One of the weaknesses of Tableau is that you can’t add a reference line to a chart that is based on a custom calculation or another metric within the workbook. The calcs that are offered for reference lines are good and applicable in many situations but sometimes, they are just not right. In the short video below, Joe Mako explains how to fake a custom, dynamic reference in Tableau.

Adding a sudo reference line in Tableau from Joe Mako on Vimeo.

NOTE: Joe directed me to his tutorial after I was asking some questions about reference lines on Twitter yesterday, I’m simply passing along his great little tutorial. Please enjoy!

Tags: Tableau, tableau-tips, visualization

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 7th, 2009 at 7:21 am and is filed under Tableau, Tableau Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.