Hi everyone! I found a hidden function in Tableau, with help from my coach, which can help increase data visibility. In this blog, I will share this secret you.
A little bit of background about box plot
Box plot is a graphical statistic method. It promotes understanding of data set by displaying the data set key values based on:
- Minimum (Q0 or 0th percentile)
- Maximum (Q4 or 100th percentile)
- Median (Q2 or 50th percentile)
- First quartile (Q1 or 25th percentile)
- Third quartile (Q3 or 75th percentile).
Boxplot allows us to have visibility for comparing data in the same data set.
Working with a large amount of data, the default box plot function in Tableau will overlay data points on top of each other, sometimes making it hard to investigate the individual details or locate individual data. Tableau has the solution for this problem with the random() calculation.
The pictures below show the same data set, where the second graph uses the function “random()” which increases visibility in data by randomly spreading the data points horizontally across the chart.
The picture below shows how to build a “random()” calculation.
