Hey Simon!

Thanks for posting this. I think 'conditional formatting' in Tableau is a pretty hot topic especially for users migrating from Excel to Tableau. They are constantly looking for ways to mimic Excel functionalities. I saw the question Emphasis a single label on an axis and reached a solution too and then got pulled in a meeting, obviously since this is Tableau Community, the genius minds had already provided a solution

I remember this question coming up early by another user on this thread Format one row? and I gave a similar answer at that time! I would have done it like this:

Ofcourse you can get fancy by adding the label for quantity for the 'large' subcategory:

Also instead of hardcoding 'chairs' in the calc, parameters would be great for a moving solution!

But this works only when using a dimension on rows versus using 'measure names' on rows and 'measure values' on columns increasing the complexity. So for a favorable scenario if the data is 'wider', I think it would be best to reshape for it to be 'taller' structured for formatting to work as needed.

Pooja!

Hi Simon!

I love Jonathan's explanation of the mental paradigms. I also agree with him where he says 'the challenge is to better communicate how Tableau is different'. I think that line sums it all about how users wanting to do similar things in Tableau and mimic Excel need to be better explained as to how and why Tableau does things the way it does. We hear it all the time in the forums 'can I create a graph in Tableau that looks like this in Excel?'

Coming back to the teaser, yes I agree that sizing of the axis can be a problem and does look odd. I like your posted solution on the other thread about using calculated fields instead of using min(1) trick. Now that I think about it, I think LOD can solve this too. Haven't tried it but I am sure it is possible!

Regardless, this was worth the time and I will remember to use your technique some time in the future!

Thanks Simon!

Pooja.

Good stuff! Thanks, Simon!

I had most of it figured out by using a dashboard with a separate object on a dashboard for the labels. What I especially enjoyed of your solution was the "fake axis." Very nice!.

Simon Runc sry for the late response, work has been a killer lately......

I took a similar, but slightly different approach. Little more 'Hacky-Trickier'

Hope you like it!

Rody

There are a few tricks here.

1. Getting the Axis to show, without negative values.

To do this, we have to rely on our old formatting friend

2. Setting up the Dual Axis Bar to a value that will fit the Text being Left Justified

Then it is all about just creating two calcs for the Text Mark, to Bold and not to Bold, with NULL Values

The Value of the Negative is only as relevant as the Longest String within the Category.

Regards,

Rody

Simon, thank you for the Teaser. Rate it at 3.5 :-)

How about this? Sure you've figured it out as a slight variation of yours ;-)

Or may be that? Just to demonstrate what could (and couldn't) be done with pure headers.

Yours,

Yuri

PS I could publish a wb of the above (9.2) upon request :-)

Does anyone know the Algorithm Tableau uses to determine Major Axis Tick Marks?

Have an idea.....

Regards,

Rody

You could also use rich text editing to achieve this. Have two fields on the text shelf: one that returns the value of the selected category and the other that returns everything but the selected category. I did mine as a gantt chart with labels on both sides.

Simon,

Please find the attached wb (9.2).

Yours,

Yuri

Thanks Simon Runc this Brain Teaser led me down a path to insanity..............

Id on't even know how I did this LOL

Rody