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1. Re: How do I create an interactive flow diagram with non-geographic data?
Bill Lyons Nov 23, 2014 4:33 PM (in response to Casey Lott)This is the closest I could come to what you are describing. I couldn't get the highlighting behavior to work quite like you described. The best I could do is to use menu highlighting (via the tooltip of the end points). If someone else can figure that part out, I'd love to know how.
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flow diagram exercise.twbx 80.7 KB
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2. Re: How do I create an interactive flow diagram with non-geographic data?
Chris McClellanNov 23, 2014 9:24 PM (in response to Bill Lyons)
1 of 1 people found this helpfulNice solution Bill Lyons but I coloured the lines by Value as well (just so it didn't have everything in blue). I also noted that on the Lines worksheet, if I can on a circle on the left side it highlights all lines, but if I click a circle on the right side the behaviour is not the same ... on the dashboard it doesn't work the same way
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3. Re: How do I create an interactive flow diagram with non-geographic data?
Casey Lott Nov 24, 2014 7:59 AM (in response to Bill Lyons)Excellent. Thanks a lot, Bill. I second your desire to learn how to make the highlighting behavior respond directly to a selection instead of from the tooltip, just because it's one less step for the user. Even so, this provides the function I was looking for and will be quite helpful to program administrators. Thanks again.
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4. Re: How do I create an interactive flow diagram with non-geographic data?
Casey Lott Nov 24, 2014 8:02 AM (in response to Chris McClellan)Thanks, Chris. I see what you are saying about the asymmetry of the behavior. If anyone knows how to make the interactivity symmetrical on the dashboard itself that would be really helpful. Thanks for taking a look at this.
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5. Re: How do I create an interactive flow diagram with non-geographic data?
Bill Lyons Nov 24, 2014 9:38 AM (in response to Chris McClellan)1 of 1 people found this helpfulMost visualization experts (Tufte, Few) advise against redundant visual cues (e.g. size and color for same measure).
As for the difference between the worksheet and the dashboard, I was attempting to do the desired highlighting in the worksheet, but could only get one direction to work at a time. The dashboard was my second attempt, but the only way I could get bi-directional was via the tooltip. I also tried unsuccessfully to get them to highlight by selecting elements from the floating worksheets. Sorry if it isn’t perfect. Spend several hours this weekend trying.
bl
“Without data, you are just another person with an opinion.”
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6. Re: How do I create an interactive flow diagram with non-geographic data?
Zach PipkinNov 24, 2014 11:04 AM (in response to Casey Lott)
Hey Casey,
This type of visualization can actually be achieved by building a "Sankey" diagram. We don't have official walk throughs of this type of visualization, but this has been pulled off pretty spectacularly by Jeffrey Shaffer. Below are a few tutorials, the second one just came out a few days ago and is written by guest host Olivier!
I used the first one to build this example. I started on the 2nd one, but wasn't able to finish it as I haven't had too much free time lately. You should give it a whirl (the 2nd link), as it's more what you're looking for.
Cheers,
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sankey2.twbx 43.9 KB
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7. Re: How do I create an interactive flow diagram with non-geographic data?
Bill Lyons Nov 24, 2014 12:22 PM (in response to Zach Pipkin)Very intriguing! Thanks!
bl
“Without data, you are just another person with an opinion.”
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8. Re: How do I create an interactive flow diagram with non-geographic data?
Bill Lyons Nov 25, 2014 3:06 PM (in response to Casey Lott)The Sankey diagram is excellent! I think all will agree that this solution is MUCH better! Thank you Zach Pipkin!
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Sankey diagram exercise 2.twbx 85.4 KB
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9. Re: How do I create an interactive flow diagram with non-geographic data?
Chris McClellanNov 25, 2014 3:13 PM (in response to Zach Pipkin)
WOW, that's awesome !!!
I saw this type of graph about a month ago, but thought I might have to use D3.js if I ever had to do it ... not any more though
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10. Re: How do I create an interactive flow diagram with non-geographic data?
Zach PipkinNov 25, 2014 3:50 PM (in response to Chris McClellan)
Awesome work! Looks like you got the polygon version working!
And don't thank me, thank the excellent Jeffrey Shaffer and Olivier CATHERIN!
Cheers,
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11. Re: How do I create an interactive flow diagram with non-geographic data?
Bill Lyons Nov 25, 2014 5:06 PM (in response to Zach Pipkin)Yes, many thanks to Jeffrey Shaffer<http://community.tableau.com/people/jeffreyshaffer> and Olivier CATHERIN<http://community.tableau.com/people/olivier.catherin>!
bl
“Without data, you are just another person with an opinion.”
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12. Re: How do I create an interactive flow diagram with non-geographic data?
Olivier CATHERIN Nov 26, 2014 6:47 AM (in response to Bill Lyons)Hi Bill,
I would suggest few things you could bring to your viz :
1) hide the toolbox controls : if you choose to keep or exclude it won't work well
2) use the Highlight dashboard action to show the path when hovering over the flows
3) You also don't have to build a dashboard using floating elements : you could change the width of the bar chart using the size control in the marks windows.
By the way, I am glad it helped !
Olivier
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13. Re: How do I create an interactive flow diagram with non-geographic data?
Bill Lyons Nov 26, 2014 9:22 AM (in response to Olivier CATHERIN)1 of 1 people found this helpfulFirst, I want to thank you again for your post that made this possible. It really opened my eyes to a lot of possibilities.
Regarding your comments:
1) hide the toolbox controls : if you choose to keep or exclude it won't work well
I wholeheartedly agree. I would do so if I were deploying this to production. In this case I didn't do a lot of finishing touches because I was merely trying to answer the question of the original post by Casey Lott. I would also remove the grid lines, zero line, and boarders, touch-up alignment and centering, clean up tooltips to the desired values and descriptions, size it for the target display device, add accreditation and version numbering, hide the worksheets, and probably a few other things.
2) use the Highlight dashboard action to show the path when hovering over the flows
This is probably a personal preference. Sometimes I like hover highlights, and sometimes I prefer clicks. I have seen many times where the hover highlight remains after moving off the object, which I find annoying. And again, the original post specifically requested "select" or "click."
3) You also don't have to build a dashboard using floating elements : you could change the width of the bar chart using the size control in the marks windows.
I started with it that way, and even with the bar width all the way up, I found the boarder Tableau inserts between dashboard elements to be objectionable. If someone can tell me how to eliminate that, I would be appreciative. While normally this is visually pleasing, there are times like this when you really want it seamless. By floating them, I was able to reduce the separation to a fine line. I just now found that if I remove the boarders of all the objects, that line vanishes completely when floating, which is beautiful. But it still leaves a gap with fixed (non-floating) sheets.
Another thing I would like, but haven't found a way to do, is to eliminate the "Color Code Paths" parameter, and have it automatically switch the color coding direction when selecting (or hovering) on the left or the right. Any ideas on that?
I think this is a very valuable viz technique, which I plan to use with real data in our environment, which is why I spent the time to learn it for this example. Thanks again!
bl
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14. Re: How do I create an interactive flow diagram with non-geographic data?
Olivier CATHERIN Nov 26, 2014 2:54 PM (in response to Bill Lyons)You are right. I wish I had the solution for customization the highlighting or selection action ! Has it already been suggested to Tableau ? This would had very interesting new capabilities to dashboards !
Olivier