Tableau Filled Maps at the City Level

I am working on a filled map showing in gradual colors visitors from each state, but how do I get the map down to more granular scale than just state? Whenever I try to use the city dimension, Tableau pops a warning message saying that the city field can't be used to create the filled maps . Does this mean we need zip code level or some other dimension added in there as well? I've already tried all of the different globe options. 

You can't use City in a filled map because Tableau doesn't have the borders for each city. It does have the lat/long though, so just change your chart type to Circle. Also, adding Country and State to the Detail shelf will help Tableau identify more of the cities. Otherwise you get a lot of Ambiguous city locations.

OK, but once I convert the geo map to circles, there is no relative depth to the shape in terms of its measure (a.k.a one city which has a lot more website sessions doesn't have a different sized/ colored circle than a city with significantly less sessions). Is there an obvious way to make these differences more apparent on this level of detail?

You're right. Although you could add sessions to the color and/or size shelves, maps are best at showing where things happen, not so much their intensity or frequency. You normally end up with a few outliers that throw off the range of values and makes it hard to see most differences. I recommend a combination of charts - perhaps a map at the top and a bar at the bottom. They don't have to be at the same level of detail - you should use actions to filter or highlight selections.

Conditional Color Coding in Tableau

This question came from one of our clients: Several of our clients would like to see conditional color coding and we can't figure out how to make it work consistently. For example, in Excel we have two columns, one for 2015 and one for 2016. We'd like to color code the 2016 column to show whether the value is more or less than the 2015 value. Is there any way to do this? 

That's a great question and is a problem we run into a lot too. You only have two options (three if you count the up/down characters you can put into the Custom Format field).

Tableau assigns colors to each Continuous measure in your visualization - if you use Measure Values, that only counts as one. So you can either color the entire row, or you can create separate worksheets for the colored and non-colored marks and put them on a dashboard together.

Notes:
1) if you have to scroll through your viz, there's no way to synchronize multiple worksheets.
2) If you are using only 1 color (for example red to indicate lower performance), you can use black as your other color which makes it look normal.

I also want to use this color coding system: Green= At or above goal, Yellow = 2% under goal or less, Red= 2%+ under goal. I'm trying to set up custom colors (see attached), but it never lets me get specific enough. 

To do the custom color coding, create a calculated field with IF statements that compares the actual value to the criteria (E.g. 

IF [value] >= [goal] THEN 'Green' 
ELSEIF [value] >=.98*[goal] THEN 'Yellow' 
ELSE 'Red' 
END 

Then assign the appropriate colors to each value.

Now I need help creating the formula to show the difference between two columns. Is there any way to do "2016 values - 2015 values" or something like that? I would make an If/Then calc for 2015 and 2016 and then make a separate calculated field to find the difference, but once I add the 2016 filter it won't work, right?

The best way I've found to do the YoY calculations is using a calculated field called "Relative Year". It's just the difference between the current date and the report date. E.g. DATEDIFF('year', [report date], TODAY()) You should get 0 for the current year, -1 for 1 year back, -2 for 2 years back etc. Then you can make calculated fields for current year, 1 year back, and change this year over last year. It's all dynamic and doesn't require any filters outside the calculated fields.

Email Subscriptions to Tableau Dashboards

Tableau and Tableau Server is designed to allow easy, interactive ways to explore data sets. However sometimes you just need a snapshot of your data to make a quick decision whether additional action or exploration is necessary. For these times, Tableau Server allows users to subscribe to views via e-mail. 

If this functionality is configured by the Server administrator, users will see an envelope icon at the top when viewing a visualization:



To set up a subscription, click the icon, enter your e-mail address, and select the options for your subscription:




Select a delivery schedule (options are set by the Server administrator) and whether you want to receive only the current view or all views in the workbook.

Subscriptions are processed according to the schedule selected, but there will be a delay before the email is received. This will vary depending on the time it takes to render the workbook view(s) and how many other subscriptions are processed on the same schedule.

The e-mail will come from the address configured by the Server administrator and will have the Subject you entered. Any view(s) you selected will appear in the body as inline images, so you can see the visualization(s) without opening any attachments. If you selected all the views in the workbook, they appear one below the next. Clicking on any image will take you to that view on Tableau Server for additional analysis!

