Tour the interface

The screen where you build charts is called a worksheet. It looks busy, but you only need to know these 9 areas. The idea is simple: drag fields from the Data pane onto shelves, and Tableau draws the chart straight away. Your screen still shows the Start page; you’ll open a worksheet like this one yourself in the next lesson. Click a number on the picture to highlight its area.

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

1. 1Menus & toolbar Menus from File to Help, then quick buttons such as Undo, Save and Sort.
2. 2Data pane The fields of the Sales table; drag them from here onto the shelves.
3. 3Pages & Filters shelves Drop a field on Filters to filter the data; beginners rarely need Pages.
4. 4Marks card Sets the mark type plus Color, Size, Label, Detail and Tooltip.
5. 5Columns & Rows shelves Fields on Columns run across, fields on Rows run down.
6. 6View The canvas where Tableau draws the chart from the fields on the shelves.
7. 7Show Me Ready-made chart types, opened with the Show Me button at the top right. Types you can’t build yet are greyed out; the orange outline is Tableau’s suggestion.
8. 8Sheet tabs The Data Source tab, Sheet 1 and icons for a new sheet, dashboard or story.
9. 9Status bar The number of marks, rows by columns and the SUM(Revenue) total in the view.

Step by step

1. 1

   Step 1: Look at the top (number 1). The menu bar holds File, Data, Worksheet, Dashboard, Story, Analysis, Map, Format, Server, Window and Help. Below it, the toolbar holds quick buttons such as Undo, Save, Swap Rows and Columns and Sort; hover over a button to see its name.

   Tip: Undo (Ctrl+Z, Cmd+Z on a Mac) works as many times as you like, even after saving. So don’t be afraid to experiment.

2. 2

   Step 2: On the left is the side bar with the Data and Analytics tabs. The Data tab (number 2) lists the fields of your table. Fields above the thin line are dimensions (categories, e.g. Product and Region); below it are measures (numbers you can add up, e.g. Revenue).

   Tip: The blue and green colours on fields and pills have their own meaning. Module 2 covers it in full.

3. 3

   Step 3: Next to it are the Pages and Filters shelves (number 3) and the Marks card (number 4), whose Color, Size, Label, Detail and Tooltip buttons control how the marks look. Above the view sit the Columns and Rows shelves (number 5). This is the heart of Tableau: fields you put on these shelves are drawn in the view right away (number 6).

   Tip: Fields on Columns run across (to the right); fields on Rows run down. The mark type on the Marks card says Automatic: leave it for now and Tableau picks a suitable shape.

4. 4

   Step 4: Click the Show Me button at the right end of the toolbar to open or close the Show Me panel (number 7), the list of chart types. Below the view are the sheet tabs (number 8): Data Source to go back to the data page, Sheet 1, and three icons to add a new worksheet, dashboard or story. At the very bottom, the status bar (number 9) sums up what’s in the view.

   Tip: Double-click a sheet tab’s name to rename it, e.g. to "Revenue by Product".

   Watch out: In Show Me, greyed-out chart types can’t be built yet from the fields in the view or currently selected. Hover over a chart type to see which fields it needs.