As a data analyst, I was analyzing our company’s sales data using Tableau. In the data, I wanted to know how much of our total sales came from the Furniture category. It could have been done by showing the sales percentage in a bar chart, but I wanted a chart that shows the sales share in a clear view.
To visualize the sales share of the Furniture category out of overall sales, I created a Waffle Chart in Tableau. Using this chart, I displayed the 10×10 grid where each square stands for 1% of total sales. For example, if the Furniture sales share is 32%, it will fill 32 squares out of 100 in the grid.
In this tutorial, I will explain the Waffle chart in Tableau and how to use it to show data distribution or the share of a dimension out of the total.
What is a Waffle Chart in Tableau?
In Tableau, a waffle chart is used to display the percentages or parts of a whole, using a grid of squares to represent the data. The Tableau waffle chart represents proportions, making it helpful in comparing categories or tracking progress. Each square in the grid represents 1% of the total, allowing for precise analysis of the data’s distribution.
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Create a Waffle Chart in Tableau
To create a Waffle chart in Tableau, we will use the Tableau superstore data. To show grids in the Tableau chart, we will use the excel file WaffleTemplate. xlsx. This file contains 100 rows, each containing: Column (1 to 10), Percentage (0.01, 0.02, …, 1.00), Row (1 to 10).
In Tableau, we can create a Waffle chart using single and multiple categories, which I will explain in the steps below.
Create a Waffle Chart in Tableau With Single Category
In this example, we will create a waffle card using a single category (furniture) to show its share in total sales.
Now, open the Tableau and follow the steps below to create a Waffle chart.
- In the Tableau, connect the data to Microsoft Excel and select the Superstore data. Then click on Add in data source and select the file WaffleTemplate.
- Now, we need to join the data from both Excel files. For this, drag the Orders from the superstore and sheet1 to the canvas.
After this, click on the line connection between both data sources, and map the ROW ID from the superstore data to the Rows from the waffle template.
With this, we can compare each percentage square of the waffle chart to the actual Furniture sales percentage.
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- Now, click on the sheet and add Rows to the row shelf and Column to the column shelf. In both Rows and Columns, change their type to Dimension from Measure.
- Now, change the Marks type to square to display the squares of the Waffle chart. To increase the size of the squares, adjust the slider from the Size card.