Several months (!) after setting myself the challenge of becoming familiar with how to create a Tableau Web Data Connector, the good news is...it's done! Well, done enough that I now understand how to create web data connectors should I ever need one in reality anyway. As planned, its a connection via the BoardGameGeek API to your very … Continue reading Journey complete: a BoardGameGeek collection Tableau web data connector
Tag: Tableau
Unsafe abortions: visualising the “preventable pandemic”
In the past few weeks, I was appalled to read that an UK resident was given a prison sentence for the supposed "crime" of having an abortion. This happened because she lives in Northern Ireland, a country where having an abortion is in theory punishable by a life sentence in jail - unless the person in need happens … Continue reading Unsafe abortions: visualising the “preventable pandemic”
Showing continents on a Tableau map
Tableau maps can understand many geographic features, but, somewhat surprisingly, whole continents is not one of them. It's a requested feature but hasn't yet made the grade to be included. However, it was pretty easy to find several shapefiles of continents freely available online. Here's one. Tableau can't read shapefiles (yet). But, inspired by tableaumapping.bi, I then used this … Continue reading Showing continents on a Tableau map
Tableau dashboards quick tip #2: how do I know what size my dashboard should be to fit in a story?
Here's another little tip that is actually in the documentation, although perhaps not quite where you might expect, and besides, who reads that? In Tableau you can create "Stories". A story is basically a set of dashboards. However, the default "physical" size of the dashboard part of a story is smaller than the default size … Continue reading Tableau dashboards quick tip #2: how do I know what size my dashboard should be to fit in a story?
Tableau dashboards quick tip #1: why is my embedded web page blank when published?
Tableau dashboards can embed other non-Tableau webpages within them. This can be useful just as a way to show an external web page within your dashboard, or they can have dynamic URL parameters passed into them based on the data in your dashboard, meaning that you can produce interactive product catalogues, mapping systems and the like. In … Continue reading Tableau dashboards quick tip #1: why is my embedded web page blank when published?
Using a Tableau Web Data Connector to access my Moves app location data
Never one to rush into things :-), here's the second part of my journey towards creating a Tableau Web Data Connector. Next on my plan was to try out an existing Web Data Connector so I could see what they looked like in practice. It's always useful to review examples of other people's work in analytical tools, … Continue reading Using a Tableau Web Data Connector to access my Moves app location data
The journey towards creating a Tableau Web Data Connector
I recently watched a video by Tableau/Alteryx/general guru Chris Love in which he emphasised the importance for people to not only retrospectively present their mindblowing successes at cajoling Tableau into running the universe - but also the journey leading up to that point, including any outright failures. After all, there is no shame in failing to do what one sets out … Continue reading The journey towards creating a Tableau Web Data Connector
Comparing partial week-so-far data with prior year values in Tableau
Happy new year to all! And now that's over, back to work. The first drama of 2016 was opening up some spiffy new Tableau dashboards someone made to see how business is at in the first week of the year, only to find apparently catastrophic results. Sales this week were way below sales of the … Continue reading Comparing partial week-so-far data with prior year values in Tableau
Showing the formula behind a Tableau quick table calculation
Tableau gives super-fast access to many common analytical operations via its "quick table calculation" feature: running total, percent difference, moving average and so on. Just rightclick the measure pill, select "Quick Table Calculation", make your choice and often that's all that's needed. But what if you want to customise them in ways beyond what a simple "edit table calculation" … Continue reading Showing the formula behind a Tableau quick table calculation
Setting up the automatic “upload to Tableau Online / Server” feature in Alteryx 10.1
Alteryx released their new version 10.1 this week - license holders/demo seekers can pop along to the download page to install it. Amongst the new features it promised was: Automatically update Tableau Server and Tableau Online with a new Tableau macro The concept is simple: process/model/advanced-analyse your data in Alteryx and then it will push up the … Continue reading Setting up the automatic “upload to Tableau Online / Server” feature in Alteryx 10.1
Dabbling with Data 