Readers:

Last week, I published various infographics, diagrams and photographs that were published as part of the story regarding where the boys and their coach were in the Thai cave.

Here are infographics, diagrams and photographs related to the actual rescue effort that were published in many newspapers, both print and digital.

I thought I would share some of these images with you.

Best regards,

Michael

Michael: What is next on your “To Do” list? What can the Tableau community expect to see from you in the near future?

Kevin: I have been asked my numerous people, especially on LinkedIn, to create a blog or videos that explain how I created my visualizations.  I received numerous requests for this when posting my last three visualizations: The Lorax, Super Mario Bros, and Candy Land.  Because of this, I do intend to create a blog…but I would expect that to be well in the future.

I’m still very much a newbie and I have so much to learn about the platform.  I want to improve my ability within Tableau using calculations, bins, and parameters as I’ve barely scratched the surface.  I just want to continue to soak up the wealth of knowledge from such a fantastic and uplifting community and I absolutely cannot wait to meet my idols at the Tableau Conference in October.

In the meantime, I’d expect to see some fun-loving visualizations that help make “non-data” people into data people.

Tableau Public Link: https://public.tableau.com/profile/kevin.flerlage#!/

Readers:

Previously, The Financial Times Graphics team created the Visual Vocabulary to help provide us good choices when we need to create data visualizations. From Dr. Andrew Abela, who in 2009 released his diagram, titled “Chart Suggestion—A Thought Starter” to Stephen Few who has provided us chart choice guidance over the years, we have been searching for the grail or wisdom for which chart would be the best one for us to use for our dataviz purposes.

Here is a screenshot of the Visual Vocabulary published by The Financial Times Graphics team.

Over the past month, Andy Kriebel has been building all of these charts in Tableau so that everyone in the Tableau Community would have examples they could use and learn from. He refers to it as a labor of love. He has had this reviewed and vetted by his team at The Information Lab as he iterated his way through creating this.

Per Mr. Kriebel,

There are 72 charts in total, most of which I built myself or with help of tutorials from the community. To build the violin plot, equalized cartogram, and heat map examples, I prepared the data in Alteryx and the output was shape files. The scaled cartogram was built using Tilegrams by Pitch Interactive based on this tutorial from Ken Flerlage.

He also provided a list of people who may not have been the original creators of the charts, but where key resources he relied on to create the charts in his Tableau workbook.

The Visual Vocabulary – Tableau Style

First, here is a link to Andy’s workbook on Tableau Public.

Tableau Visual Vocabulary Workbook Link

Below is a screenshot of the main page of his workbook.

How to use this workbook

In Closing

Mr. Kriebel has always shared his thoughts, insights and examples with the Tableau community. He is generous with his knowledge and collaborates with the community as you can see from the list of great people he worked with on this. All of us in the Tableau community owe Mr. Kriebel a debt of gratitude for his energy, passion and collaborative nature.

Thanks, Andy!

Luke Stanke’s Bio

Luke has been using Tableau for nearly six years. But he does a lot more than data visualization. He has a strong understanding of many things data science. Luke has done things from optimization to classification to predicting things. Really it’s less about the technique and more about the solution. He also have a background in psychometrics, which he will discuss in more detail later in this interview. Luke used to work for a consulting company but now he works for himself.

Questions

Michael: I really like you’re Profit Variance dataviz you created for Workout Wednesday (WoW). Can you tell my readers the process you go through when you want to create a data viz? For example, how you find the data, design and develop it in Tableau, etc.?

Luke: I think my approach for WOW is just slightly different than when I’m designing any other data product. With WoW, I’m thinking about techniques that I regularly use in Tableau. Sometimes it’s how I build “automated” updates — you know so what when you refresh data things change automatically, sometimes it’s about highlighting under-used statistical approaches that developers SHOULD be thinking about, and sometimes it’s just about having fun.

But if we’re getting specific about visualizations outside of WoW and things that are not work related, then for those I’m thinking about how I can push the boundaries of what is possible in Tableau? Whats new? What hasn’t been done before? What will stretch my understanding? What will grow the community? Those are the questions I’m thinking about.

Link: http://www.workout-wednesday.com/2018/07/10/week-28/

When I am creating something I’m always obsessing over small things. I don’t care if it takes me weeks to get something correct, it’s what I’m going to do. For example, the Harry Potter product I put together for the first IronViz feeder: the order of each of the chords in the stretched chord diagram had to be thought thru. I could have let it look like whatever it did by default, but in my mind that’s just sloppy work. Every detail on spacing on that product was tested a dozen different ways.

I think what I’m saying is I spend a lot of time iterating on my work.

Michael: In reviewing several of your datavizzes, you seem to follow a very minimalist style. Am I correct in my perception and, if so, what criteria do you follow in your styling of data vizzes?

