top of page

Here are some common issues when using Tableau or Power BI

A common problem occurs when you are given a spreadsheet where values are in separate columns in which each column represent a date.  This is typical example of a "pivot table" because it is easily used to look values up.  However, software, like Tableau and Power BI are designed to read-in "skinny-tables" and therefore you have to "unpivot" your table.   Below are examples of two ways to do this.  In the first example, you see how to  unpivot your table in Excel.  The second example, is if you are using Tableau, you can create a "pivot" (which is actually an unpivot) in Tableau when building your visual.
 

Tools like Power BI will display the values of the data in the Axis or Legend. What if you want to display different names for the visual?  One solution is to modify the data in your source and create new values- known as data-wrangling.  Another solution shown here is to create a table with the names of the labels that you want to use in the Axis.  Watch how this is done in PBI.

©2021 by Impactful Analytics.

bottom of page