6 Replies Latest reply on Jan 28, 2019 1:35 PM by Ken Flerlage

Grouping Multiple fields as "dates"

Brian Bruning Jan 28, 2019 1:20 PM

Hi Everyone,

I am relatively new to Tableau and have what I think should be an easy question. To put it into words, Is there a way to assign data to a specific date without already having a date measure?

The way my data is set up is to track progress between specific dates like this:

The problem is that since the data is set up to have the dates as their own fields, I end up with 5 different measures which are actually points in time.

The end goal is to create a line graph which shows our progression over time. Like this.

1. Re: Grouping Multiple fields as "dates"

Ken Flerlage Jan 28, 2019 1:24 PM (in response to Brian Bruning)

I think you'll most likely want to pivot those columns to rows. See the following for details on how to do that: https://www.kenflerlage.com/2018/06/pivoting.html
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2. Re: Grouping Multiple fields as "dates"

Gene Denny Jan 28, 2019 1:25 PM (in response to Ken Flerlage)

Ken beat me to it, and is spot on. My first tool to grab in a case like this is Alteryx, but Tableau can handle it just fine as Ken states, or you should be able to run it through Tableau Prep, I believe.
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3. Re: Grouping Multiple fields as "dates"

Jim Dehner Jan 28, 2019 1:27 PM (in response to Brian Bruning)

Hi Brian
it looks like your data is also some kind of running total - i.e. aggregated data

the usual response is to pivot the data - and to put a real date in the data - that way you can leverage the capability to tableau date functions, trending capability and just the ability to plot a time series

If you haven't already found it Tableau has excellent on-line free training at Tableau Training: View Training Courses
it is categorized from getting stated through advanced calculations the include 3-5 minutes specific topic segments

Jim
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4. Re: Grouping Multiple fields as "dates"

Peter Fakan Jan 28, 2019 1:27 PM (in response to Brian Bruning)

Hi Brian,

Can you upload a sample .twbx please ? My initial thoughts are if you pivot the data in the data source tab, then change your date pivot into a date field this should work.

Will have to resolve the non-date titles such as 'before new year' but we can magick something up by using a duplicate of the date field as the title (string), but use the original date field on the x axis (date).

HTH

Peter
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5. Re: Grouping Multiple fields as "dates"

Brian Bruning Jan 28, 2019 1:32 PM (in response to Brian Bruning)

Hi everyone, thanks for all your quick responses. Outside of pivoting, is there another way of doing this? The way the data source is set up is a mess and it uses multiple other columns which relate to the same fields as those dates. It is for this reason that I am assuming the pivot option is not available?

My first thought was to use tableau prep but since this is connected to smartsheets, that was not an option.
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6. Re: Grouping Multiple fields as "dates"

Ken Flerlage Jan 28, 2019 1:35 PM (in response to Brian Bruning)

We'd probably need to see a sample of the file in order to give you further advice.
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