I’m just trying to follow good design principles and if I use them correctly, then the end product will only contain the exact things needed for consumers to be successful in their interpretations of the design.

Luke: Hmmm… I don’t view it as minimalist at all. I think maybe it’s the product of two things, the first being the fact I’m iterating over my design trying to make it the best version of itself. But the second is that I’m just trying to follow good design principles and if I use them correctly, then the end product will only contain the exact things needed for consumers to be successful in their interpretations of the design. So in that sense maybe my designs come off as minimalistic.

Link: https://public.tableau.com/profile/stanke#!/vizhome/WorkoutWednsdayWeek25SegmentationDriftbyYear/Intermediate

Michael: In your profile, when you worked for the Minneapolis Public Schools, you mention developing key social-emotional learning indicators used in many school districts and mined systems for important insights about students. My wife teaches Education at Arizona State University and her focus is brain-based activities and studies. Can you talk a little about these indicators, how you were able to capture them, and how you visualized them?

Luke: So I think here’s a great time to say that we all come from different backgrounds and we all have different knowledge, skills, abilities, and mindsets that are not data visualization related. So I might digress a bit from the usual data world to talk a little bit about social psychology. For the most part student success is due to —and I’m about to really generalize here—involvement of the family, involvement of the school, and involvement of the community. Classic Bronfenbrenner stuff here. It’s also has to do with how an individual—a student’s choices. Within how a student chooses to respond is the world of social emotional health. About 5 years ago this became a hot topic. A researcher at UPENN, Angela Duckworth, won a MacArthur Genius grant for her work (photo, right). In the studies it showed that a number of things, but above all student with higher self-reported grit scores had higher levels of short- and long-term successes.

Blog Note: Urie Bronfenbrenner was a Russian-born American developmental psychologist who is most known for his ecological systems theory of child development. His scientific work and his assistance to the United States government helped in the formation of the Head Start program in 1965. Bronfenbrenner’s research and his theory was key in changing the perspective of developmental psychology by calling attention to the large number of environmental and societal influences on child development.

For the most part student success is due to —and I’m about to really generalize here—involvement of the family, involvement of the school, and involvement of the community.

There is also work by Carol Dweck out of the University of Chicago. She looks at our mindset and perception of our ability to learn. Is it fixed or malleable? Research shows our brains are malleable, meaning that we are capable of learning things and that we’re not destined to just know some things. But — and here’s the big thing — your belief in your ability to learn actually has significant effects on your life outcomes. It’s not a huge effect but it’s something. So when I hear people talk in the Tableau community about how they can’t do something or it’d be impossible to learn, I obviously get frustrated. But I digress.

But — and here’s the big thing — your belief in your ability to learn actually has significant effects on your life outcomes.

Back to the work. At MPS, we developed our own measure: persistence. It’s kind of a blend of the two ideas but when we measured it the stats suggested its own unique psychometric quality. We use some “sophisticated” techniques to develop the metric, but in the end, it’s basically a survey that is analyzed using a less know regression model. We then do some basic re-scaling and put it on a 1-10 scale because I personally think it’s easy to understand a 1 to 10 rating.

As for visualizing it. We visualized the 1-10 scores for school and leaders but — if I’m being honest — a lot of the data products were not data visuals or spreadsheets. They were stories about how the metrics functioned. They were documentation.

Michael: Can you tell us three of your favorite Tableau tips and tricks?

First off, any problem — simple or complex —in Tableau is just a series of smaller problems. It’s about breaking it down one part at a time.

Luke: First off, any problem — simple or complex —in Tableau is just a series of smaller problems. It’s about breaking it down one part at a time. But my favorite tips:

1) Unioning data to itself opens up so many more visual options in Tableau. If you see something completely maybe mind bending or something that seems impossible, that’s probably because you are thinking about the data in a singular format. Once you start thinking about what’s possible when you stack the data on itself then a whole new world opens up. That’s probably my most advanced tip. Maybe I’ll step it back for the next one.

2) If you are going to use tooltips in a data product, then tell your consumers it has tooltips and how they can interact with them. As experienced users, it’s natural for us, but for new users they don’t know about that native functionality.

3) Speaking of tooltips, always turn off your command bar on tooltips. Most people don’t realize how easy it is to expose potentially sensitive data to consumers. I really wish Tableau had that set to hide as default.

Michael: What is missing from Tableau Desktop (don’t include anything that is going to be released with v2018.2) and why do we need it?

Luke: Google fonts embedded. We’ve got about 7 native fonts plus the Tableau fonts that are embedded. Almost all organizations are moving to using an open typeface that is often available on Google Fonts. And companies want to brand using their brand standards or design language.

I also wish there was a way to fit regression models right in Tableau —I mean this technically already exists—but I want functions to provide fitted values — aka the predicted number, and the residuals — aka the difference between prediction and actual.

