Innovative Tableau

Chapter 32. How to Make Trellis/Tile/Small Multiple Maps

A chart type with many names—trellis maps, tile maps, or small multiple maps—can help you compare measures across multiple maps in one concise view. No matter what you choose to call them, these maps present an effective way to add context to a view without making your end user do additional work. As discussed in Chapter 25, “How to Make Small Multiples,” in Practical Tableau (O’Reilly 2018), adding context in this manner is a tactic for avoiding the dreaded question, “So what?”

This chapter provides two techniques for creating trellis/tile/small multiple maps in Tableau. In the first approach, we use table calculations to automatically generate a grid for the maps. I provide the formulas so that you can create these maps in a matter of seconds. In the second approach, we use IF/THEN logic to manually generate the grid. This approach gives you complete control over the number of rows and columns in the layout and in which cell you want each map to appear. I also share a creative hack for how to add a label to each individual map within the view.

How to Make Trellis Maps with Automated Grids

For both approaches to creating small multiple maps in Tableau, we re-create the following view from my Tableau Public visualization: A Tale of 50 Cities. In the view, I used a trellis layout to show population changes during each US census dating back to 1790:

For the first approach—and the approach used to create the preceding view—we ...