Slide deck from my talk at Tableau Conference 2018 on how to fix broken dashboards. #TC18 “My boss just dumped a bunch of dashboards in my lap and she says that half of them are broken. Help!” Has this happened to you? In this session, you'll see common issues that cause "broken" dashboards, along with a basic troubleshooting flowchart for fixing them. You'll learn how to locate formulas and filters that might be causing problems, and how to reverse-engineer a dashboard to make improvements, so it’s beautiful and useful for everyone who needs it.  Jill is a technical writer on the Tableau customer training team. She's been in instructional design her whole career, covering a wide variety of topics. She wrote a 100-page manual in three weeks for a local hotel, learned to play World of Warcraft for her job, hounded research scientists to complete HIPAA training, and taught former home care aides how to be instructors. Empowering customers to do big things with Tableau is what gets her to work every day.

2. LOOK!
UP IN THE SKY!

4. Broken Promises:
How to Fix Dashboards
Jill Hutchinson
Technical Writer
Tableau
# T C 1 8

5. This dashboard is broken.

6. Agenda
Intro
“This isn’t what I asked for.” (Audience & Purpose)
“The information is wrong or not even there.” (Troubleshooting)
“It’s too confusing and ugly!” (Functionality & Beauty)
Wrap Up

7. @jubyleedata

8. 1. Review the broken dashboard
2. List the problems
3. Make a plan
4. Dive in and start fixing!
5. Polish your dashboard
Steps to Superhero Success

9. Confirm purpose
and audience
Verify server and
data source
permissions
Check filters and
calculations
Check
joins/unions/blends
Clean up the look
and functionality

10. Performance
Best practices for dashboard performance
Wednesday | 1:45 PM - 2:45 PM | MCCNO - L1 - Great Hall B
Server and Data Sources
Graduating to Tableau Server | Send your users into the world
Thursday | 2:15 PM - 3:15 PM | MCCNO - L2 - 214
The Doctor is always in!
Covered Elsewhere

11. Super Superstore
Empress Midnight
Over Overlord
Captain Miracle
Empire of the East
Legendary
Burning Bird
West Coast Wilds
Lex Lethal
Secret South
Professor Z
Central Citadel

12. This isn't what I asked for.

13. Demo

14. Audience and Purpose
Overlords looking to increase profitable products.
What questions are
they trying to answer?
Who’s winning?
What states are unprofitable?
What specific products are failing?
How much of Sales are getting returned?
Click to get more info; deep dive
Over Overlord needs to know who is winning to know who to send to the fiery pit
below the boardroom.
Determine bragging rights and problem products.

15. The information is wrong.

16. Demo

17. This is just UGLY.

18. Demo

19. 1. Know your audience
2. Consider display size
3. Plan for fast load times
4. Leverage the sweet spot
5. Limit the number of views and colors

20. 6. Add interactivity to encourage exploration
7. Format from largest to smallest
8. Leverage tooltips, the story within your story
9. Eliminate clutter
10. Test your dashboard

21. 1. Review the broken dashboard
2. List the problems
3. Make a plan
4. Dive in and start fixing!
5. Polish your dashboard
Steps to Superhero Success

22. More Information
Appendix
Resources for each section of this talk
General Reference
Knowledge Base
White Papers
Support
Help

23. Broken Promises: How to Fix Broken Dashboards
S E S S I O N R E P E AT S
Wednesday | 3:30 – 4:30 pm | MCCNO - L2 - 225

24. Please complete the
session survey from the
Session Details screen
in your TC18 app

25. Thank you!
#TC18
follow me @jublyeedata
graphics by @potter.charlie

26. Resources for Audience & Purpose
Telling Great Stories
Consider the Audience
Fit the Chart to the Story

27. Resources for Joins Troubleshooting
Using LODs to resolve duplicate data
Using Blends
Joins

28. Resources for Calcs Troubleshooting
Calculation Syntax
Functions
Aggregations
Operators
Create or Edit a Calculated Field
Level of Detail calculations
Overview: Level of Detail Expressions
Calculations with FIXED expression return
unexpected results when filtered

29. Order of Operations
Filter Your Data Carefully
Improve Performance with Context Filters
Resources for Filters and Actions Troubleshooting

30. Best Practices for Effective Dashboards
Good to Great: Better Data Visualizations
Top 100 Tableau Public Vizzes
Resources for Visual Best Practices