How to use Show Me in Tableau!

0:00Hey it's Tim here and in today's video I'm

0:03here to talk about a feature that's been

0:03part of the

0:04Tableau setup for a long long while that is

0:06the Show Me feature in Tableau. I've

0:08actually got

0:08Tableau open here and if I just bring out

0:10my annotation tools the Show Me feature

0:12lives here

0:13on the top right hand side of the screen.

0:15Now this has been part of Tableau for a

0:17long long

0:18while but I actually think a lot of people

0:19don't use this correctly. So what I'd like

0:21to do in this

0:22video is show you one how to use it, two

0:24how I think you should be using it and then

0:27three show

0:28you some examples with some charts. Okay

0:30let's get stuck in. Okay so let me show you

0:32how Show Me

0:33works. What I've done is I've just reset

0:35Tableau completely so you can see how I got

0:37to Show Me.

0:37I'm just going to connect to Superstore

0:39sales here by clicking on this sample EU

0:41Superstore data set

0:42on the left hand side. That brings us to

0:44this interface here and over here on the

0:46top right

0:47hand side you can see the Show Me feature

0:49is right there. Now Show Me is quite a cool

0:52feature,

0:52it's actually been in Tableau for a while

0:54in fact Tableau thinks it's so important

0:55they've even

0:56trademarked it. So I'm going to show you

0:58how it works. Essentially you can actually

1:00undock Show Me,

1:01a lot of people don't know this, if I just

1:03drag this you can see that it leaves the

1:04top right

1:05hand corner and can float it around. This

1:07is because it's meant to help you in your

1:08analysis

1:09so you can actually put it where it makes

1:11the most sense. So for this I'm actually

1:12going to move it

1:13over here on the left hand side. I'm just

1:15going to move it underneath the marks pane

1:16and then I'm

1:17going to create more space by dragging this

1:19out to the right hand side so it's almost

1:21part of this

1:22little left hand side pane. I'd love to be

1:24able to dock it down here but unfortunately

1:26we can't do

1:26that. So how does Show Me work? Well if I

1:28hover over one of these charts you see that

1:30it gives you

1:31a clue right here at the bottom. You can

1:33see that it says for highlight tables try

1:36one dimension and

1:37one measure. So let's go ahead and do that.

1:40Let's try one dimension segment and I'm

1:42going to hold

1:42command or control on the windows and then

1:44select cells and you can see that when I

1:46select those two

1:47things whilst holding control or command a

1:50bunch of the charts light up and so what's

1:52going on here

1:53is it's telling you what's possible with

1:55these two data sets. So if I go ahead now

1:57and click on this

1:58highlight table it will actually build out

2:00the highlight table for you. Notice what

2:03happens it

2:03brings some items here into the marks pane

2:05onto the columns and rows and then

2:07obviously we have

2:08this legend that turns up. So it's actually

2:10doing quite a lot of work for you. Now what

2:12we can also

2:13do is now that we have data on the chart

2:15you can also change it. So let's say that I

2:17click on this

2:19other heat map over here. This is a

2:20horizontal bars chart. I don't think that's

2:23actually right.

2:23This is more of a sort of like a shaped

2:26heat map of sorts. This is just the

2:28standard table

2:29and as you can see it's building these sort

2:31of charts on the fly and every single time

2:33something's

2:33changing in the marks, columns, rows, the

2:36legend is always changing and if you go

2:38down to something

2:39even more complex like a box plot you can

2:41see that there's actually not much

2:43information there.

2:44There's only segment and sales and somehow

2:46that's ended up with a box plot but we're

2:48using a circle

2:49chart type and so my real challenge to a

2:51lot of people is actually when you're using

2:53Show Me,

2:54do you really understand what's going on?

2:56Do you really actually understand what's

2:58going on under

2:58the hood? The feature is called Show Me for

3:00a reason. It's supposed to show you how to

3:02build

3:03these charts but if you don't take the time

3:05to actually look at how it's doing that

3:07then you're

3:07not going to get the value from learning

3:09how to use this feature. So that's

3:11essentially what I

3:12want to try and do. I'm going to show you

3:14where to pay attention when you're using

3:16Show Me so you can

3:17see what's happening and then at the end I

3:18'm going to show you how to do that in

3:20practice with four

3:21charts. Okay so let's clear the sheet and

3:23let's start again and really understand

3:25what's going on.

