Q: How do I create custom continuous color palettes?

• Change the TYPE from Regular to either Sequential or Diverging. You can choose multiple colors for Sequential but only a starting and ending color for Diverging.
• For an easier way to create color palettes, check out the Color Tool from InterWorks. Color Tool for Tableau is a free, automated application that lets you create custom color palettes for Tableau with minimal effort.
• You may also be interested in learning more about sequential and diverging color palettes here.

Q: How do I handle a “divide by zero” situation in Tableau?

• Use the IIF function. The function “IIF(test, then, else, [unknown])” asks for four pieces:
  1. TEST = What are you trying to evaluate?
  2. THEN = What is the outcome if it’s true?
  3. ELSE = What is the outcome if it’s false?
  4. UNKNOWN = What is the outcome if it’s neither true nor false? (This section is optional and usually treated as a null value.)
• Tableau’s Online Help provides the following example to avoid dividing by zero when creating the Discount Ratio:

Q: How do I see an individual, distinct list of all members of a measure?

1. Use the measure somewhere in your view (typically the Rows shelf).
2. Right-click on the measure active field and choose Dimension.
3. Right-click on the measure active field and choose Discrete.

Q: How do I create a dynamic date band controlled by a reference line? For example, how do I add three months to a specified reference date?

1. Right-click an axis to create a reference band.
2. For the minimum value, create a new parameter with a range of values from your date field.
3. For the maximum value, create a calculated field using the DATEADD function (e.g. DATEADD(‘month’,3,[Min Value Parameter]).
4. Be sure to bring the calculated field into the Detail button on your Marks card so that its values are available in the reference band.
5. Right-click on your [Min Value Parameter] field and select Show Parameter Control, giving users the ability to make the reference line dynamic.

Q: Why doesn’t Tableau recognize all of my fields for an incremental refresh in a data extract?

• The field must be an integer (18 digits long), date, or date/time, and it must be unique to be used as an increment key.

Q: How do I show the entire dimension label without manually adjusting the column width?

• CTRL+Up or CTRL+SHIFT+B makes the cells taller/larger and wraps the continuous text to the next line.

Q: Is there a keyboard shortcut for creating a new calculated field?

• ALT+A+C

Q: What is Tableau’s starting, zero or epoch date for calculations?

• 1/1/1900
• If you need to convert a column to a specified epoch, use this formula: DATETIME(DATEADD(‘second’, INT([Name of Date Column]), #1900-01-01#)), with the numbers between ## representing the specified epoch. Many thanks to Michael Treadwell for this great response. 

Q: Why didn’t my Tableau Data Extract ask me to save to a file location?

• “Honey Badger and TWBX don’t care (where the extract goes, because it’s really going into the ZIP folder from temp)!” – James Wright

At InterWorks, we love to tackle challenges. If you have any additional questions, please feel free to use the comment section below or contact us.

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