To view or change your subscriptions, log into Tableau Server, click your name in the upper right and select My Content. Click the Subscriptions option and your subscriptions are listed.



Need more help? Open a ticket with Alight.

Could not connect to server error in Tableau

Your data is important to you. 

To make accessing it as secure as possible, we only allow you to connect to your database from a known IP address. This is known as IP whitelisting. Normally, offices have a static (unchanging) IP address or one or more known IP address ranges, so there is no maintenance after the initial set-up. However sometimes this IP will change, or an unknowing user will try to connect from a different network. (If your company uses a Virtual Private Network - VPN - for access to the corporate network from home or the road you will normally be able to connect to your data after connecting to the VPN.) 

If you're suddenly unable to connect to your data sources provided by Alight Analytics, your current IP address may not be whitelisted. 

Your IT department can usually provide a list of your company's public IP address or IP address ranges. To confirm you're current IP is whitelisted, find it by typing "my IP" in Chrome's address bar, or by going to a website like https://www.whatismyip.com/ or http://www.whatsmyip.org/ then submit it to Alight via a ticket. We will check it against our systems and report back to you. 

Tableau Blending

Can't get your blend to work? Not sure why? Try this quick tip: 

Your blend fields are dependent on your visualization: use the date aggregation and any dimensions used in the viz or as a filter.

Filtering on country? Make sure you blend on it.
Showing mediums? Use it in your blend.

Date is a little more complicated and generally requires you to create a calculated field. If you're showing by month and year, create a month+year field and blend on it. Year to date? Create a field for YTD and use it in your blend.

For more information on using dates in blending, see my blog post. 

Tableau Server Extracts vs Published Data Sources

I got a question the other day asking whether using an extracted data source on Tableau Server is the same as using a published data source. Good question! The difficulty I had explaining this led me to create the following explanation:

• Publishing a data source affects how the data is accessed
• Extracting a data source affects where data is located

The first thing you normally do when you create a new Tableau Desktop workbook is connect to data. You may connect to data in Excel, a relational database like Microsoft SQL, an online data source like Google Analytics, etc. In each case, the information required is different: path, file name, tab for Excel; server, username, password, database, and table for Microsoft SQL; username, password, account, property, profile, date range, dimensions, measures, segment for Google Analytics; etc. If you are providing data access to analysts, this is probably more than you want to manage.

Instead of having your users connect to different data sources, you can instead publish them to Tableau Server. In effect, you are using Tableau Server as a proxy: users connect to Tableau Server and behind the scenes Tableau Server retrieves the data from the original source. This method of providing data access not only simplifies access for the users, it combines and reduces user administration to a single location (Tableau Server), and it allows you as the administrator to present consistent field names and calculations to users independent of the original data source.

 

Publishing a Data Source to Tableau Server 

While publishing a data source makes it easier for users to access data and administrators to manage it, extracts are typically done to make data access faster and reduce database load. When you extract data using Tableau Desktop, it makes an local copy of the data that's optimized for analysis. If the workbook is published, Tableau Server gets a copy of the data which it can refresh from the original data source. 

Using Data Extracts 

Additional information:

http://www.tableau.com/about/blog/2014/7/understanding-tableau-data-extracts-part1

http://www.tableau.com/about/blog/2014/7/why-use-tableau-data-extracts-32187

http://www.tableau.com/tableau-data-extracts-part3

Publishing to Channelmix

For Alight Analytics clients, publishing to Channelmix is easy! Since you've already logged in to Channelmix to access your data sources, select Server -> Publish Workbook from the Tableau Desktop menu bar, complete the entries in the dialog box and click Publish.

• Select the Project you wish to publish to. If you are publishing for one of your clients, you will normally select their company name from the Projects list. 
• Enter the name as you want your workbook to appear in Channelmix. If you enter the name of an existing workbook (in the same Project), you will be prompted before it is overwritten.
• Put a checkmark in the boxes next to each View you want to share. 
• If you have purchased additional Channelmix licenses and have set up users for your clients, you may need to set the Permissions. If not, accept the defaults. 

You can get more help online on the Tableau website or by opening a ticket with Alight.