Tableau Tooltip

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From the course by University of California, Davis

Visual Analytics with Tableau

798 ratings

University of California, Davis

Visual Analytics with Tableau

798 ratings

Course 3 of 5 in the Specialization Data Visualization with Tableau

In this third course of the specialization, we’ll drill deeper into the tools Tableau offers in the areas of charting, dates, table calculations and mapping. We’ll explore the best choices for charts, based on the type of data you are using. We’ll look at specific types of charts including scatter plots, Gantt charts, histograms, bullet charts and several others, and we’ll address charting guidelines. We’ll define discrete and continuous dates, and examine when to use each one to explain your data. You’ll learn how to create custom and quick table calculations and how to create parameters. We’ll also introduce mapping and explore how Tableau can use different types of geographic data, how to connect to multiple data sources and how to create custom maps.

From the lesson

Getting Started and Charting

In this module, you will explore the topic of charting in Tableau. By now you should already be well versed in how to change colors, shapes, and sizes of charts, so we are going to practice and demonstrate that skill more. You will be able to explain what the Tableau Tooltip does and when to use it. You will be able to discuss the various guidelines for choosing the right chart for your data. You will also create a chart using Tableau.

Introduction to Charting1:15

Tableau Charts19:03

Colors, Shapes, and Sizes4:48

Dual Line Charts3:08

Tableau Tooltip4:42

Charting Guidelines: Bar Charts, Line Graphs, Pie Charts6:48

Charting Guidelines: Maps, Scatter Plots, Gantt Charts, Bubble Charts4:59

Charting Guidelines: Histograms, Bullet Charts, Heat Maps and Highlight Tables4:45

Charting Guidelines: Treemaps and Box-and-Whisker Plots5:30

Meet the Instructors

Suk S. Brar, M.B.A.
Lead Business Consultant
Blue Shield of California

Welcome back. In the last lesson,

we discussed how to create dual-layer charts and how to customize the different layers.

In this lesson, I will show you how to create format and use Tableau's tooltip.

So after this lesson,

you will be able to explain the benefits of using the tooltip and

create tooltips in your charts and on the worksheets. Let's get started.

Tableau tooltips are a fantastic way to add additional context or

information to your view without taking up any precious real estate on the worksheet.

This is super important when the worksheet is on the dashboard.

You can populate the tooltip with as much information as needed including dynamic fields.

These fields will update when the user clicks

on or hovers the mouse over a mark in the view.

As a result, tooltips are very useful in building

interactivity and reinforcing your story for your views.

So how do we utilize the tooltip?

Using our Superstore dataset, first,

let's begin by dragging our Order Date dimension to the columns bar.

Then let's change the date to show quarters instead of years by

clicking on the arrow on the order date field and choosing quarter.

Next, let's drag our Profit measure onto the row bar.

Now, we are able to see profit for each quarter since 2011.

If we hover over certain parts of the chart,

we will be able to see additional information,

such as a quarter of the year or the profit for that quarter.

This is the tooltip. Now, let's edit what we can show in the tooltip.

Start by going to the marks card then click on the tooltip button.

This will allow you to edit the tooltip.

The content of the text box is based on the chart,

listing the fields currently used in the view by default.

The fields in the box you can see here are designed in brackets.

You have a full suite of formatting options running across the top, including font type,

font size, bold, italics,

underline, font color, and alignments.

You can also use the Insert menu to quickly

insert new measures and variables into your tooltip.

The list of elements to insert is built based

on your data source and your current visualization.

As you add more measures to your chart,

the tooltip will automatically be updated to

include those measures that are present on your chart.

As you make edits to your tooltip,

you can always click on the preview button to see how the tooltip will appear to users.

Now that we've covered the controls,

we're going to customize our tooltip.

The first thing we will do is click on 'insert' and choose 'default title'.

This will add a title to our tooltip.

We can edit this title by changing

the sheet name and the title will automatically change.

So if we change the sheet into 'Profit',

we will see that the tooltip shows a title of 'Profit'.

Let's also insert the data update time to

show the users that the last time the data was updated.

We can also change the color of our profit measure by highlighting

the profit measure and clicking on the color bar and picking a color. Let's say green.

Now, we've customized our tooltip to add features that will

provide additional information to the end user.

If there are additional fields that you'd like to display,

you can drag and drop details fields on the tooltip shelf in the Marks card,

and they will appear in the Insert menu for you to add in.

As I mentioned earlier,

tooltips can contain as much information as needed.

Perhaps you fill the box with fields and additional texts

so much that when the user clicks on or hovers over a mark,

the tooltip takes up the whole screen.

Obviously, with so many different options,

there are many ways you can use tooltips.

That wraps up our lesson on Tableau tooltips.

After this lesson, you should now be able to

explain the benefits of using the Tableau tooltip,

create tooltips in your charts and on the worksheet,

edit what you can show on the tooltip,

insert new measures and variables into your tooltip,

and discuss how to clear formatting from your tooltip.

In our upcoming lesson on charting guidelines,

we will discuss what types of charts are best for different types of data.

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