Learn how to effectively use the Pages shelf in Tableau to create dynamic, presentation-ready visualizations that display changes over time. Understand why this underutilized feature can be a powerful alternative to creating multiple worksheets when analyzing year-over-year data.
Key Insights
- The Pages shelf enables users to break down visualizations into separate views by dimension values (such as years), allowing for both manual and automatic progression through data while maintaining a single worksheet.
- Although often overlooked by Tableau users and even some experts, the Pages feature proves valuable when combined with “Show History,” which overlays data from previous pages with a fading effect for effective year-over-year comparisons.
- Noble Desktop's training demonstrates how using Pages can simplify presentations and dashboards by avoiding the need for multiple worksheets and enabling features like looped playback and automatic transitions.
Note: These materials offer prospective students a preview of how our classes are structured. Students enrolled in this course will receive access to the full set of materials, including video lectures, project-based assignments, and instructor feedback.
So I'm going to go to that section. I'm going to skip filters because we sort of did this. This is where we were working with the years, and we did the single.
We just kind of jumped the gun, but we combined it with the sets, and that kind of messed things up. So this is exactly what we did, and this is where we have the single value list. So I'm going to go over to pages.
Pages create a type of filter that splits your charts into multiple linear displays. That's ideal because you don't necessarily want to create four different worksheets. You could do it in one worksheet.
Pages can be advanced through manually or automatically using the associated page card. Page history can be enabled to view preceding page data at the same time as your current data. Filters are useful, but we cannot say the same about pages.
Whenever I see someone teach this, they put pages down. They talk about how Tableau says, one person who works in Tableau says, sometimes I even forget this feature exists. That's how little I use it.
Tableau experts have said that they've forgotten it's even there. So let's duplicate our filter page and call it pages. So I'm going to use the option where I had filters because I'm going to need those filters.
So let's see. I think I might have just taken it out, so I'm going to recreate it. I'm going to use the line chart here.
I'm going to duplicate the line chart, and then I'm going to take order date. Just so you're clear what I'm doing, I'm going to call this subline pages. I'm going to take order date, and I'm going to drag it into filters, and I'm going to choose years.
I'm going to select all, and I'm going to click okay. You will never see the filter until you click the drop down and choose show filter. So you just have to know that's the case.
That's how it works in Tableau. You're like, I brought it in. I selected all.
How come nothing is happening? You have to show it. If you don't like this, choose single value. Okay.
Now we're duplicating our filter page. We're going to call it pages, and we're going to remove the filters. Okay.
What is a good practice on how to do the filters? I forgot we have to take this out because pages is going to handle this for us. You can combine filters and pages, but it's not recommended. It's not recommended.
Sales broken down by category and subcategory. Order date to pages. So you're going to take order date, and you're going to move that over to pages.
Now I start to remember that. This is our subcategory. This is really small.
Let me take a look at the years here. This is 2014. This is all you're seeing.
I'm going to go over here to the right. Did I edit this? I edited this for 400,000. So I'm going to edit access and say, I'm sorry.
I apologize. I need you to be automatic because this is what happens when you go in and you change things and you forget that Tableau is better at making this automatic. Let's see.
How are my tick marks? Tick marks are the same. 25,000. That's not bad.
That works. I want this to be above sum of sales. I'm going to drag it up here.
Okay. Ready to see multiple years? Here's 2014,2015,2016,2017. This works great in a presentation.
I'll start over. 2014,2015,2016,2017. Okay, Garfield, this is not as exciting as I thought.
Thank you for answering my question. I'm not thrilled about this. Oh, wait, let me show you this trick.
You can click a play button, and it can run automatically. I'm going to go over here, and I'm going to click the play button like a slideshow. One click.
Now, I'm not touching. Oh, look at that. That's cool.
That's it? It's done? Is there a way that you could have this repeat? Oh, yeah. Let me see. I want to customize this.
Loop playback. All right. Very good.
When I have my convention, I'm going to put this on the big screen, and then I'm just going to click this button, and then I'm going to sit back and just let it run, and then people can look at our sales. Okay, Garfield. You got anything else? Well, notice here, every time I change, the year changes.
It's actually looking at the value for the filter here. So, you can add more than just the year. If you want, you could also add quarters.
Well, actually, that's the filter. I'm thinking of the filter. The filter, you can add year, you can add quarters, and you can give people the ability to filter by both.
Okay, Garfield, I'm still not impressed. I wanted to be able to see the difference across multiple years. Okay, now I got you.
I think I know what you're talking about. This is the one feature that makes working with pages worth it. You have to click show history.
You have to click this dropdown here and choose all, and when you choose all, you now automatically have a fade that will happen for each year. Nothing happened. You're in the first year.
You have to go to the second year. Oh, wait a minute. You mean this is overlaying and showing me multiple? Oh, so the sales go up each year.
That's right. The first year, it's the lowest point. Then 2015, and this is a very easy visual display.
You do not have to create four different worksheets and try to overlay them and choose transparency. This is just one feature, one worksheet that you can use in your visualization. This button will be available to people in the dashboard for them to click and go through.
So, this is going to be the best option if you want to display data across multiple years. This is the one feature that really helps pages stand out from anything else because the slideshow part where you're just showing individual years might not be as interesting as this.