26 Ways to Enhance Tables in Tableau If you develop dashboards and work with data visualizations regularly, then you probably find yourself loathing the moment you are asked for a table of data. You probably think to yourself: “why do … Read More
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How to Build a Ranked Small Multiple Bar Chart in Tableau
How to Build a Ranked Small Multiple Bar Chart in Tableau I like big bar charts…and I can not lie. Thank you to all three of you who laughed at my corny joke. But for real, I think bar charts … Read More
How to Publish to Tableau Online with Alteryx
How to Publish to Tableau Online from Alteryx Designer In my several years of supporting Alteryx Server and Tableau Server, one of the most frequent questions I get from Alteryx users is: “How do I publish to Tableau Server?” The … Read More
Tessellation Achieves Alteryx Premier Partner Status
Tessellation Achieves Premier Partnership Status We are very excited to announce that Tessellation has been named an Alteryx Premier Partner for 2021! What is a Premier Partner? Premier Status is the highest achievement level for Alteryx partners. Premier Partners add … Read More
Dynamic Rows and Columns in Tableau
Dynamic Rows & Columns in Tableau Recently Luke Stanke and myself held a webinar discussing some cool ways to enhance P&L statements and other financial reporting. This blog post contains detailed instructions on how to use some of the techniques … Read More
Underrated Tableau Features
Underrated Tableau Features There are a lot of resources available to read about the shining stars of Tableau, the showstoppers. This is not that blog. This is the blog for the underdogs, the little things that people often overlook that … Read More
Code-free Sentiment Analysis for Business
What is Sentiment Analysis? “This is the worst!” cried Reginald. Cynthia, his long-time business partner, hurried into the room. “Is everything alright?” she asked. Reginald, usually an exuberant man, sighed and said “we lost the Smithfield account. I don’t know … Read More
YTD Flags in Power Query
YTD Flags in Power Query Dates tables are an integral part of any comprehensive data model. Dates tables allow you to normalize a variety of different date fields and perform calculations and filtering on all of those different fields at … Read More
Beyond Dual Axis: Using Multiple Map Layers to create next-level visualizations in Tableau
Beyond Dual Axis: How to Use Map Layers in Tableau 2020.4 to Build Next-Level Visualizations Tableau’s 2020.4 will be its boldest release yet. And while many people are sleeping on the release, a few people have already started to realize … Read More
Mapping Lines with Endpoints in Tableau
Mapping Lines with Endpoints in Tableau Tableau offers its users a vast array of geospatial tools for mapping and other geospatial analysis including buffer calcs, distance calculations, and the ability to drill down into different levels of geospatial granularity with a click of the … Read More
Toggling Views with Bookmarks in Power BI
Toggling Views with Bookmarks in Power BI Bookmarks are one of my favorite features in Power BI because they allow for a lot of great customization options for user experience. In this blog, I am going to show you how … Read More
Alteryx 2020.4
Alteryx 2020.4 What’s New? In the following, we’ll examine some of our favorite features that in the newest release of Alteryx – let’s get into it! Alteryx Designer We’re at the last main release for Alteryx in 2020, and while … Read More
Switching Metrics in Power BI
Switching Metrics in Power BI To avoid having multiple tabs with the same charts, but different metrics, you have to get a little creative in Power BI. This blog will walk you through how to enable this toggle functionality in … Read More
Building an Executive Dashboard in Tableau
Building an Executive Dashboard in Tableau Over the course of 2020, I’ve put out more than 25 blog posts. If you had taken the time to read and learn from each blog you would be able to create a one-of-a-kind … Read More
Connecting Jira to Snowflake using Fivetran
Connecting Jira to Snowflake with Fivetran This post is a continuation of the series that examines the simplification of data integration leveraging Fivetran and Snowflake. Fivetran nearly eliminates the development time required to ingest data from a vast number of … Read More
Alteryx Server 101: Organizing Content in the Alteryx Gallery
Alteryx Server 101: Organizing Content in the Alteryx Gallery Just got Alteryx Server at your organization? Get ready for some serious time saving when you automate your work! Server is a fantastic product, but the Gallery has a whole language … Read More
KPI Design Ideas for Tableau
