Treemaps and Table Calculations:
An Exploration of Colors, Sorting
and Partitioning in Tableau
Jonathan Drummey
Quality Management Data Analyst
Southern Maine Medical Center
jonathan.drummey@gmail.com
What You Will Learn
•
•
•
•
Making Sense of Non-Cartesian Layouts
Putting Multiple Pills on the Color Shelf
How Tableau Builds Treemaps
A Lot About Sorting
– And how to answer a Tableau brain teaser
• Basic Addressing and Partitioning
• Using Restarting Every and At the Level
Non-Cartesian Layout
• Mark stacking is on by default for most Mark Types
– Triggered by more in overall level of detail than displayed in the
view
• Requires no continuous (green) pills on Rows or Columns
• Explicitly used by Treemaps, Packed Bubbles, and Word
Clouds
• Signs that Mark Stacking is on:
– Left aligned numbers and/or text with odd layout
– Ellipses (…) indicate that there is more data in the cell than
Tableau can display
– Big view area – fills the screen and potentially more than
necessary for the marks you can see
Multiple Discrete (blue) Pills
on the Color Shelf
• Top pill assigns categorical colors from the Tableau 20 palette
• Least saturated color in each color range is always the same
• All other pills create a “set” of the combined members within the
color ranges defined by the top pill
• Colors are evenly distributed from darkest to lightest based on the # of
members of the “set”
• Once created can be edited
– If that is done, new color values will also need to be manually set
• Lose color highlighting if a discrete measure is part of the set of colors
• Three ways to turn this on:
– Shift+Click and/or Ctrl+Click to select multiple pills from Data window and
drag them onto Color Shelf
– Shift+Drag a pill to add it to the Color Shelf
– Use the shelf type icon menu that is located next to the pill on the Marks
Card to change to Color
Color Assignment Issue #1:
Dark to Light
• Dimension pills on color – no problem, use pill sort.
• When a discrete measure is used on color, color ranges are
assigned by either the alphanumeric or manual sort of the
measure, with the first item getting order the darkest (most
saturated) to the last getting the lightest (least saturated)
• Workaround is to use calculated fields that have the desired
alphanumeric sort and use those on Color instead
– If a less messy Color Legend is desired, use a separate
worksheet Color Legend w/hidden data or BYO Color Legend
worksheet
Color Assignment Issue #2:
Sorting
• Dimension pills on color – need to set up sort before applying Color,
or reassign palette following sort.
• Discrete measure colors are assigned based on the alphanumeric
sort of the “set” of discrete values
• Marks are positioned by the sort on the pills
– setting a pill sort changes the order marks are displayed, not color
assignment
• Workaround is to use calculated fields that have the proper sort
– Combined Fields, Build Your Own Combined Fields
– String manipulations
– Table calcs
Color Assignment Issue #3:
Distribution
• Colors are evenly distributed based on the
cardinality of the “set”
• Not the value of the item
• Workarounds are:
– Do some sort of binning (if data is dense enough)
– Manually set colors
– Not use categorical colors and instead use
continuous pill on Color
Treemap Layout
• Non-Cartesian chart
– Tableau totally determines layout
• A grouping level per dimension on Level of
Detail
• In each grouping level, largest mark or
subgroup in upper left, smallest mark or
subgroup in lower right
• Sized and ordered by the pill on the Size Shelf
• Won’t overlap labels
What Kinds of Sorts are Used
in Tableau and Where
Top N
Filters
Top N Sort
Hierarchical
Sort
Pill Types
and
Arrangements
Advanced
Compute
Using
Dimension
Pill Sorts
• Alphanumeric
• Manual
• by Measure
Measure
Pill Sorts
• Alphanumeric
• Manual
Treemap
Layout
Color & Size
Assignment
Legend
Ordering
Mark
Layout
Advanced…
Field Sort
Table Calc
Computation
Hierarchical Sorting
Column 1
Column 2
Sort
…Value N
Sort
Sort
Value B
Sort
Value A
And so on for each
additional Column…
Tableau’s Sorting
Data
Column 3
Sort
Sort
Column 2
Sort
Column 1
View
Hierarchical Sorting in Tableau
Data
Column 1 Column 1+2
Column 2 Column 1+2+3 Column 3
Sort
Sort
Sort
View
Addressing (Compute Using) and
Partitioning: Choosing 1 Dimension
Restart the
computation for
any new value of
the remaining
Dimensions
Partitioning
All Other
Dimensions
in the
View*
Addressing
Chosen
Dimension
Compute a result
for each distinct
address, i.e. each
value of the chosen
dimension
*Discrete (blue pill) regular aggregate Measures that have unchecked
Ignore in Table Calculations automatically become part of partitioning.
Addressing and Partitioning:
Advanced Compute Using & Sort
Partitioning
Addressing
Dimension 1
Dimension 2
Dimension 3
Dimension 4
Dimension 5
Dimension 6
Two sort options:
• Automatic: Use the pill sort from the view (e.g. get a hierarchical sort)
• Field: Sort the “set” of addressing dimensions by the chosen field
Addressing and Partitioning:
Restarting Every
Partitioning
Addressing
Dimension 1
Dimension 2
Dimension 3
Dimension 4
Dimension 5
Dimension 6
Restarting Every keeps the sort defined by the table calc, and adds
the chosen dimension and all dimensions above it to the
partitioning.
Addressing and Partitioning:
At the Level
Partitioning
Addressing
Dimension 1
Dimension 2
Dimension 3
Dimension 4
Dimension 5
Dimension 6
At the Level keeps the sort defined by the table calc, and
increments the chosen dimension on it’s position within the
partition, while dimensions below that don’t cause incrementing
of ordinal table calcs like INDEX()
Know your data
Know your goal
Figure out how what shape the data needs to be
in (given your knowledge of Tableau)
Set up the data and computations
Build the view
Review
• Covered a lot of ground but…
– 3 minutes to build the entire view from connecting to
data to done (on a bumpy bus ride)
•
•
•
•
Treemaps and Non-Cartesian Layouts
Putting Multiple Pills on the Color Shelf
A Lot About Sorting
Intro to Table Calculations
– YMMV (Your Mileage May Vary) disclaimer about
factors affecting table calculation results
Thanks!
Jonathan Drummey
Quality Management Data Analyst
Southern Maine Medical Center
jonathan.drummey@gmail.com
http://drawingwithnumbers.artisart.org