I’m back to the blog after a long hiatus and a trip just about around the world. I left work in San Francisco, flew to Raleigh-Durham to get married, honeymooned in London and Thailand, and have just wrapped up back to back great weeks at the Tableau Customer Conference in San Diego and working with the FDIC in Washington, DC. Whew – just writing about it sounds tiring.

The Tableau Customer Conference didn’t fail to impress – I couldn’t be prouder to be part of the amazing InterWorks team and the larger Tableau Community. It was a great week to catch up with old friends, meet existing clients, and make new relationships for the coming year. I left the Conference completely enthused! I’ve just got my hands on a beta copy of Tableau 8, so hopefully I’ll put a blog or two up with some fun projects in the coming weeks as well.

Right now, though, I’ve got a great technique for you that I’ve meant to post about since I gave a talk at the Atlanta Tableau User Group back in September. I call this technique the “Smart Legend” since it replaces the default colour legends that Tableau provides with a sneaky visualization that adds additional functionality. It adds three great features to your dashboard:

1. Maximizes your Data:Pixel ratio by providing not just colour information, but data about relative sizing as wel.
2. Adds the ability to use dashboard actions to filter or navigate.
3. Adds the ability to customize tooltips to provide essential information without cluttering your dashboard.

And, the best part: it won’t take you more than 5 minutes!