Stories

A story is Tableau’s series of "slides". Each story point shows one sheet or dashboard, plus a one-sentence caption in the navigator at the top. Readers see your findings one at a time, in the order you choose. In this lesson you build three story points.

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

1. 1New story point Blank adds an empty point; Duplicate copies the current point.
2. 2Navigator A row of caption boxes, one per story point; click one to jump to it.
3. 3Sheets Your dashboards and sheets; drag one onto the story point.
4. 4Story point content The dashboard shown on the current point, still clickable.

Step by step

1. 1

   Step 1: Click the New Story icon in the tab strip at the bottom (the third small icon), or choose Story → New Story. A Story 1 tab opens. Drag Sales Dashboard from the Sheets list in the left pane (number 3) onto the empty area in the middle that reads Drag a sheet here (number 4).

   Tip: The story size (Size at the bottom of the Story pane) includes the title and the navigator, so it must be bigger than the dashboard inside it. The size in the picture, Story (1016 x 964), fits a 1000 x 800 dashboard. If scroll bars appear, pick a bigger size.

2. 2

   Step 2: Double-click the caption box in the navigator (number 2), which starts out reading Add a caption, and replace the text with your takeaway: Revenue reached 2.37B. Write the finding, not just the chart’s name.

   Tip: Captions can be in any language. Keep them short: one sentence that reads easily from across the room.

3. 3

   Step 3: Add the next point with New story point → Blank (number 1), drag the Revenue by Product sheet (the product bar chart from Module 1) onto the middle area, and caption it Laptops = 1 in 3 rupiah. Repeat once more with the Revenue by Region sheet and the caption Jakarta leads.

   Tip: Duplicate is handy when the next point uses the same dashboard with a different filter. After changing the filter, click Update on the small toolbar above the navigator box so the new state is saved to that point.

   Watch out: A story point holds just one sheet or one dashboard. If you need several charts at once, build a dashboard first and put that in. Keep one message per point.