Best of Tableau Web: April 2022
The Tableau Community provides many things to many people, both tangible and intangible. One of the greatest gifts I’ve received from the DataFam is the gift of feedback, something my partner in crime, Andy Cotgreave, mentioned in the lead up to last year’s IronViz competition.
Now, there are right and wrong ways to provide feedback, which is why I participated in Joshua Smith’s Feedback Loop a few years back. The Feedback Loop was a small group discussion framed around building visualizations and going through two feedback rounds, intentionally structured to improve how we give feedback. Nichole Klassen’s blog post, Lessons Learned from the Feedback Loop, reminded me that the Feedback Loop is still going strong! Today, she and Michelle Frayman run the program and her post points out some great lessons learned from participating.
The first, “Be Cautious About Providing Unsolicited Feedback,” can be very difficult in the age of Twitter! We’ve all been there: Someone posts a viz, and you have an immediate response and want to share. Stop! Make sure the author is actually looking for feedback before tweeting your opinion. And authors, if you do get unsolicited feedback, try giving the person providing feedback the benefit of the doubt and assume the best intentions.
One great example of unsolicited feedback going right was from Dorian Banutoiu and his blog, Call Center Dashboard in Tableau. Dorian participates in Real World Fake Data, and after posting his most recent submission, he got feedback from someone in the Call Center Operations business. While appreciating the beauty of the viz, Shazel Gomes pointed out that it wasn’t actionable and in some cases, irrelevant. Shazel took the time to provide other possible views that would have more value for the viz. Dorian engaged Shazel in a conversation, took the feedback into account, and updated the post with a second version of the viz.
“Surprise, surprise! The dashboard looks good but it’s irrelevant. There’s nothing more useless than a dashboard that isn’t actionable. Time to cry, right? Wrong! I started breaking down his comment and I realized how valuable it is. I like to think of myself that I’m good with Tableau, but my experience with Call Center data is a big fat 0 … With [Shazel’s feedback] in mind, I reworked the dashboard.” —Dorian Banutoui, Call Center Dashboard in Tableau
When it comes to feedback, keep in mind that a) no one knows absolutely everything, b) we all viz differently, and c) the answer to most things in the data viz world is “it depends.” So wait a beat, seek to understand and learn, and let’s keep the love flowing.
With that, enjoy Best of the Tableau Web with tips, tricks, inspiration and more produced by the Tableau community. Don't forget to check out the list of blogs we follow for Best of the Tableau Web. If you don’t see yours on the list, we invite you to add it here.
Calculations
- Can you switch between KPIs?
Donna Coles, Donna Coles
- Top 10 Functions in Tableau You Need to Know
Anthony Smoak, Smoak Signals
- How to Keep Superstore Data Sets Up to Date for Tableau
Eric Parker, OneNumber
Code
- How to Validate Join Results in Tableau Desktop
Eric Parker, Eric Parker
Data Culture, Blueprint
- Lessons Learned from the Feedback Loop
Nicole Klassen
Formatting, Design, Storytelling
- Top 10 Tableau Formatting Tricks
Eric Parker, OneNumber
- Tips for Building a Resume in Tableau
Brandi Beals
Inspiration
- Iron Quest Re-Viz-It – Recap
Sarah Bartlett, Sarah Loves Data
- #DataFam Tableau Wishlist
Adam Mico
- How to Make an Expanding Donut Chart in Tableau
Alyssa Huff, Playfair Data
Server
- How to build a Lineage Dashboard using only the Tableau Server Logs
Annabelle Rincon, Rativiz
- Tableau Data Sources Part 2: Published Data Sources & More
Ken Flerlage, The Flerlage Twins
Tips and Tricks
- 3 Ways to Normalize Data in Tableau
Matt Snivley, Playfair Data
- Tiny Tableau Tips - Round 1
Kevin Flerlage, The Flerlage Twins
- How to Create Horizon Charts in Tableau
Marc Reid, datavis.blog
- Tableau Conference Attendee Guide 2022 #data22
Sarah Bartlett, Sarah Loves Data
- Boosting Tableau Dashboard’s Performance
Priya Yogendra Rana
- Build Better Sparklines in Tableau
Anthony Smoak, Smoak Signals
- How to Fine-Tune Your Data for Tableau
Megan Menth, phData
- How to add dimensions after measures without converting measures into discrete values
Vani Agarwal
- Introduction to Tableau Actions + Filter Actions demos + BONUS Topics
Donabel Santos, sqlbelle
- Sets and the Set or Parameter Actions that Change Them
Jim Dehner
- Want to Deploy a Successful Dashboard? Ask These 3 Questions First
Nicole Mark, Mighty Canary
Visualizations
View last month’s Viz of the Day on Tableau Public gallery.
Related stories
Subscribe to our blog
Get the latest Tableau updates in your inbox.