As a business analyst at a retail company, I was working on analyzing the data of sales profit of different product sub-categories using Tableau. For this, I need to visualize the data in a way that shows the profit and ranking of products according to their sales profit.
To display the profit and profit rank for each category, I created a Lollipop chart in Tableau. With this chart, I was able to show the profit scale through the bar and a circle at the tip of each bar to display the rank of the product according to the profit it made.
In this Tableau tutorial, I will explain the Tableau Lollipop chart and how to create one to visualize the data in Tableau.
What is a Lollipop Chart in Tableau?
In Tableau, the Lollipop chart is a variation of a bar chart that has a dot or circle at the top of each bar to show comparisons and highlight specific values. The lollipop chart is useful in scenarios where we need to display rankings or trends, to show easy comparison of data, as an alternative to regular Tableau bar charts.
Create a Lollipop Chart in Tableau
To create a Lollipop chart in Tableau, we will use the Superstore dataset from Tableau. Using the Lollipop chart, we will display the ranking of the product subcategories according to their sales profit.
Connect the Tableau with the Superstore data and follow the steps below to create a Tableau Lollipop chart.
- Add the Sub-categories to the Columns and Profit to the Rows.
- Duplicate the Profit on the Rows, for this press “Ctrl” and drag the Profit in Rows. Then click on the second Profit in Rows and select Dual Axis.
- Now, you will see that the mark type will be automatically set to circle chart for both mark types. Here, change the Marks type to the Bar for the Profit(1).
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- To show the proper lollipop chart, we need to adjust the size of bars and circles. In the Size card of the Marks section, adjust the slider to make the circles visible on the bars.
Ideally, reduce the size of bars and increase the size of circles.
- Still, the circles won’t be stacked accurately on the bars to show a Lollipop bar. To adjust this, right-click on the Y-axis and select Synchronize axis.
With this, the chart will display the circles at the tip of bars showing the proper shape of a lollipop.
- To change the colors of bars, click on the color card in the marks section of Profit(1) and select a color.
We can also use a measure to show color, like Sales, where it will show higher sales with a darker color contrast in the bars and lower sales with the lighter shades.