3:26I'm just going to close the Show Me pane

3:27here on the left and I'm just going to hit

3:29this option

3:30here at the top to clear the sheet and that

3:32means we've reset the view, we've got

3:33nothing in there

3:34and we're ready to go again. Okay so for

3:36this one what I'm going to do I'm going to

3:38do something

3:38slightly different. I'm going to select

3:40order date, I'm going to hold command on

3:42the mac,

3:42control on the windows and sales and when

3:44we do those you'll see those two are

3:46highlighted.

3:47Then I'm going to go to the top right hand

3:49side select Show Me. This time I'm not

3:51going to undock

3:51it, I'm going to leave it on the top right

3:53because I'd like to leave some space here

3:55on the

3:55visualization so I can show you a few

3:57things. Now what I'm going to do is I'm

3:59actually going to

4:00choose a tree map this time. Okay I'm going

4:02to choose this chart type over here so let

4:04's hit

4:04select and Tableau will build that

4:06automatically. Now this is a very nice

4:08simple chart and I've

4:09chosen it deliberately because it makes it

4:11very easy for us to look at certain things.

4:14Okay essentially when you're using the Show

4:16Me feature you need to pay attention to

4:18certain

4:18areas. Let me just go ahead and close this

4:20and I'm just going to highlight on the

4:22screen where you

4:23should be paying attention. I'm going to

4:25use the blue highlighter here so the first

4:26place you

4:27should be paying attention is the columns

4:29and rows section here on the top right hand

4:30side.

4:31This is important because essentially

4:32anything that goes in here pretty much

4:35tends to control

4:36either an axis or a specific side of the

4:38chart whether it's a header, column, rows,

4:42all of that

4:42is controlled here at the top right hand

4:45side. The next most important part to focus

4:47on is the

4:48marks pane over here. Now the marks pane is

4:50important because ultimately this actually

4:53controls the chart type, it controls labels

4:55, it controls color, it even controls gran

4:58ularity

4:59on our chart so it's a really really

5:00important place to look. And then the last

5:03place to look

5:03is actually something slightly sort of

5:06unintuitive and it's sort of abstract.

5:08Color is actually

5:09really important thing to look for and the

5:11reason I say that is that because in

5:13essence sometimes

5:14color gives you a clue that something else

5:17is going on okay and it's maybe not so

5:19apparent here

5:20on the chart. In this chart type it's

5:21obvious that the color pane over here on

5:23the left hand side

5:24is what's controlling the tree map but what

5:26I'm going to do I'm going to highlight a

5:28really bizarre

5:29part of this chart. I'm actually going to

5:31highlight this orange. You need to pay

5:33attention to what's

5:34on the axis. Now this chart doesn't have an

5:36axis but let's just say we're going to

5:38highlight this

5:38section over here and if we had an axis we

5:41'd be looking in this space over here. So we

5:44're

5:44essentially looking in these four areas to

5:47understand what's going on okay. So columns

5:50,

5:50rows, the marks pane and then any axis or

5:52any headers or any columns and rows that

5:55are going on

5:56okay. I'm going to clear this now that I've

5:58shown you this I'm going to clear this view

5:59.

5:59We're going to go through a few charts just

6:01to see what's changing each time. Let me go

6:03ahead

6:03and clear the annotations and let's hop

6:06into some charts. Okay to do that I'm going

6:09to go ahead and

6:09clear this chart again. This time I'm going

6:12to select order date and I'm going to

6:14select

6:15quantity just two slightly different

6:16measures. Then I'm going to undock Xiaomi

6:18and I'm going to

6:19bring it right here so we can sort of swap

6:21between them very very quickly and pay

6:23attention to what's

6:24changing. I'm going to sort of move it down

6:26as far as I can off screen and the key

6:28thing to notice

6:29is that the charts that are colored here in

6:31the Xiaomi section are actually what are

6:34viable with

6:34the two things I've selected okay. So that

6:36's really important to be aware of. Let's

6:38start

6:39with the first one. Let's select a table

6:41okay quantity and order date. When we

6:43select a table

6:44Tableau takes the order date it

6:46specifically picks the year of that order

6:49date and places it along

6:50the top. So this is what I was saying

6:52earlier on the order date here is in the

6:54columns shelf so now

6:55it's creating columns okay and then what it

6:57's doing with the quantity if we want to

6:59build a

7:00table it's essentially taking the quantity

7:02and it's putting it on this text mark over

7:04here.

