4 Replies Latest reply on Mar 30, 2011 8:16 AM by Joe Mako

Very simple question: Creating a line chart/fever chart of month-to-month sales

Napo Monasterio Mar 29, 2011 11:03 PM

OK, I'm sorry to be bothering everyone with this silly question, but it just has me stumped:

I've got a spreadsheet with month-to-month vehicle sales. First column is make and model, then each column is the amount of vehicles sold. Each vehicle is on a row.

Everything imports just fine, but then I simply cannot an option to create a line chart.

The fields that I have are a string for make and model, then three measures for each month (plus measure names and number of records and measure values). The monthly sales are not getting imported as discrete, FYI.

I've tried changing different values to discrete, to no avail. I can create bar charts, dual axis charts, but not simple bar charts. Go figure.

What am I doing wrong here? I've visualized other data before with Tableau (love it), but this one just has me stumped. And it shouldn't be a complicated thing, which is what has me even more at odds. Am I supposed to convert any of the methods, or create new parameters, or move something to dimensions, or what?

I can reorganize the data without a problem, if that's the issue. Right now all I'm doing is prototyping some applications for an upcoming project.

Thanks in advance!

1. Re: Very simple question: Creating a line chart/fever chart of month-to-month sales

Napo Monasterio Mar 29, 2011 11:14 PM (in response to Napo Monasterio)
Here's a quick sample of what the data would look like, BTW.

And thanks again!

N

auto_production_honda_odyssey.xls 7.0 KB
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2. Re: Very simple question: Creating a line chart/fever chart of month-to-month sales

Joe Mako Mar 30, 2011 4:44 AM (in response to Napo Monasterio)
You will want to un-pivot your data so the structure changes from:

Make and model December 2010 January 2011 February 2011 Honda Odyssey 9,950 12,271 12,288

to:

Make and model Month Sales Honda Odyssey Dec-10 9950 Honda Odyssey Jan-11 12271 Honda Odyssey Feb-11 12288

and that will allow you to easily create the attached.

See http://www.tableausoftware.com/support/knowledge-base/preparing-excel-files-analysis for additional details, and a link to download an Excel Add-In that transforms data.

monthly.twbx 12.1 KB
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3. Re: Very simple question: Creating a line chart/fever chart of month-to-month sales

Napo Monasterio Mar 30, 2011 7:40 AM (in response to Napo Monasterio)

Thanks Joe! It makes pretty good sense now. I redid every step to make sure I figured out what you were doing, and it works fine now. So, the trick is also to make sure you have the data defined correctly as well (MM-YY and the like), eh?

I'll parse all the data and see what happens, and I'll get back to you if I have any more questions. Thanks again!

N
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4. Re: Very simple question: Creating a line chart/fever chart of month-to-month sales

Joe Mako Mar 30, 2011 8:16 AM (in response to Napo Monasterio)

You will likely want your date fields formated like: "1/1/2011" instead of "Jan-11", that was just Excel choosing a poor default, and I did not take the time to correct it.
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Very simple question: Creating a line chart/fever chart of month-to-month sales

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