How Multi-fact Relationships Simplified Our Data Model at Tableau
Business intelligence without data modeling is unthinkable. And physical joins are no longer enough; logical data models are increasingly needed. They allow you to create complex structures without having to manually write queries. As a self-service tool, Tableau made this possible in 2020 by introducing relationships. They made data models more flexible and productive.
There was this data structure:
- Sales are in the Orders table.
- Stocks are in the Inventory table.
- Categories and product descriptions are in the Products table.
- The names of retail outlets are in the Stores table.
Business challenge: Identify illiquid goods in different categories
A warehouse in this context is a specific point of sale. The report should present sales and stocks of goods by category. It is important to include a comparison with the previous period to track the dynamics. Also, a user should be able to filter out one of the points of sale to dig deeper into its KPIs.
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 to fields. Help to understand the specifics of the data.
- Try not to use Aliases. Not used in calculations, at least. If necessary, create a copy of the field with aliases for signatures, and do the calculations on the original field.
- Further work and documentation
- Folders. Use them to group similarly used fields: filters, formatting, fields with aliases, meaning groups, and numbering.
- Caption. Brief description of the visualization. It can be used for reference or to make your comments.
- Describe sheet. Contains the main visualization parameters: Caption, Marks, Filters, Rows, Columns, etc.
It can be used for documentation.
Call:
Worksheet > Describe Sheet
or Ctrl+E (Cmd+E)
- Calculated fields
- Names.
- Give names your mom can understand.
- Formulas. Break the logic into steps. Use hyphens to make the formula easier to read. Be careful with duplication. Replace constants with parameters. Create a validation sheet
- Comments. Describe the purpose of the calculation and the calculation process. Use Describe to Understand the Value of a Field and display metadata.
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- Packing work
- Remove unused fields
- Use color coding sheets
- Add update log
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