7:04So if we wanted to build this ourselves we

7:06'd essentially do this. Let's clear the

7:09sheet,

7:09drag order date, put it on columns, then

7:12drag quantity and put it on text and it

7:15builds exactly

7:16the same chart okay. Now notice because we

7:19've built this chart Tableau is now showing

7:21me that

7:22I can build other charts with this. So

7:23Xiaomi also works when you've already got

7:25something

7:26on the canvas. Let's go to the next chart

7:28which is this one here. This is a highlight

7:31table let's go

7:31ahead and select that and see what changes

7:34this time around. Now when we change it

7:36this time around

7:37something else happens so we see that the

7:39quantity field appears twice once on color

7:42and once on text

7:43the mark type changed to a square. This is

7:45a very subtle change if I just go back you

7:47notice before

7:48it was an automatic with a text label and

7:51then if I go forward it's now a square not

7:53automatic square

7:55and then what you now see is that there's

7:57some color here on the visualization which

7:58is hinted

7:59by the fact that quantity is also on color

8:01on the detail pane. So how do we build this

8:04let's let me

8:04show you let me show you how this works so

8:06let's go ahead and clear this if we

8:07remember the things

8:08we just talked about so order date was on

8:11color and then we had quantity okay which

8:14was on text

8:15that's what we'd already figured out how to

8:17do before but notice this time it's on

8:19automatic okay

8:20let's go ahead and change that to square

8:23and now to bring quantity onto color again

8:26you just need

8:26to hold control or command on windows and

8:29just drag that on what that does is it dupl

8:31icates it

8:31and essentially we get exactly the same

8:34table again so now you can start to see how

8:36ShowMe

8:36works how you should really be using ShowMe

8:38you should be using it as an assistive tool

8:40to show

8:41you how to build charts in Tableau okay now

8:43let's let's turn it up a bit let's try some

8:46more complex

8:47chart types let's go to a pie chart okay I

8:49'm going to select the pie chart here just

8:50by clicking ShowMe

8:51again and you'll notice a lot of things

8:54changed in fact we have nothing on columns

8:57and rows

8:57everything is going on over here in the

8:59marks pane so this is one of those sort of

9:01bizarre changes

9:02where everything happens in one place but

9:04if you actually try and build this yourself

9:06you might

9:07actually not sort of intuitively find where

9:09all the features are so let's look at this

9:11we've got

9:12year on color which which is sort of

9:14bizarre but if we look at our legend that

9:16makes most sense

9:17we've got quantity which happens to present

9:20the angle of each section which also makes

9:22sense

9:23and then you've got the sum of quantity

9:25again which is also controlling the size so

9:27this is

9:27almost the sort of total size of each

9:29element so it's a little bit weird because

9:31let's see what

9:32happens if I remove this quantity

9:34essentially nothing happens so it's

9:36essentially taken that

9:37duplicate quantity item and it's used it to

9:40size something but you've got to remember

9:42ShowMe is

9:42working with what you've given it and

9:44sometimes what you've given it isn't

9:46necessary so it will

9:47still find a way of putting that somewhere

9:49so if I remove this notice nothing really

9:51changes but if

9:52I put it back we get this legend which is

9:54actually controlling the total size of the

9:57entire

9:57visualization at 37,773 the total number of

10:01items that we've got I know this because if

10:04I go put

10:05this over here on the right hand side I

10:08also have the sum here on the bottom which

10:10is 37,773 okay

10:12let me move the ShowMe back to where it

10:14belongs and let me size the marks pane a

10:16little bit better

10:17so we can see what's going on okay now how

10:19do we build this ourselves well let's try

10:22and recreate

10:22it let's pay attention to where the items

10:25are on each shelf year quantity and pie

10:28chart okay let's

10:29clear the sheet and try and build this

10:31ourselves so first of all I'm going to

10:32bring the year and

10:33the year was on color but I'm actually

10:35going to do something different I'm

10:36actually going to put

10:37it on detail in this particular case just

10:39to sort of give us a little bit of context

10:40so you can see

10:41that I've got the different years if I

10:43hover over it you can see them very very

10:45clearly the next

10:46thing I need to do is to change this to a

10:48pie chart so I'm going to go down to this

10:50marks pane

10:50and I'm going to select a pie you can see

