Tableau Lesson 8 – Basic Charts | Dataplexa

Section I — Lesson 8

Building Basic Charts

Bar charts, line charts, and pie charts are the three charts every Tableau user builds first. Mastering them step by step on the Superstore dataset gives you the muscle memory to build any chart confidently from scratch.

Chart 1 — The Bar Chart

A bar chart compares a measure across categories. It is the most common chart in business dashboards and the best starting point for learning Tableau's shelf system. The goal here is to show total Sales per Category.

Open a new worksheet. Drag Category from the Data pane onto the Columns shelf. Three blue headers appear: Furniture, Office Supplies, Technology.

Drag Sales onto the Rows shelf. Three vertical bars appear immediately — one per Category. The vertical axis shows the SUM of Sales scale.

Drag Sales again — this time onto the Label channel on the Marks card. The exact SUM value appears above each bar. Right-click the label → Format → set number format to Currency if needed.

To sort the bars from highest to lowest: click the Sort Descending button in the toolbar (two horizontal bars with a downward arrow), or right-click the axis → Sort → Descending by Field → Sales.

Bar Chart — Sales by Category

$800K

$400K

$742K

Technology

$736K

Furniture

$719K

Office Supplies

Chart 2 — The Line Chart

A line chart shows how a measure changes over time. It is the right choice whenever your Columns shelf carries a date field. The goal here is to show monthly Sales over time.

Open a new worksheet. Drag Order Date onto the Columns shelf. By default it shows YEAR(Order Date) as a blue discrete pill — one column per year.

Right-click the Order Date pill on the Columns shelf → select Month from the second group (continuous, green) in the dropdown. The pill turns green and shows MONTH(Order Date). You now have a continuous timeline.

Drag Sales onto the Rows shelf. Tableau draws a line chart automatically because the x-axis is continuous. You see a single line tracing monthly Sales.

Drag Category onto the Color channel on the Marks card. The single line splits into three coloured lines — one per Category. You can now compare seasonal Sales patterns across product types.

Line Chart — Monthly Sales by Category

$80K

$40K

JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec

Furniture

Office Supplies

Technology

Chart 3 — The Pie Chart

A pie chart shows part-to-whole relationships — how much each category contributes to the total. In Tableau, building a pie chart requires one extra step compared to bar and line charts: you must manually set the mark type to Pie in the Marks card. The goal here is to show Sales share by Region.

Open a new worksheet. In the Marks card dropdown, change the mark type from Automatic to Pie. The canvas shows a blank circle placeholder.

Drag Sales onto the Angle channel (which replaces the Size channel when Pie is selected). The circle is still one colour but the angle is now driven by SUM(Sales).

Drag Region onto the Color channel. The circle splits into four coloured slices — one per Region — sized proportionally by Sales.

Drag Region and then Sales onto the Label channel to show the region name and value on each slice. In the Label settings, change the number format to Percentage to show share instead of raw value.

Pie Chart — Sales Share by Region

West32%

East28%

Central22%

South18%

Choosing the Right Chart

Each chart type answers a specific kind of question. Using the wrong chart makes data harder — not easier — to understand. Here is a quick decision guide:

The Question	Best Chart	Why
Which category has the most Sales?	Bar chart	Bar length makes magnitude comparison easy and accurate
How have Sales changed over the year?	Line chart	Lines show trends and direction of change over time
What share of total Sales does each region hold?	Pie chart	Slices show proportional contribution to a whole
How do Sales and Profit relate to each other?	Scatter plot	Two axes reveal correlation patterns (covered in Lesson 12)

Renaming a Sheet and Saving Your Work

Every chart lives on its own worksheet tab at the bottom of the screen. By default Tableau names them Sheet 1, Sheet 2, and so on. Double-click any tab to rename it — use a short descriptive name like Sales by Category or Monthly Trend. Clear tab names make workbooks much easier to navigate, especially once you have 10 or more sheets.

Save your workbook with Ctrl + S (Windows) or Cmd + S (Mac). The first time you save, Tableau asks for a file name and location. Save as a .twb file (workbook without data) or a .twbx file (packaged workbook with data included). Use .twbx if you need to share the file with someone who does not have access to the original data source.

📌 Teacher's Note

Pie charts get a lot of criticism in data visualisation — and for good reason. When you have more than five or six slices, the human eye cannot accurately compare the sizes of narrow wedges. For most comparisons, a sorted bar chart is more readable than a pie chart. That said, pie charts are perfectly appropriate when you have three to four categories and want to show a clear part-to-whole story. Use them deliberately, not by default. A good rule: if a bar chart works just as well, use the bar chart.

Practice Questions

1. Which mark type must you manually select in the Marks card dropdown before building a pie chart in Tableau?

2. Which chart type is the best choice for showing how monthly Sales have changed over the course of a year?

3. Which Tableau file format should you use when sharing a workbook with someone who does not have access to the original data source?

Next up — Lesson 9: Sorting and filtering data — controlling exactly which data appears in your view and in what order.

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