Build 80% of your dashboards with these 4 charts, a bit of interactivity, and that's it.

You probably won't need to create anything fancy, formatting will be minimal, and you won't need to wrestle with containers.

This video show you how to create it in only 3 minutes!

Need to change a datasource but don't want to rebuild the workbook? Has a field name changed? 

It can be a real pain to update each sheet in a workbook one by one. 

Conveniently, Tableau allows you to change the entire datasource with the "Replace Datasource" option.

Or, if you only need to change a field, Tableau has an option called "Replace References" that allows you to swap one field out for another all in one shot. 

In this example, I take you through the whole process. 

You could also apply this method when you simply want to swap out all existences of one field for another. 

For example, you want to change all used of Order Date to Ship Date. 

Easy peasy!

In this video, I show you how to build a 9-box matrix. 

These are commonly used in talent management and HR to map a company's workforce along two dimensions, potential and performance. 

Each of these two dimensions is split up into three categories, low, medium, and high, depending on the score. 

For each employee performance is then plotted horizontally and potential is plotted vertically. From there, we summarize the number of employees that fall within each box. 

I struggled mightily with this week's #MakeoverMonday. My goals was to replicate the original visualization by Bloomberg.

I knew I need to create path to connect the US at the center to each country.

I wanted to make the US the center of the of the map.

• I overthought the data prep.
• I forgot how to create the paths.
• I couldn't get the math right to offset the longitude.

The coloring and labeling was straightforward for me.

Adding the US as a circle in the middle was pretty simple.

• I looked at a previous visualization I created using paths.

• I opened the workbook and the data to see the configuration.
• I replicated that set up by adding a second set of records to the data set.
• Viewers on the livestream helped me figure out the math to offset the longitude.

The simplest way to explain the location of each country is to think of the lat/lon for the US as 0,0. Then you compare that to the lat/lon for every other country to create the offset.

I got there in the end. What do you think? Was the juice worth the squeeze?

Click the image below to access the viz. 

Cycle plots are a fantastic way to identify seasonality in a data set. And you can make them even more useful by adding indicators for whether they are above or below the average.

Here's how you can do that in Tableau in only 2 minutes.

Like this? You'll love Next-Level Tableau. Learn more at nextleveltableau.com.

Over on Tableau Public, Judit Bekker create this fantastic directory of charts to help you pick the one that's most appropriate for your analysis.

Check it out below.

A unit histogram is a chart that shows the distribution of data points across a series of bins of a measure.

Unlike a traditional histogram that uses bars, a unit histogram consists of a set of marks, each representing a member of a dimension. 

In this example, our final result is a unit histogram showing the distribution of states by their average sales.

If you like this, you'll love Next-Level Tableau. You get over 175 hours of live training with me, 130+ on-demand videos, workshops, office hours, workbooks, data sets, lots of new videos each year, any new courses I create, and a great Community.

Get more info and sign up today at nextleveltableau.com.

I received a request to teach how to build a jump plot during Next-Level Tableau office hours. The idea was to recreate this visualization that I created for Makeover Monday back in 2018.

The problem, though, was that the data preparation was done in Alteryx, which I no longer have a license for. Thanks for a member of NLT that had an Alteryx license, we were able to decode what the workflow was doing.

Then, in office hours, we recreated the data prep in Tableau Prep before building the visualization in Tableau. Download the Prep flow here. Download the workbook below.

This is just one example of one thing learned as a member of NLT. Sign up today and I guarantee you'll become a Tableau expert.

Here's the ultimate guide to custom visualizations in Tableau. Each chart contains a link to a tutorial so you can build it too.

I rarely use these charts on a day-to-day basis, but they are a fantastic way to build your technical skills.

Have you used any of these in a business context? Click on the image to view on Tableau Public.