Using Comics to Tell Data Stories
Data stories are about people. We make charts about customers buying things, students earning grades, investors placing trades and on it goes. The people reading and making charts also have stories to tell, but their experiences are hard to describe with numbers and simple shapes. For that, we need something else. The characters in this […]
Questions from Tableau Training: Showing the Null Indicator
A common question that comes up in trainings is: “I accidentally removed the null indicator, how do I get it back (without using undo)?” Ignoring the null indicator on visualizations can often cause discomfort among end users as they may believe that something is wrong. In certain charts, a null indicator does not mean that […]
The 2016 Stanley Cup Playoffs Matchup Viz
Many of us at InterWorks are avid sports fans, as you can see from our various blog posts and the many examples in the Viz Gallery. While these examples tend to focus a lot on football (pro or college) and various other sports, I wanted to bring a bit of hockey into this blog. What […]
Creating Dynamic Fiscal Calendars in Tableau
If anyone ever told you it’s not possible to make a dynamic fiscal calendar in Tableau, then you weren’t talking to someone from InterWorks. It may require a few steps, but as is often the case, all we need are a few clever calculations. So, what exactly do I mean by a “dynamic” fiscal calendar? […]
Mapping America’s Deadliest Shootings
Gun violence has experienced an uptick across America over the past few years, with major incidents increasing five-fold over the past decade.1 In documenting these incidents over time, the Los Angeles Times has put together an informative timeline that dates from 1984 to present. Scrolling through each tragic moment in history, I yearned for an accompanying visualization to summarize this […]
Predictive Analytics Applications: Stop Enabling Grady Little
It’s 2003, and the Red Sox haven’t been to the World Series since 1986 and haven’t won a World Series since 1918. Here, at this moment, in the 8th inning of Game 7 of the American League Championship Game against the hated New York Yankees, a decision is made that arguably changes the outcome of the […]
Tableau Driver’s Ed: The Four Phases of Drive
Now that the fundamentals of Tableau Drive have been established with our previous Driver’s Ed articles, let’s talk about the four phases of Drive. These are the broad steps necessary in building an analytical culture within your organization. If these look similar to traditional phases in project management, you’re absolutely correct. Building a culture for analytics […]
Quantified Office: Part 4 – Monitoring Coffee with Flic
Have you ever gotten up from your desk, walked over to the office kitchen, reached down to get coffee, only to find an empty coffee pot? If so, you personally know the inspiration behind our next installment in the Quantified Office series. At our office, we have a large metal carafe for coffee (exactly like the metal […]
5 Tips to Get the Most from Tableau Training
It’s 9 a.m., and you’ve just entered the classroom for your Tableau class, whether it’s Fundamentals or Advanced. Or, maybe you’ve just logged into the virtual classroom and are waiting for the rest of the students to show up in the chat window. How much you learn and how well you learn it is a […]
How to Trigger a Hidden View Using Multiple Tableau Worksheets
While not a regular occurrence, I have come across situations where a client wants to display a hidden sheet with an action filter but wants to enable different worksheets to activate the hidden sheet. If the sheets are filtering on different fields when you set an action filter to exclude – so the sheet is […]