10:52that that's this option here and when we do

10:55that

10:55everything turns into a circle essentially

10:58each year is now taking up a quadrant and

11:00the reason

11:01that's happening is because it doesn't know

11:03how to split up these years so of course if

11:05we go grab

11:06quantity and we put that on the angle it

11:09now understands how to split these up you

11:12can see

11:12that this is 2019 it's quite a quite a

11:14large chunk this is 2018 slightly smaller

11:17chunk 2017 again

11:19slightly smaller and 2020 the largest chunk

11:22available okay but the difficult thing here

11:24is

11:24we can't see how these items are different

11:27because they're all sharing the same color

11:29blue there's

11:30nothing to separate each of the sections so

11:32let's go ahead and change one thing on this

11:35chart I'm

11:35going to go ahead and click on this three

11:37dot item and you'll see that I actually get

11:39this

11:40pane that shows me all the different mark

11:42times that I can choose you don't have to

11:44just drag

11:44things you can actually change them on the

11:46fly and now I'm going to change this to

11:48color okay

11:49and you immediately see that now this looks

11:51more like a pie chart okay and this is

11:54great because

11:54now I'm pretty much where I was before

11:57except for one thing is missing I can't see

11:59the percentages

12:00around this you see when I click on this

12:02notice that it adds this back in it really

12:04wants to put

12:05this on size it's totally not necessary

12:07what is actually more useful is a label to

12:09show me all the

12:10different percentages so how would that

12:12work well if you do a bit of googling you

12:14'll find out there's

12:15some things called table calculations which

12:17can do things like percentages of total so

12:19what I'm going

12:20to do is I'm going to grab quantity again

12:22and I'm going to put it on detail and the

12:24reason I've put

12:25it on detail is because I don't want it to

12:27interfere with my chart you see when you

12:29put a

12:29measure on detail it doesn't sort of change

12:31the way your chart works if that makes

12:33sense whereas

12:34if I put it anywhere else it's actually

12:35going to affect something on the chart so I

12:37'm going to go

12:38here into this little drop down it's a very

12:40very tiny drop down we're going to go down

12:42to quick

12:43table calculation and then we're going to

12:45choose percentage of total okay and the way

12:47tableau

12:48looks at this it looks at this and says hey

12:50the only thing partitioning this data is

12:52the year and

12:52so if you ask me to calculate the

12:54percentage of total the context is the year

12:57and so I'll calculate

12:58where you know 2017 as a percentage of the

13:02whole uh you know set of data which is the

13:04whole set

13:05of data 2017 to 2020 and so if I now drag

13:08that onto label now that we've done that

13:10you'll see

13:11the percentages come up I could have also

13:13just done what I showed you previously

13:15which is just

13:15click on these three dots select label and

13:18now we have our pie chart and we're pretty

13:20much good to go

13:21so that's how to do a pie chart without

13:23using the show me function you see if you

13:25use the show me

13:26function once and then you learn how to do

13:28it straight away you actually have more

13:30control

13:30because what I know would have happened is

13:32if you kept on using the show me function

13:34you'd have

13:34never figured out how to use the labels to

13:37actually label this pie chart again if I go

13:39back and click

13:40on the pie chart it gets rid of the label

13:41and it thinks the size is the most

13:43important thing to

13:44highlight so it's doing this for a reason

13:46obviously but the thing we want is actually

13:49this something

13:49with labels okay now pie charts okay we're

13:52not a fan of them in data biz but if you're

13:54learning

13:54how to use tableau it's going to be

13:55something you're going to try and build

13:57because guess what

13:58you can do it in excel and so it's

14:00important to understand how to do it okay

14:02now okay now we're

14:03going to turn the heat up a little bit and

14:05we're going to choose a box slot because

14:07this is a

14:07slightly different chart now if we click on

14:10it you'll notice quite a lot happens let me

14:12move the

14:12show me over back here to the right hand

14:14side now a lot happened here and it's sort

14:17of confusing

14:18because what it did is it took what was on

14:20the chart already and it used it so if we

14:22go back

14:23one step and what I'm going to do is I'm

14:24going to remove the percentage of total

14:26from the labels

