There are a few ways to make that display in Tableau.

If you can supply a sample data source that represents your situation, an example workbook can be made for you.

Hi Joe,

What would you suggest? Can you dummy-up a simple data set for illustrative purposes?

Congrats on your recent mention in the news!

attached is an example workbook with some layout tricks to get a result like the image.

Hi Joe,

how do I get the multiple Marks? and how to associate the symbols "up" and "down"?

Thanks

Is there a simpler way to do this without the NULL kludge, etc?

Or is Tableau not really capable of doing this in a more extensible way (by this I mean, if I had more KPIs this would be a pain to setup and not very easy to change).

What other capabilities does Tableau have for displaying KPIs along with a trend indicator and a reference point (last 3 mos, etc)? Thanks!

Joe,

Column widths in your example are connected so in case I will resize the numerical columns (two last) it would change the width of the column with the symbol. Is there a way how to keep symbol column width fixed and enable resizing other columns?

Regards,

Michal

Joe,

I have a similar question. In my case, the data will be coming from a client on a semi regular basis. I don't want to have to calc in excel, I'd rather Tableau do it (I say that now, not knowing the extent of what a similar formula may be in Tableau). Ideally, I'd just do a refresh and let the new data populate, etc.

I've attached an image of what I currently have in Tableau. I see that it can do the table difference calculations, but it looks like that requires the table to be visible, as opposed to bars or lines, etc. so that may not be an option. I'd like to show the KPI symbols in a column similar to your example. I did a calculated field and then drug that to the column shelf to create the columns containing the symbols. I'm thinking there must be an easy formula that basically says, if the value for year 2012 is greater than 2011, then use down symbol. Alternately, if the value for year 2012 is less than 2011, then use up symbol. I assume that I'll then be able to add color to the symbols. Green = Up and Red = Down.

Alrich, post from before the New, New forums don't ping participants any more so Joe Mako won't know you asked him a question. I just pinged him for you.

--Shawn

Thanks

Can you please provide a sample packaged workbook with data that represents your situation, and detail what you expect for results and interaction? Thank you.

See attached as well as original excel file.

On tab ! - Ideally, the Arrows would exist where there is now "Down". I must have a the "Change (Cost)" Calculated field wrong b/c it shows all as "Down" but Atlantic Station ... obviously went up $1,734 in 2011 to $17,60 in 2012. I feel like I am so close.

I picked up a few ideas on the calculated fields from the previous example you gave.

There are a number of things going on, the top priority is awareness of your dimension pills. I cannot stress this enough, without awareness of your dimension pills doing things in Tableau will get confusing quickly.

Starting from your worksheet "1", perform the following:

1. Remove the discrete dimension pill "YEAR(Date)" from the Marks card

This will cause your "Change (Cost)" pill to compute correctly, but will now give you incorrect labels, and remove the coloring

2. Place "Measure Names" on the Color shelf

3. remove the pill for "SUM(Water Cost)" from the Marks Card

4. Click on the Label landmark, and check the box for "Show Mark Labels"

5. to format these labels, select each of the continuous measure pills on the Columns shelf, and set their Format->Pane->Default as desired.

6. for an arrow mark in the Rows header area, you can use a calc field with a symbol, a formula like:

If sum([2012])>=sum([2011]) then "▲" Else "▼" end

(or use separate calcs for each to get them colored)

attached is the result of these steps.

Joe,

Thanks alot. I was able to duplicate. I had to copy the arrow symbols from your file, not sure how you did that. I tried to copy an arrow "symbol" from MS Word, but that didn't work.

Anyways, I think I understood everything except the first step - why does the dimension pill have such an effect?

I don't think I would have every figured this out. Bravo and Thanks.

Hey Joe, I am getting this null notification when I am using multiple KPI columns.How do I get rid of this notification?