like "75% of Sales Target Reached" or "Project 50% Complete." These are sometimes called radial progress charts.
Highlighting One Key KPI: You can display a single, crucial number in the center (e.g., total sales, total website visitors, or conversion rate) while the outer ring provides a simple categorical breakdown.
Simple Part-to-Whole Comparisons: Like a pie chart, they show how individual parts make up a whole. However, they work best with only a few categories (ideally 2-4) to avoid becoming cluttered and hard to read.

When to Avoid It

Avoid using a circle chart if you have many categories (more than five) or if the categories have very similar values. In these cases, a simple bar chart is much easier for your audience to interpret accurately.

Preparing Your Data

The good news is that you don't need a complex data structure to build a circle chart. Your data just needs two essential components:

A Dimension: This is your categorical data - the "slices" of your pie. Examples include Sales Channel, Product Category, or Traffic Source.
A Measure: This is your numerical data - the value that determines the size of each slice. Examples include Sales, Number of Units, or Website Sessions.

For example, a simple dataset might look like this:

This is all you need to get started. Just connect to your data source in Tableau, and you're ready to start building.

How to Make a Circle Chart in Tableau: The Step-by-Step Guide

We'll create our circle chart by layering two separate charts on top of each other using Tableau's dual-axis feature. One will be the outer donut ring (a pie chart), and the second will be the white inner circle (the "hole").

Step 1: Create a Placeholder Field

The entire technique relies on creating a field to build our axes. Tableau makes this easy.

In the Marks card, right-click and select Create Calculated Field...
Name the field something simple, like "Placeholder".
In the formula box, simply type 0.
Click OK.

Alternatively, you can just type MIN(0) directly into the Rows shelf in the next step. Both methods accomplish the same thing.

Step 2: Build the Dual-Axis Foundation

Now we'll set up the canvas for our chart.

Drag your new Placeholder field onto the Rows shelf.
Drag the Placeholder field onto the Rows shelf again, placing it next to the first one. You should now see two rows of visualizations (likely a single blue line each) and two "Placeholder" pills on your Rows shelf.
Right-click the second Placeholder pill in the Rows shelf and select Dual Axis from the dropdown menu.

Your two separate charts will now be merged into one, with axes on both the left and right sides. We need to make sure they're perfectly aligned.

Right-click the right-side axis in your view and select Synchronize Axis. Now they are perfectly layered.

Step 3: Create the Outer Ring (the Pie Chart)

Let's turn the first layer into our actual data viz.

When you created the dual-axis chart, Tableau added multiple Marks cards on the left side: one for "All," one for "AGG(Placeholder)," and another for "AGG(Placeholder) (2)." Click on the first AGG(Placeholder) card to control the first chart layer.
On this marks card, click the dropdown menu that currently says "Automatic" and select Pie.
Drag your dimension (e.g., Sales Channel) onto Color.
Drag your measure (e.g., Revenue) onto Angle.
Click on the Size button and move the slider to the right to make your pie chart larger.

You should now see a fully formed pie chart. Now let's create the hole!

Step 4: Create the Inner Circle (the Hole)

Now we’ll configure the second chart layer to act as the donut's hole.

Select the second Marks card in the list (the one named "AGG(Placeholder) (2)").
Its Mark Type is likely a circle by default. If not, change it to Circle.
Click the Color button and change it to White (or whichever color matches your dashboard background).
Click the Size button and move the slider to the left to make this circle smaller than your pie chart.

And there you have it! You've created a donut chart. The smaller white circle is now layered on top of the pie chart, creating the hole.

Step 5: Add a Total Label to the Center

The whole point of a donut chart is to use that empty central space. Let's add our key number.

Make sure you still have the second Marks card ("AGG(Placeholder) (2)") selected. This is the card controlling our white circle.
Drag your measure (e.g., Revenue) onto the Label button on this same card.

The total value of your measure will now appear in the center of the ring. You can click the Label button to format the text—change the font, increase the size, make it bold, and adjust alignment to center it perfectly.

Step 6: Final Cleanup and Formatting

Your chart is functional, but let's make it look professional.

Hide the Axes: Right-click on each of the vertical axes (left and right) and uncheck Show Header to hide them.
Remove Grid Lines: Go to the top menu and select Format → Lines. In the sheet tab, set the Zero Lines to "None." This removes the thin grey line running through the middle of the chart.
Add Tooltips: Hover over the slices. Tableau provides a default tooltip, but you can customize it by clicking on the Tooltip button on the marks card for the pie chart to show more detail, like the percentage of the whole.

Bonus Tips for Effective Circle Charts

Don't Overcrowd It: Stick to 3-5 categories at most. As slices get smaller and more numerous, the chart becomes unreadable. A bar chart is better for more categories.
Order Logically: Arrange the slices in a logical order, such as from largest to smallest, starting at the 12 o'clock position and moving clockwise.
Use Color Strategically: Use colors that are easy to distinguish. Highlight the most important slice with a more vibrant color while using neutral shades for the others.

Final Thoughts

Creating a circle or donut chart in Tableau is a simple process of combining two charts on a dual axis. It's an effective visualization technique for showing part-to-whole relationships or progress toward a goal without forcing viewers to judge angles and areas as they do with pie charts. Now you can easily add this clean and modern visual to your dashboards.

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