14:27and then we're going to click it again to

14:29see what happens and you see now we just

14:31get one box plot

14:32tableau show me will always try and use

14:34everything on the visualization when you

14:36click on it so just

14:37be aware of that okay and now you see a box

14:39block but notice what's going on here we're

14:42looking at

14:42the rows and we've only got one item here

14:45and we're looking at the detail over here

14:48on the

14:48marks pane and we've only got the year

14:50there yet this is somehow a circle chart

14:52type and we have

14:53a box block so what's going on here well

14:56remember earlier on I showed you four

14:59places you should be

15:00looking to understand what's going on with

15:02show me so let me highlight those again the

15:05first place

15:05was obviously up here columns and rows the

15:08next place was the marks pane but remember

15:11the other

15:11place I showed you to look was along the

15:13axis over here and over here so in this

15:16case we have

15:16the axis of quantity on the left hand side

15:19so let's go ahead and understand what's

15:21going on there

15:22if I right click on that and actually go

15:24and edit the reference line this pops up

15:27okay and you'll

15:27notice that it goes straight to the box

15:30plot option so you wouldn't have known to

15:32go into this

15:33menu if you'd been using show me all along

15:35because if this is the only way you know

15:37how to do it

15:38you would never have thought to sort of go

15:39in here now if you'd googled it you'd have

15:41found it

15:42but fundamentally if you're trying to learn

15:44tableau well you need to understand what's

15:46going

15:46on so if you look in the axis in this case

15:48you'll find the box plot and here we are it

15:51's essentially

15:51showing data that's within one and a half

15:53times of the interquartile range and

15:56because we've only got

15:56the different years it's just basically

15:59generating a very simple spread so let's

16:02choose some slightly

16:02more interesting items and then recreate

16:04this then we're going to rebuild this so

16:06you can see how

16:07that works so let's go ahead and clear this

16:09I'm going to head it I'm going to go ahead

16:10and clear

16:11the chart and this time what I'm probably

16:13going to do is I'm probably going to select

16:16country

16:17countries are used for one because you can

16:19get sort of multiple items in there and

16:22then I'm also

16:22going to select I'm probably going to

16:24select the segment as well and then I'm

16:26going to select the

16:27quantity okay and you'll see I've selected

16:30three things and now the show me pane is

16:32lit up and box

16:33plot is still available so let's go ahead

16:36and select that and now we get a slightly

16:38more

16:39meaningful box plot okay now I wish that I

16:41sort of flipped it the other way but that's

16:43fine it's using

16:44it's using the segments to separate things

16:46and then the different countries as a way

16:48of sort of

16:49figuring out what's going on now in this

16:51chart type you're probably looking at it go

16:54right so

16:54how do I build this you've got something on

16:57detail okay that's what this icon means

16:59columns on segment

17:00quantity and rows and then everything else

17:03is happening inside of the axis okay okay

17:06so let's

17:06go ahead and build this let's drag segment

17:09onto columns and then quantity onto rows

17:12that gives us

17:13a very simple bar chart okay and the next

17:15thing we need to do is to put the country

17:17on detail and

17:19when we do that it looks like this now that

17:21's not what we saw before and that's because

17:24the chart

17:24type is an automatic so show me won't tell

17:27you how automatic changes you need to sort

17:29of get to grip

17:30to that and understand that yourself and so

17:32here we need to actually go and manually

17:34change this

17:34from automatic to circle and when we get

17:36circle we start to get that spread that we

17:38're seeing in

17:39the box plot the other thing is that these

17:41circles are huge in the box plot they were

17:43tiny so how do

17:45we change that well we go ahead here and

17:47change the size and we sort of dial it back

17:49down and now

17:50that looks a little bit more representative

17:51and so we're actually done with this chart

17:54the only other

17:54thing we need to do is go and enable the

17:56box plot itself so let's right click on the

17:59axis edit the

18:00add a reference line actually because it's

18:02not there we can't edit it and you want to

18:03go to this

18:04option right here on the end called box

18:06plot and when we do that you can see that

18:08the box plot

18:08actually activates in the background and

