Dashboards & Stories in Tableau: A Road to Tableau Desktop Specialist Certification

Chapter 13: A peek into Dashboards & Stories in Tableau with free Udemy Tableau Dumps

Daksh Trehan

Published in

Towards AI

7 min readMay 30, 2022

Welcome to the thirteenth chapter, in this piece, we are going to learn about Dashboards & Stories in Tableau.

If you want to navigate through other chapters, visit: Tableau: What it is? Why it is the best?; A road to Tableau Desktop Specialist Certification.

If you want to directly go on Tableau Desktop Specialist notes, access them here → https://dakshtrehan.notion.site/Tableau-Notes-c13fceda97b94bda940edbf6751cf30
Use the link to get access to free Tableau certification dumps (Valid till 6 July 2022):
https://www.udemy.com/course/tableau-desktop-specialist-certification-dumps-2022/?couponCode=E3F08189FA4BAFAE72BC

Once you’re done with creating multiple visualizations, you can use them to create a dashboard. And once you’re done with creating multiple dashboards you can combine them to create a story.

Table of Content

Dashboards
– Layout of Dashboard
– Objects in Dashboard
– Dashboard Actions
– Best practices for creating a Dashboard
– Additional Notes
Stories
– Layout of Story
– Objects in Story
– Best practices for creating a Story
– Additional Notes
Sample Certification Questions from this Topic

Dashboards

Dashboards can be referred to as the combination of various visualizations.

Layouts of Dashboard

The layout of a Dashboard could be defined on: Phone, Tablet, Desktop, and Default.

While defining the size of the Dashboard, we can choose from three options:

Fixed Size → We can define a fixed size for our dashboard, we can choose from multiple pre-defined options.

Automatic → The dashboard will automatically configure its size based on the objects it constitutes.

Range → We can give a range for the size of our dashboard.

Objects in Dashboard

In addition to our visualizations, we can also add various objects to our dashboard to increase attractiveness and make it more appealing.

Horizontal & Vertical → These are the layout containers that let you add sheets either in horizontal or vertical format.

Text → This lets you add static text in the dashboard.

Image → We can add a background image or a static image to our dashboard using this.

Web Page → Using this object, we can add a webpage to our dashboard.

Blank → It lets you add some blank space to the dashboard.

Navigation → It would let you navigate to other dashboards or worksheets.

Downloads → It will let the audience download the dashboard in various formats.

Extension → It will let users add third-party extensions to the dashboards.

Ask Data → It lets users enter conversations that could be later answered by authors of the dashboard.

We can add our objects either in Tiled or Floating format.

A floating format is preferred as it helps to create more appealing and optimized dashboards.

Dashboard Actions

To employ Dashboard Actions, go to Dashboard>Actions.

There dashboard actions we can implement are: Filter, Highlight, Go to URL, Go to Sheet, Change Parameters, Change Set Values.

For “Go To URL”, we can specify where the link will be opened.

The actions could be triggered by either Hovering, Selection, Menu.

Hover → This will change the set, once the user hovers over any mark in the view.
Select → This will trigger the action when the user will click on any mark in the view.
Menu → This will trigger the action when the user will right-click on the mark and select an option on the context menu.

Choose how to run the action and source and target sheets.

Best Practices for Creating a Dashboard

Put the most important visualization in the top-left corner of the dashboard.
By default size of the Dashboard is set to fix, make it automatic.
Allow flexibility to users by introducing filters and parameters in the view.
Tooltips are a great option to add extra information to your dashboard.
Use the limited number of visualizations in a single dashboard.
Make it crisp and concise.

Additional Notes

While creating Filter actions, use Hovering for highlighting, selecting for filtering, and Menu action for tooltips.
The safe URL prefixes allowed in Tableau Dashboard are HTTP, HTTPS, and FTP.
The visualization in the tooltip is a static image, not an interactive view.
If you use Show Me in the source sheet to change the view structure, you will reset all tooltip edits, including Viz in Tooltip references.
We can export dashboards in jpg, png, emf, BMP format. Exporting can be done by choosing Dashboard > Export Image.
We can’t delete a worksheet if it is present in a dashboard.
When we modify a sheet or a dashboard the view is changed in both worksheets as well as dashboard.

Stories

Stories can be referred to as the combination of various dashboards.

Layouts of Dashboard

While defining the size of the Dashboard, we can choose from three options:

Fixed Size → We can define a fixed size for our story, we can choose from multiple pre-defined options.

Automatic → The story will automatically configure its size based on the objects it constitutes.

Range → We can give a range for the size of our story.

Objects in Stories

We can add different sheets, dashboards, or titles to our Stories.

Best Practices for Creating a Story

Keep it crisp & concise.
Use a chronological approach.
Use Filters to make it interactive.
Decrease the load time.

Additional Notes

The delete option for a worksheet is disabled if it is being used in any story.
If we modify any sheet used in a story, the view will also be changed in the story and vice-versa.

Sample Certification Questions from this Topic

Which of the following are the options to export the data used to build the view/visualizations? [Choose 2]

a. JSON Format
b. MS Access Database
c. CSV file
d. PDF file

Solution: CSV file, MS Access Database

Can we add a Dashboard and a Worksheet at the same time to a story point in Tableau?

a. True
b. False

Solution: False

To customize links based on your data, we can automatically enter field values as ____ in URLs.

a. Sets
b. Filters
c. Calculated Fields
d. Parameters

Solution: Parameters

Which of the following are interactive elements that can be added to a dashboard for users?

a. Filter Action
b. Edit Tooltip Action
c. Go to URL Action
d. Highlight Action

Solution: Filter Action, Go to URL Action, Highlight Action

Which of the following are valid objects when creating a dashboard in Tableau? [Choose 2]

a. Text
b. Extension
c. Video
d. Link

Solution: Text, Extension

Use the link to get access to free Tableau certification dumps (Valid till 6 July 2022):
https://www.udemy.com/course/tableau-desktop-specialist-certification-dumps-2022/?couponCode=E3F08189FA4BAFAE72BC