Tips For Tableau Dashboard Customization

Tableau Dashboard

Tableau is not all data! Yes, it is. But it is also fun, colourful and customizable. The powerful business intelligence tool has a variety of colour palettes, tiles, shapes and fonts built-in. You can choose these as per your business requirements and preference to create the Tableau dashboard of your choice. 

So after you obtain your Tableau licence and get Tableau implementation done, you can tailor the Tableau dashboard as per your company’s branding conventions and colours. Also, different teams use data visualization to draw specific conclusions. Personalized dashboards make them feel like the report they are looking at is specific to them. Discover a few ways you can customize your dashboard and make it appealing!

Custom shapes

As per your business niche, the industry and enterprise planning needs, you can denote various items on the dashboard. You can play with shapes to create interesting data insights. Shapes aid easy understanding, visibility and interpretation of data. You can check the “My Tableau Repository” folder and find the “Shapes” directory where you can save or paste shapes or create new ones to suit your dashboard.

Choice of colour palette

Colours are the best way to demarcate between different business functions, create cool dashboards and segregate information. The colour palette of your dashboard speaks a lot about your business, including its branding, requirements, etc. When you create your own custom palette, you gain more control and flexibility to visualize data.

Place data as preferred

Click on ‘Views’. Here, ensure that the view with key information is placed on the upper-left corner of your dashboard. The critical data points should be on the X or Y axis and the less important data can be customized and placed as per your unique business requirements.

Tailor bar graphs, charts orientation and readability

Create your own financial reports or sales charts in a horizontal or vertical format – depending on the company’s needs. But make sure they are easily readable to everyone on the team!

Test and optimize your dashboard

Obtaining a Tableau licence gives you the freedom to test it according to the user’s will. As you find changes to be done after testing – you can adjust the sizing and position items to optimize data insights. You have the ability to specify the overall size of the dashboard as well.

The personalized image feature

Beyond, colours, fonts and shapes, Tableau dashboards have the capability to add image objects. What’s more, you can fit the images as per your preferred size on the Tableau desktop. 

Highlight the essentials

Charts, titles, legends, captions and filters can be helpful for the users as well as viewers. Make sure you highlight the noteworthy points of your business operations.

PRO TIP – No clutter

The key reason why anyone adopts Tableau is to envision the business on a single platform. So, it is important to keep the data clean. Usage of too many colours or fonts can make the data confusing. Eliminate unnecessary lines, text or shading that don’t offer actionable information for your users or audiences. Make sure every information point on the dashboard is really needed. 

The best part..

The above features are just the basics. On getting the Tableau licencing, you will be able to explore myriad features and functionality of the Tableau dashboards. Remember, you can personalize the Tableau tool as per your business needs and get the most out of it. Real business intelligence!