Tableau Show Me is one of Tableau’s original awesome factors. Today, we will learn why it was created and how to use Tableau Show me to instantly turn data into beautiful visuals.
Purpose of Show Me Tab in Tableau
Tableau Show Me was created to help business people quickly turn data into visuals.
It was designed to bridge the gap between the quantitative domain and graphic design. Ultimately, Tableau Show Me is highly effective in enabling an average person to create highly analytical, interactive visuals and dashboards that are both useful and visually appealing.
Show me in Tableau has visual design best practices built in and it recommends a best practice based on the data you select. With one click, you can have a chart.
- Rename Sheet 2 “Sales Table.” Duplicate your Sales Table tab by right clicking Duplicate. Drag it to the end of the tabs.
- Rename your new tab to Show Me. In the top right, you’ll see a tab labeled “Show Me.” This is one of the most amazing features of Tableau. By dragging data out into the main pane, Tableau Show Me will let you know which chart types you can use to showcase your data. Note that on Tableau’s Show Me, Different views allow different insights to come forward. It will recommend a view by highlighting that particular box in Show Me, but the other possible combinations, given the data you’ve provided, will also be visible.
- Click on Tableau Show Me and you should see 17 of the possible 24 out-of-the-box chart types available, given this data.
- You’ll notice the discrete line chart is highlighted by a blue box. This is how Tableau Show Me recommends a chart type as the best way to visualize the data in the view. But there are other options which you can cycle through that might surface new insights.
- To start in using Tableau Show Me for quick insight, click the discrete line chart icon highlighted in blue. You’ll see Sales as your y-axis on the Rows shelf and your order date in years along with the Columns. Notice how Tableau’s Show Me rearranged your data on the shelf in order to create the viz.
- Now on Tableau’s Show Me, click the Packed Bubbles icon in the lower right corner. You’ll see a view with a bunch of colored circles. Notice how all of your dimensions and measures have been moved over to the Marks card.
- Tableau Show Me can take care of the arrangement of data in order to build visuals at the speed of thought, freeing you up to be thinking about your data and your questions, rather than the mechanics of how to build a particular chart.
- Let’s say you don’t want to use the Bubble Chart. That was cool, but didn’t provide you much insight. There’s a quick way to get back to what you had previously. Tableau has an unlimited undo feature, which is wonderful. If you go up to the top left, right below File, you’ll see a back arrow. Click that and it will undo, taking you back to the line chart. Click it again and it will take you back to the table.
- Now, drag Customer Segment up to the Columns shelf next to Order Date. Look at what options change in Tableau Show Me. You now have 17 options available. So the data you choose dictates some of the types of charts you can create.
- Here’s a nice time-saving trick in Tableau Show Me if you aren’t sure what type of chart you want to create: In your Dimensions and Measures panes, hold down the Ctrl key and then click on potential data fields that might be of interest. Watch how Tableau Show Me provides chart options, giving you some idea of where to go before you ever bring any data into the actual view.
Now that you finally understand the Tableau Show Me Menu, let us show you how to become better in using Tableau through our training and courses.