4 steps to improve development in Tableau
Beauty in visualizations on a dashboard, and in the accompanying documentation, is essential. But what do we mean by beauty in documentation?
Convenience: No extra steps are needed to find what you need.
Clarity: Names clearly indicate the content, and comments explain the logic of calculations.
Efficiency: It's easy to pick up where other developers left off, even if the dashboards were created a long time ago and now need improvement.
Here are our 4 cards to examine your dashboard work
Here are our 4 cards to examine your dashboard work
Fields from data source
- Use Comments: Add comments to fields to help understand the specifics of the data.
- Avoid Aliases: Try not to use aliases in calculations. If necessary, create a copy of the field with aliases for labels, and perform calculations on the original field.
Further work and documentation
- Folders: Group similarly used fields into folders, such as filters, formatting, fields with aliases, meaning groups, and numbering.
- Caption: Provide a brief description of the visualization. It can be used for reference or to add your comments.
- Describe sheet. Contains the main visualization parameters: Caption, Marks, Filters, Rows, Columns, etc. It can be used for documentation.
To access:
• Go to Worksheet > Describe Sheet
• Or press Ctrl+E (Cmd+E)
Calculated fields
- Names: give names that are easy to understand.
- Formulas: Break the logic into steps. Use hyphens to make the formula easier to read. Avoid duplication. Replace constants with parameters. Create a validation sheet.
- Comments: Describe the purpose and process of the calculation. Use the Describe feature to understand the value of a field and display metadata.
//single line comment
/* multi-line comment */
Packing work
- Remove unused fields
- Use color coding for sheets
- Add an update log
Try to avoid similar names for calculated fields
In one of our projects, we found numerous fields with nearly identical names, which led to a cascade of errors.
Let's try to find all the incorrect names of calculations and pages on your server
Let's audit your dataviz
Let's audit your dataviz
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