Building Views (Automatically)

Rather than building views by dragging and dropping fields, you can use Show Me™ to create views automatically.
This section presents two examples using the Sample-Superstore Sales (Excel) data source that comes with the application.

Example 1 – Show Me with Two Fields

Example 2 – Show Me with Many Fields

Example 1 – Show Me with Two Fields

In this example, you will create a line chart that displays profit as a function of time. Follow the steps below to create this view.

1. Select Order Date and Profit in the Data window. Hold the Control key (Ctrl) on your keyboard to select multiple fields.
   
   
2. Click Show Me on the toolbar.
   
   
3. In the Show Me pane, select the type of view you want to create.
   
   Because a date dimension and a measure are selected, Tableau suggests you build a line view, which is generally the best way to look at measures over time.
   

The view below shows SUM(Profit) over time. Each point on the line represents the sum of profit for the corresponding year.

You can see the values for each year by turning on Mark Labels. Click the Mark Labels button on the toolbar.

Example 2 – Show Me with Many Fields

In this example you will use Show Me to build a scatter plot that shows sales versus profit for each product and customer.

1. Select Sales, Profit, Item, and Customer Name in the Data window. Hold the Control key (Ctrl) on your keyboard to select multiple fields.
   
   
2. Click Show Me on the toolbar.
   
   
3. In the Show Me pane, select the scatter view.
   
   

Show Me automatically creates a scatter plot with the fields you selected. You can now manually start dragging fields to further refine the view.