KPI Design Ideas Here are 15 ideas and sources of inspiration for designing your KPIs for Tableau For a very long while I’ve been collecting KPI design ideas. Specifically, I wanted to include. For all the examples I am using … Read More
What-if Analysis in Power BI
https://www.tessellationtech.io/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/2020-09-29-17-48-11_Trim.mp4 What-if Analysis in Power BI Leveraging parameters in Power BI can take your scenario planning to the next level. In the example below, we are using mock model output of a linear regression model to perform a what-if analysis … Read More
Alteryx Server: Workflow Credentials
Alteryx Gallery Workflow Credentials Picture this: your company just got Alteryx Server. You are dazzled by the idea of scheduling your workflows and sharing your analytic apps. You publish your perfectly-working workflow, which utilizes an excel file hosted on a … Read More
Fact of Fact Analysis Using Power Query
Fact of Fact Analysis in Power Query Building a data model in Power BI can be extremely easy. When primary keys match foreign keys one to one and when tables are built with a star schema in mind, things go … Read More
Optimizing Power BI Reports
Optimizing Power BI Reports Building performant reports is important in gaining trust with stakeholders and ensuring user adoption. Here are some practical and easy tips on how to optimize your Power BI reports! These tips will be broken down into … Read More
Custom Sorting in Power BI
Custom Sorting in Power BI Building charts in Power BI is really easy, but implementing specific features within that chart can be difficult. One of the most common requirements that I’ve had to work on being a Power BI consultant … Read More
Tableau Isotype Plots
Isotype Plots in Tableau What are Isotype Plots? Isotype plots are a blend of visual language that emphasizes quantitative data with symbolism that is often associated with descriptive imagery. If you wanted to simplify it its very similar to a … Read More
Tableau Regression Models
Regression Models in Tableau Tableau recently released the MODEL_QUANTILE() and MODEL_PERCENTILE() functions in Tableau Desktop 2020.3. These are game-changing for Tableau. They finally put regression output directly in the hands of Tableau developers. Specifically, MODEL_QUANTILE() allows any creator to calculate … Read More
Analytics 101: Descriptive, Predictive and Prescriptive Analytics
Analytics 101: Descriptive, Predictive, and Prescriptive Analytics One thing I’ve learned in my time as a data scientist has been that the term “analytics” means something different to just about anyone you talk to. Answers I’ve gotten ranged from basic … Read More
Creating Power BI Dashboard with Custom Images & Icons
Creating Power BI Dashboard with Custom Images & Icons A great way to tie all of your Power BI reports together in your Power BI Service workspace is to create a great looking dashboard that can serve as a landing … Read More
Tableau 2020.3 – Write to Database in Tableau Prep
Tableau 2020.3 – Write to Database in Tableau Prep This post is the fifth in a series of posts examining a whole host of game changing Tableau features that have been released in 2020. In the previous edition of this … Read More
Alteryx 2020.3
Alteryx 2020.3 What’s New? In the following, we’ll examine some of our favorite features that are in the newest release of Alteryx – let’s get into it! Alteryx Designer To me, it appears that the last few releases really indicate … Read More
Tableau 2020.2 – Relationships
Tableau 2020.2 – Relationships This post is the fourth in a series of posts examining a whole host of game-changing Tableau Desktop features that have been released in 2020. In the last post we discussed the nuances of Set Controls. In … Read More
Tableau 2020.2 – Set Controls
Tableau 2020.2 – Set Controls This post is the third post in a series examining a whole host of game-changing Tableau Desktop features that have been released in 2020. In the previous post in this series, we covered Viz Animations from the … Read More
Tableau 2020.1 – Viz Animations
Tableau 2020.1 – Viz Animations This post is the second in a series examining a whole host of game changing Tableau Desktop features that have been released in 2020. In the last edition of this series we covered Dynamic Parameters. In … Read More
Tableau 2020.1 – Dynamic Parameters
Tableau 2020.1 – Dynamic Parameters There have been a ton of game changing features released by Tableau in 2020, so this post will be the first in a series of blog posts dedicated to exploring some of the newly released … Read More
The Easiest Way to Webscrape Tweets with Python
UPDATE: Since this blog post was published, it seems that the key package used, GetOldTweets3, has been degraded and is no longer able to be imported or installed. I am looking into this issue. For now, I recommend looking into … Read More
