Tip: Conditional Data Labels
You may have already figured out that you can place a field on the Text shelf to add data labels based on
the values of that field. However, often you’ll find that you don’t actually want to label every mark; rather
you may want to label only the outliers, or only the data within your region. Using Tableau’s calculated
fields you can create conditional data labels based on a custom field that only includes the values of
interest.
Here’s how it works
Say you are analyzing the daily regional sales for a supermarket and you want to label all regions that
have sales greater than $130,000. Dragging the Sales Total field to the text shelf, adds data labels based
on the total sales for each region.
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To add conditional data labels:
1. Select Create Calculated Field on the Measures Data window menu.
2. In the Calculated Field dialog box, name the field “Outliers” and write a conditional formula that
describes the marks you want to label. For example, the formula to only label regions whose sales is
greater than $130,000 looks like this:
The Calculated Field dialog box should look something like this:
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3. Place the new field on the Text shelf.
The final view only includes data labels for the regions whose sales are greater than $130,000.
Page Copyright © 2003-2007 Tableau Software, Incorporated and its licensors. All rights reserved. Patents pending.
Note: If you are using Tableau v3.0 or later, you can show and hide the data labels for individual marks. To
hide a specific data label, right-click a mark and select Data Labels > Off.
Learn More
• Learn more about data labels by searching for Data Labels in the Tableau online help.
• Contact Tableau Technical Support at: (206) 633 3400 x513
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