Superstore Case Study

  Tableau Lab

 Updated October, 2017

You have been hired by SuperStore as a consulting team to help them makes sense of their data. There are over 9,000 records in an Excel file, from 2012 to near the end of 2016, and the company is having a hard time analyzing and interpreting all of their customer, product, and order data. You are tasked to develop interactive tables, graphs, and dashboards, along with your initial interpretation of the results, to get them off and running.  

Data set for this lab: Sample – Superstore.xls

(NOTE: Do not use another “similarly” named file. A file by a slightly different name can have very different data!)

• After opening Tableau, click on “Excel” under “Connect to a file”. Go to “Documents” → “My Tableau Repository” → “Datasources” → “10.4” (or whichever version you have) → “en_US-US” → “Sample – Superstore.xls”.
• Drag the “Orders” sheet to where it says “Drag sheets here”.
• In the upper right corner you are offered the option to choose between “Live” and “Extract”, choose “Extract”. This will enable you to import the data and work with it locally, removing workloads off of critical business systems.
• Save your Tableau file on your desktop as: Tableau - your section number – name (e.g. Tableau – 2 –  PJ Guinan).  This will save your work in Tableau file format (.twb).

• Note: Tableau will ask you to save the extract first before saving the workbook. Select “Create Extract” and save the extract as “Orders (Sample - Superstore).tde” on your desktop.

• You will be uploading a “pdf file” version of your work to Blackboard at the end of this session.
• Save continuously as you do your work![pic 1]

Important Notes:

• Use Order Date for time throughout lab.
• All Data Should be Filled in to the Dollar e.g. not $3,800 but $3,841.

1). The first set of charts and tables will help you gain a good understanding of the profitability (or not) of Superstore.  

a). Create a single continuous line chart to look at profitability over time (by quarter by year). Use Show Me for the correct chart type. Use Order Date for time. Show the forecast for 2015. Show labels so that you can see specific profit numbers. Decide what level of detail you want to show.

 “Annotate” your observations within the visual. Include the auto-generated comments and add your own.

Save the chart as Profit by Quarter (use the “rename sheet” command). [pic 2]

Save your workbook.

Create a “new worksheet”.

b). Before filtering, create a series of horizontal bar charts to look at the profitability of both product category and sub-category by year.

• Observe the trends over time.
• Use color to highlight differences in profitability.
• Create an annotation of some observations.
• Create a filter for time (Order Date).
• Filter on 2015. 

[pic 3]

Save the chart as Profit by Product.

Save your workbook.

Create a “new worksheet”.

c). Create a series of horizontal bar charts to look at the profitability by state by year (Order Date).

• Use color to highlight differences in profitability.
• Use the sort function to identify 3 high-performing states and 3 low-performing states in 2015.[pic 4]

Save the chart as Profit by State – Bars.  

Save your workbook.

Copy or “duplicate worksheet”.

d). Maps look better! Change the duplicate sheet to a map chart (choose filled rather than symbol map) which shows the profitability of each U.S. state by year (Order Date).

• Use a 5-stepped color scheme and select full color range.

• Label each state by Profit. What a mess of numbers!

• Do a “Quick Filter” by year (Order Date) and Category.

[pic 5]

• Filter on 2015. What are the five poorest performing states?

• Filter on Furniture in 2015. What are the four poorest performing states?      

Save the chart as Profit by State.  

Save your workbook.

e). Without losing the work you just did, create a crosstab of the Profit by State chart you just created for the most recent year (2015).

• Highlight profitability areas on the chart by color. Play with options. See how good you can make it look!

Save the chart as  Profit by State Crosstab.

Save your workbook.

f).  Create a scatter plot with Profit (as Y-axis) and Sales (as X-axis). Include Category as Color and Customer Name as Detail and Label. Include Sum Profit as a Label as well.

• Do a Filter by year (Order Date). Filter for 2015.
• Show trend lines for Product Category.
• Create an annotation of the results. Interpret the trend lines.
• What product lines worry you and which are high-performing in 2015?
• Do you notice a change in the trend lines over time?
• Who are the highest & lowest “performing” customers? (Hint: Compare results from 2012 with 2015.)

[pic 6]

Save the chart as Product Profit Trend Lines.      

2). Next, create a dashboard of some of the worksheets you just created so it provides a holistic view of some of the data that can be shared with others.  

a). Create a dashboard worksheet.

• Play with the different size options and see what you like best. Consider not just your view but how others are likely to access your dashboard e.g., laptop, iPad.
• Bring in 3 worksheets: Profit by State, Profit by Product, and Profit by Quarter.
• You may have to adjust the fit so that the entire chart appears.
• You can also adjust the size of each chart window.

Name your worksheet Profit Dashboard.  

Save your workbook.