GOTTA CATCH ‘EM ALL! | WEEKLY CHALLENGE #215 | I CAN ALTERYX THAT
GOTTA CATCH ‘EM ALL | WEEKLY CHALLENGE #215 | I CAN ALTERYX THAT Everyone knows and loves Pokemon. From the adorable Pikachu to the also adorable Cubone, they’re all just so cute. In this week’s challenge, your goal is to … Read More
Understanding Tableau’s IN Function
Understanding Tableau’s IN Function On 8/12/2020, Tableau released Tableau Desktop version 2020.3 that included some fun new features, including Write to Database in Tableau Prep, Export to Crosstab Button, and the IN function. There are lots of great new features … Read More
Top 5 Power BI Features That Saved Me This Week
Top 5 New Power BI Features That Saved Me This Week Power BI is such a powerful tool, but every week that goes by makes me realize that I haven’t come close to realizing it’s full potential! Every week I … Read More
Trellis Chart in Tableau
Trellis Chart in Tableau Consider the following line chart that shows total sales by quarter over four years and is broken down by the 17 sub-categories. Pretend you are someone in your audience for this plot. Their response will be: … Read More
Pop Out Side Bars in Tableau
Pop Out Container Side Bars in Tableau This blog will show you how to use containers to create pop-out side bars in your Tableau dashboards. Side bars allow you to display extra information or context around a data point, but … Read More
Report Page Tooltips in Power BI
Report Page Tooltips in Power BI It can be a struggle to fit all the details you want displayed about a certain data point in your report. Often, it’s getting to that next level of your data’s granularity that can … Read More
Page Navigation in Power BI
Page Navigation in Power BI When building a Power BI report, odds are that all of the information you want to display will not fit on one page. Because of this, it is important to provide an intuitive way for … Read More
U.S. MILITARY & HIGH POINTS | WEEKLY CHALLENGE #214 | I CAN ALTERYX THAT
U.S. MILITARY & HIGH POINTS | WEEKLY CHALLENGE #214 | I CAN ALTERYX THAT In this week’s challenge, we have two data sets and three goals. One of the data sets, MIRTA Sites, is ready for analysis. The other data … Read More
Top 5 Beginner Tableau Design Tips
Beginner Design Tips When I started as a consultant, I was confident in my technical skills but dashboard design was not something that came naturally to me. To help me practice, Luke Stanke pretended to be the manager at Superstore … Read More
Power BI Report Guides
Power BI Report Guides Providing your users enough information about how to navigate and understand your report while maintaining a clean user interface is a common battle for report developers. Giving your users too much text and notations can come … Read More
Adding Up and Down Arrows to KPIs in Power BI
Adding Up and Down Arrows to KPIs in Power BI A common way to show time period changes in your KPI dashboards is to show metric indicators in the form of up and down triangles colored by the direction (+/-) of … Read More
How to Build a Click to Drill-down Pivot Table in Tableau
How to Build a Click to Drill-down Table in Tableau The following post is a part of a series looking at different options for mimicking Pivot Tables in Tableau: Building Pivot Tables in Tableau Series This option uses Parameter Actions … Read More
How to Build a Dynamic Drill-down Table in Tableau
How to Build a Dynamic Drill-down Table in Tableau The following post is a part of a series looking at different options for mimicking Pivot Tables in Tableau: Building Pivot Tables in Tableau Series. This option is great for situations … Read More
How to Build a Pivot Table in Tableau
How to Build a Pivot Table in Tableau Microsoft Excel will always hold a special place in my heart. Learning how to automate excel through VBA is what made me interested in coding and eventually lead me to Tableau. A … Read More
Tableau Sales Funnel Template
Tableau Sales Funnel Template The Template Here’s the TL;DR version: Making a funnel chart takes time. Making a beautiful chart takes even more time. Here’s a template for you to automate everything. And here’s the original data. How to use … Read More
So You Want to Build Alteryx Macros (Part 4)
So You Want to Build Alteryx Macros (Part 4) This is Part 4 of a four-part series covering macros in Alteryx. In this post, I will walk you through how to build an iterative macro in Alteryx. An iterative macro … Read More
CONNECT IN-DATABASE | ALTERYX 2-MINUTE TOOLS
CONNECT IN-DATABASE | ALTERYX 2-MINUTE TOOLS Sometimes, the performance of our underlying data sets is just plan bad. How do we address that? Well, we can utilize the underlying power of our data servers to do the processing for use! … Read More