Chapter 92. 3 Innovative Ways to Use Transparent Sheets: Tip 1
As of Tableau Desktop 2018.3, authors can make worksheet backgrounds transparent. This means that you can float multiple worksheets on top of one another and still be able to see each individual layer. Transparent worksheets have unlocked new design possibilities such as floating all worksheets over a custom background image, but they also allow us to improve comparisons and context.
The next three chapters share three practical applications of transparent sheets to help improve your data visualization. You’ll see how to add a trend behind a callout number, a timeline of key events to a line graph, and a custom segmentation to a scatter plot.
By the end of this series, you will know how to make all of the elements in this dashboard:
Add Context to Callout Numbers
Callout numbers, which are simply key information set with a large font size, are one of my favorite starting points for an analysis. I’ll often list three or four of these along the top or left side of my dashboard to provide a 10,000-foot view of what’s happening in the business. My audience can then decide whether they want to dig deeper on any of the metrics to find something more actionable.
Transparent sheets allow us to make callout numbers even better by providing a trend in the background.
Suppose that we have this callout number showing the current ...
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