Hello and welcome to another Data School Tableau blog!
Recently I had a charity, Movember, as a client who wanted my team to create dashboards which had key information for board members but were also visually appealing and marketable to the public, these types of dashboards are called infographics. I didn’t have any previous experience building infographic type dashboards, I was much more comfortable building a corporate style, so I didn’t really know where to start. However, after the experience I realised they’re not as difficult as they seem, all you need is a few tips and tricks and you’ll have your dashboards looking like they’re built by graphic designers in no time!
I’m unable to share my client’s data with you so today I’ll be using… yep, you guessed it… Superstore data… to:
1) Create a donut chart
2) Make the chart an infographic by editing an image and overlaying it over the chart to make it appear like the image itself is a dynamic chart
Step 1 – Create a donut chart:
- Once you’ve loaded the dataset on Tableau, open a new sheet and change the Marks type to Pie. Drag the measure that you want onto the Angle marks card. This will give you a circle with no slices, and the value will be the sum of your measure. In my case the measure is SUM(Sales), for this to work well with a pie chart later it’s a good idea to create a table calc for the % of total.
- I want the pie to be divided into different slices for the “segment” dimension and for one segment to be coloured one colour, and all other segments another. So I created a calculated field called ‘Colour’ with the calculation:
[segment]='Consumer'
This returns a boolean (true or false) field on my dimensions pane. I drag this onto the colour marks card. You can choose the colours by double clicking on the colour legend on the right-hand side. Make the colour for “true” visible and the colour for “false” opaque.
It’s also best practice to have the slice you’re interested in to start at the most north point of the circle. To do this, right click on the Colour pill on the Marks Shelf and click Sort… In the next window, you want to Sort By Manual and make sure True is above False.
- To create the donut hole, we need to overlay another pie chart over the top colour it white and reduce the size. First we need tocreate a calculated field with the formula 1 in it. Then, drag the calculated field onto rows and again onto columns and select dual axis. Click the colour mark, make the colour white, then click the size make and reduce the size.
You’ve created a donut chart! Tune in to Part 2 of this blog to overlay an image and make it infographic!
Author: Thomas Maple
Tom is an enthusiastic and determined member of The Data School. He previously worked as a network engineer for a wholesale ISP and even created his own virtual escape room business with colleagues during COVID lockdowns. Tom has completed an associate degree in Engineering Technology, as well as his bachelor and honours in Computer and Network Engineering at RMIT. He is always striving to upskill, achieving certifications such as Cisco CCNA, Juniper JNCIA. While at The Data School he has recently achieved his Alteryx Core certificate and is currently studying to achieve his Alteryx Advanced and Tableau Desktop Certified Associate certificate. Tom’s interests include sports (particularly AFL, he follows the Melbourne Football Club), horse racing, cooking (and eating), as well as outdoor activities such as camping, hiking and SCUBA diving.