Chapter 90. How to Make a Timeline When Events Overlap
In Chapter 33, I share how to make a timeline in Tableau. This is one of my favorite techniques for creating a calendar and providing context to my end users. You can use timelines to show your audience when notable events occurred in the business that might be affecting performance. But what happens when there is more than one event on the same day? By default, the marks will overlap, preventing your audience from seeing the entire picture.
This chapter shows you how to make what I call a jittered timeline in Tableau. When events overlap on the same day, the calculated field shared in this tutorial automatically provides perfect spacing between the marks. This is also helpful if you ever want to control the alignment of marks on a jitter plot. The controlled spacing serves not only a practical purpose, but it also looks great!
How to Make a Jittered Timeline in Tableau
By the end of this chapter, you will be able to create a timeline in Tableau that automatically spaces marks when more than one event happened on the same day. You will be able to control the intensity of the jitter and position the marks to align perfectly on a zero baseline.
This is a technique I originally picked up from my friend, Lindsey Poulter, in her ...
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