Tableau QT: Arrow Bar Charts

This is a Quick Tip on how to build Arrow Bar Charts in Tableau, so less reading and more jumping in. We are going to spend 5 minutes or less building our Arrow Bar charts.

Data

Load the following data into Tableau Desktop / Public.

Canadian Province	2017 Population (Millions)
British Columbia	4.817
Manitoba	1.338
New Brunswick *	0.754
Nova Scotia	0.953
Newfoundland and Labrador	0.529
Ontario	14.19
Prince Edward Island	0.152
Québec	8.394
Saskatchewan	1.164
Alberta	4.286

* New Brunswick figures are for 2014.

Worksheet

• Drag Canadian Province onto Rows.
• Drag 2017 Population (Millions) onto Columns, Twice.
• Right-click on the second 2017 Population (Millions) in the Columns Shelf and select Dual Axis.
• In the Canvas:
  • Right-click on the 2017 Population (Millions) and select Synchronized Axis.
  • Double-click on the 2017 Population (Millions) header to open the Edit Axis window.
    • Select Fixed, Fixed Start and set the value to 0.
• In the All Mark Panel:
  • Drag Canadian Province onto Color.
• In the SUM(2017 Population (Millions)) Mark Panel:
  • Change the Mark Type to Bar.
  • Change the Size to be 75%.
• In the SUM(2017 Population (Millions))(2) Mark Panel:
  • Change the Mark Type to Shape.
    • Click on Shape and select the Diamond, bottom left icon.
  • Change the Size of the shape to be around 37% to match the size of the bar. Adjust as necessary.

Now we need to adjust the visualisation by:

• Editing tooltips.
• Editing colours.
• Remove gridlines.
• Hide headers.
• Add the value to the Column header.

And you should then end up with something like the following:

Note: This is just a Bar Chart with an arrow tip to give your bar charts a different look.

Summary

I hope you all enjoyed this article as much as I enjoyed writing it. Do let me know if you experienced any issues recreating this Visualisation, and as always, please leave a comment below or reach out to me on Twitter @Tableau_Magic.

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