18:11now we've rebuilt that chart okay so now

18:13you can see how

18:13this works this is a very very powerful

18:15thing to understand once you start using

18:17show me properly

18:18it actually forces you to ask some tough

18:20questions about why tableau is doing

18:22certain things and where

18:23it's doing those things and once you

18:25understand that honest to god you will

18:27never need to use

18:28show me ever again in fact when i'm

18:30training people with tableau i let them use

18:32train a show

18:33me initially but i always say look by the

18:35end of this course if you don't understand

18:37how to build

18:38a shot and you're still using show me this

18:40course has not been a great course okay so

18:42um try and get

18:44away from using show me as much as possible

18:46try and understand why things are happening

18:49and trust

18:49me you'll gain much better control of what

18:51's going on instead of just clicking things

18:53around you'll

18:54actually fully understand what's going on

18:56and you'll start to give yourself a

18:57challenge now the

18:58other mark type that's worth just touching

19:00on very briefly is maps because this this

19:02can sort of be

19:03sort of confusing because tableau has some

19:05really powerful mapping capabilities and it

19:08's not always

19:08apparent in sort of the interface so let me

19:10clear this sheet this time i'm going to

19:12select country

19:13and i'm going to select uh sales okay i

19:16didn't hold command there so let me try

19:18again with country

19:19and now you'll see that that sort of comes

19:21up and you'll see that i get two versions

19:23of mapping i

19:24can either map using symbols or i can map

19:26using a filled map i'll use a filled map

19:28when i click on

19:29that you'll see that it goes ahead and it

19:31thinks about it and then it generates a map

19:34now i'm using

19:34the european data set you might be using

19:36the american data set that's absolutely

19:38fine now

19:39what you'll notice here although i selected

19:42country and sales okay actually what ended

19:45up happening

19:45is that country got put into detail here on

19:48the left sales got put on color but then we

19:51had

19:51longitude and latitude generated sort of

19:53brought in and this is the thing about

19:55mapping tableau

19:56has an internal mapping database and from

19:59that it generates latitudes and longitudes

20:02and then it

20:02uses that information to do filled maps and

20:05so that's what's actually going on here if

20:07i wanted

20:07to do this in tableau myself i'd have to

20:10just think about it a little second okay

20:12because if

20:12i go back and i try and recreate that

20:14exactly as we just saw all that would

20:16happen this country

20:17would go on detail okay sales would go on

20:20color and notice that when i did that it

20:22brought latitude

20:23and longitude on it for me okay so it didn

20:26't actually sort of uh you know give me an

20:29option

20:29would you like me to draw a map or it didn

20:31't sort of just draw uh like countries as a

20:34square if i

20:34do exactly the same thing with any other

20:37dimension for example segment on detail and

20:40then quantity on

20:41color it doesn't do the same thing it draws

20:43a basic tree map so this automatic mark

20:46type

20:46is doing a lot of heavy lifting for us okay

20:49when i drag a geographical field into the

20:52view it assumes

20:53that the thing i want to see is a filled

20:55map when i put it on detail and that's what

20:57actually

20:57generates this map okay you see here it's a

21:00symbol chart as soon as i put sales of

21:03quantity on color

21:05it changes to a filled map okay so if i

21:07just go back one step circle chart put

21:10sales on color

21:11filled map okay and you need to understand

21:13this because if you just go straight to a

21:17show me

21:18option you're going to miss those steps in

21:20between so i think i've hammered the point

21:22home

21:23if you haven't got it by now try and not to

21:26use show me as a way of building charts try

21:29and use

21:29it as a learning tool okay think of micro

21:32soft clippy but without the sort of cheesy

21:35clippy face

21:36and it's inside of tableau desktop that's

21:38how you should really be using this once

21:40you figure out

21:40how to do something you no longer need to

21:42do it and that's pretty much it okay so i

21:44hope i hope

21:45that's really helped people i hope that's

21:47really helped people understand how show me

21:48should be

21:49used if you enjoyed this video you know

21:51what to do if you haven't hit the dislike

21:53button twice

21:54give me some feedback on this video and i

21:59'll catch you in the next one