Tableau is the fastest-growing platform for visual analytics on the market. It allows users to simplify raw data into a format that’s easy to access and understand by those working at any level of an organization. Even non-technical Tableau users can create customized dashboards and worksheets with the help of this versatile tool. It’s relied on by teachers, students, Data Scientists, Analysts, executives, and business owners for their end-to-end analytics needs.
This article will explore how KPI dashboards and visualizations can be created using Tableau, as well as some of the benefits of using this platform for doing so.
What is a KPI Dashboard?
Key performance indicators, or KPIs, are used to evaluate various elements of how a business is performing. They provide a quick overview of crucial performance metrics pertaining to revenue, sales, or trends, which can be used to fuel data-driven decisions. It’s important to select KPIs that are relevant to your business’s strategic objectives so that departmental or collective performance can be evaluated next to them. It’s also a good practice to identify KPI targets your business can work toward and to specify how they will be measured, in both the immediate future as well as in the long-term.
KPI dashboards are tools used to bring data sources together and offer a visual depiction of how your business is doing with regard to its KPIs. They offer a way to quickly track important business metrics via a customizable data visualization that indicates both performance and status.
Some of the benefits of working with a KPI dashboard include:
- Increased team motivation
- Early detection of problems
- The ability to measure progress and ensure goals are being met
- Improved, faster decision-making
- An indication of a need to adjust tactics or future plans
- An overview of the business’s financial health
What is a KPI Visualization?
One of the most useful tools available for presenting complicated material in an accessible way is data visualization. This rapidly evolving field is focused on using visual representations like graphs or charts to convey raw data. Presenting data in a visual manner makes it easier to understand and faster to process, even for those who aren’t mathematically inclined or trained in analytics. These visual representations of data aren’t just visually appealing, they also tell a story about the information, allowing audience members to spot outliers, notice trends, and see patterns emerge from data. Visually conveying points is a powerful way to leverage data to achieve a desired outcome.
There are many kinds of data visualizations, each of which serves a specific professional purpose. Some of the most popular techniques for conveying information are:
- Histograms
- Area charts
- Scatter plots
- Infographics
- Maps
- Pie charts
- Box-and-whisker plots
- Heat maps
A KPI visualization is the visual depiction of the KPI that’s the central data point of a dossier. KPI visualizations can convey the entire metric value or how a given metric like profit does over time. Those creating KPI visualizations can elect to split a KPI card into several KPI cards if necessary.
Creating KPI Dashboards & Visualizations in Tableau
Tableaus interactive services help users create an array of stunning, helpful data visualizations that are designed to impart essential information in a way that audience members can understand. Tableau’s KPI dashboards rely on charts, graphs, and other kinds of visualizations to engage with audiences. They are often color-coded and include arrows that show if a trend is going up or down.
When creating KPI dashboards in Tableau, there are several tips that can help to create more effective and engaging visuals that help audience members absorb information that’s essential to their objectives:
- Don’t get carried away with design frills. Instead, select only a limited number of KPIs to display on a single screen, which will convey one objective. While it may seem like a good idea to include as much information as possible in a dashboard, doing so will likely overwhelm your audience and leave them unsure of what the most important takeaways are. Choosing KPIs and other visual elements carefully helps to avoid an overload of graphs and ensures that the audience will notice important information and trends.
- Tell a story. Data-driven storytelling is a powerful and effective means of communicating numerical data to an audience. It involves breaking down bare data and incorporating various narrative elements to help ground the facts. In order to do so, data visualization techniques such as images and charts are applied to depict the meaning of the data in a relevant and engaging manner. Data Analysts wishing to tell a data-driven story must begin by analyzing and filtering extensive datasets so that they can find new avenues into understanding the information. Keep in mind that effective data stories have many of the same components of good novels: They are cognizant of their target audience, establish a setting, have a plot, and characters or stakeholders.
- Indicate trends over time. Graphs that indicate the context or history of the information tend to be more helpful than those that present information apart from its larger context. By indicating trends over time, the audience is invited to form their own decisions about variables such as seasonal trends that may not have been noticed without contextual information.
- Resist the urge to overuse colors. Some color is good in Tableau KPI dashboards and visualizations, especially color that is used deliberately to indicate contrast or highlight important information. However, it’s possible to overwhelm audience members with color schemes that overpower the information they intend to convey. For this reason, it’s important to choose a simple color palette to present relevant data.
Basic Steps for Creating Tableau KPI Dashboards
Those who want to create a Tableau KPI dashboard should begin by double-checking that they have the necessary resources. They must have a computer with at least 1.5GB of free space, as well as 2GB of RAM. In addition, having a basic understanding of data analysis and data visualization is important as well. Users must also have a subscription to Tableau Desktop and access to a suitable dataset.
Once these prerequisites are met, the following steps should be executed to make a Tableau KPI dashboard:
- First, users need to prepare the dataset and ensure that it’s in the proper format.
- Next is the data visualization phase, during which time the dataset is converted into one of Tableau’s chart types such as a scatter plot, histogram, or map.
- Then, users can apply filters to fit their needs, as well as create additional measures or bullet charts to offer the audience additional information based on the same figure.
- The final step in creating a KPI dashboard in Tableau involves putting the KPIs into one dashboard so that it can be shared with others via Tableau Server.
Hands-on Tableau & Data Visualization Classes
Are you interested in learning more about how to create stunning and helpful data visualizations? If so, Noble Desktop offers a variety of Tableau classes that are designed to prepare students to work with this industry-standard data visualization software.
Noble Desktop’s data analytics classes are open to students with no prior coding experience. These full-time and part-time courses are taught by top New York Data Analysts and provide timely and hands-on training for those wishing to learn more about topics that extend beyond data visualization such as Python, SQL, Excel, or data science, among others. In addition, Noble’s live online data visualization courses are designed for students who prefer learning in the virtual format.
Noble Desktop’s Classes Near Me tool is designed for those who want to locate other data visualization courses in the area. Over 200 courses are currently listed that provide training for those who are new to working with data, as well as those with prior experience who hope to perfect their data visualization skills. Courses cost between $119 and $12,995, and last between three hours and five months.