Profit evolution – line chart

Let's see now how the profit evolves. Do you have bad memories about how other tools deal with dates? Tableau will change your mind! To build this new analysis, we need to create a new Worksheet. In Tableau, there is always more than one way to do something. To create a new Worksheet, you have at least three ways by clicking on one of these buttons:

On your new Sheet 2, execute the following steps:

Double-click on Profit.
Double-click on Order date. Tableau automatically transforms the bar into a line:

You see a line because, depending on the data type you use, Tableau selects the best way to visualize it. Of course, that can be changed, and it's part of the next chapters. Here, you can see the year-by-year evolution. Profit is growing, that's great! But what if we want more details?

Right-click on YEAR (Order Date) in Columns and select the second instance of Quarter, where it's written Q2 2015:

You can now see the quarterly evolution of the profit and discover that the fourth quarter is always the best:

For each Date field, Tableau generates all the hierarchy: Year, Month, Quarter, Day Name, Week, Week Number, and other. The Date part on top is discrete and doesn't include the Year. For example, the Discrete Quarter only shows four values: Q1, Q2, Q3, and Q4, no matter the Year. The following Date part is continuous and includes the Year. You see the evolution over time. For example, the bottom quarter shows sixteen points: four quarters per four years.

Rename Sheet 2 as Profit Evolution. Just as we did before, double-click on the Worksheet name at the bottom. Make sure that if you change the title (on top of the visualization), it doesn't affect the name of the Worksheet.

How was that second experience? I'm sure you will love using dates in Tableau! Let's finish with my favorite: Maps!

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Table of Contents for
Profit evolution – line chart