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Module 04 · Building visuals

Core visuals

Bar, line, highlight table and a big number (BAN): one sheet per visual.

Step by step7 minLesson 13 of 21 Free

In Tableau, one visual = one sheet. These four visuals need four sheets: one already exists from Module 1, and you build the other three in this lesson. In Module 5 you arrange some of them into a dashboard. Add a sheet with the New Worksheet icon in the tab strip at the bottom (or Worksheet → New Worksheet). Double-click a sheet tab to give it a clear name, e.g. Revenue by Month. Every step in this module is the same in Tableau Public and Tableau Desktop.

Illustration of four Tableau visuals: a bar chart of revenue by product, a line chart of revenue by month, a Region × Channel highlight table, and a big number showing total revenue. Zoom
The four core visuals, each on its own sheet. Numbers are after the cleaning in Module 2.

Click a number on the picture or in this list to highlight that area.

Step by step

  1. Step 1: You built the product bar chart (number 1, the Revenue by Product sheet) in Module 1. For a line chart (number 2), add a new sheet named Revenue by Month, then drag Date to Columns and Revenue to Rows. Because there is a date, Tableau draws a line automatically.

    Tip: At first the pill reads YEAR(Date) and the line has only 2 points (2025 and 2026). Right-click that pill and pick Month in the second group (the one whose examples show month and year). The pill turns green and the line shows every month.

  2. Step 2: Add a new sheet named Revenue by Region and Channel for a highlight table (number 3): drag Region to Rows, Channel to Columns, then Revenue to Text on the Marks card. Drag Revenue once more to Color, then change the Automatic dropdown on the Marks card to Square.

    Tip: Not sure which chart to use? Ctrl-click a few fields in the Data pane (Mac: Cmd-click), then click Show Me at the top right. The suggested chart has an orange outline. Practise the logic in the chart-selection simulator.

  3. Step 3: For the BAN (number 4), add a new sheet named Total Revenue, then drag Revenue to Text on the Marks card. Right-click the SUM(Revenue) pill on the Marks card → Format... → Pane tab → Default → Numbers → Number (Custom), then set Decimal places to 2 and Display Units to Billions (B).

    Tip: Make it big: click Text → the ... button, select the text, pick a large size (e.g. 28), then OK. To centre the number as in the picture, change Standard on the toolbar to Entire View, then click Text → Alignment → centre. On a computer set to Indonesian, the number may show as 2,37B.

    Watch out: Seeing 2.38B? Then the 7 rows without a Region (Null) are still counted. Add the data source filter without Null as in Module 2.