Finally I’d love another function called polygon, it would basically allow me to plot points along a polygon without having to stack a dataset.

Michael: What is next on your “To Do” list? What can the Tableau community expect to see from you in the near future?

Luke: I have got to record another episode of a podcast I do with Zen Master Ann Jackson this week. I’m also doing some research for my next data product topic. I have a few ideas, but all I can say is that it’ll probably be a collaborative effort.

Link: http://stanke.co/#/portfolio

Source: Gringer, Bonnie, THE HIGHEST RISK PLACES IN AMERICA FOR YOUR CAR
And How To Avoid Becoming a Victim of Car Theft, TitleMax.com, https://www.titlemax.com/discovery-center/home-and-family/where-your-car-most-likely-gets-stolen-united-states/.

It’s very import to not only drive safely but park safely! When your car is sitting around in parking lots or driveways, it’s good to use smart tactics to avoid having your stuff being broken into, from locking your doors to checking your alarms to hiding your valuables under your seat. If you’re living in one of these cities where car theft is common, you might want to take it a step further and purchase a lock for your steering wheel or perhaps even take your steering wheel with you!

With this infographic below, discover the cities where taking the proper safety precautions could help lower your risk substantially. A few simple steps could help save you from being the next victim of car theft.

Motor vehicle theft and “carjacking,” which involves theft while you’re still in the car, are huge problems in some parts of the United States. There are typically more than 700,000 motor vehicle thefts every year in the U.S. Statistics on carjacking alone haven’t been studied in detail since the 1990s, unfortunately, but there are some easy tricks you can use to avoid these very dangerous situations.

For instance, police tell us that carjackers use several tactics, like the $20 trick, to get victims out of the car. If you see money on your windshield, don’t get out! Drive away with the money (which serves them right!) and retrieve it later, if you can. And at all times, stay aware of your surroundings. To help you with that, we compiled a list of the places with the highest rates of car theft in the U.S., according to FBI data.

Where is your car most likely to get stolen in the U.S.? We’ve created a heat map and organized car theft rates by city. With thousands of points of data for more than 300 U.S. metropolitan statistical areas, this graph dives deep into the rate of motor vehicle thefts per 100,000 residents, giving a fairer view than simply the number of thefts, which would skew toward more populated areas. Check out car theft statistics by city to see how your city compares!

WHAT IS THE CITY WITH THE MOST STOLEN CARS IN THE USA?

Looking at just the numbers, the city with the most stolen cars in the USA is Los Angeles, CA. The greater Los Angeles-Long Beach-Glendale metropolitan area experienced 47,511 thefts in one year.

But if you compare this to the population and get a rate of car thefts per 100,000 residents, it’s Albuquerque, NM, which has the highest rate at 1,018, even though it only experienced 7,710 car thefts in all. Since it’s also home to the University of New Mexico, the college with the highest reported number of car theft rates in the United States, you could probably consider Albuquerque the car theft capital of the US! What’s happening there?!

WHAT ARE THE TOP CITIES FOR CAR THEFT IN THE US?

Purely by the number of incidents, here is a list of cities ranked for car theft. In USA municipalities, the number of thefts may be skewed by a large population, so also examine the rate when looking at car theft statistics by city.

1. Los Angeles-Long Beach-Glendale, CA: 47,511 (at a rate of 476.1 per 100,000 inhabitants)
2. Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, CA: 23,267 (at a rate of 516.0 per 100,000 inhabitants)
3. Oakland-Hayward-Berkeley, CA: 20,556 (at a rate of 737.5 per 100,000 inhabitants)
4. Seattle, WA: 15,537 (at a rate of 526.5 per 100,000 inhabitants)
5. Dallas-Plano-Irving, TX: 13,992 (at a rate of 292.0 per 100,000 inhabitants)
6. Denver-Aurora-Lakewood, CO: 13,278 (at a rate of 462.9 per 100,000 inhabitants)
7. Houston, TX: 12,738 (at a rate of 340.5 per 100,000 inhabitants)
8. Detroit-Dearborn-Livonia, MI: 11,746 (at a rate of 672.1 per 100,000 inhabitants)
9. Chicago, IL: 11,473 (at a rate of 211.6 per 100,000 inhabitants)
10. New York, NY-Jersey City, NJ-White Plains, NY: 10,866 (at a rate of 75.3 per 100,000 inhabitants)

It’s interesting to note that New York City, despite being the most populous city in the US, has low motor vehicle theft statistics and a rate of only 75.3, which is likely because so many of its residents don’t drive a car. Only a fraction of people get their car stolen there, while tiny Modesto, CA, the setting for the film American Graffiti, has an insane rate of 648.1.

WHAT IF YOU LIVE IN A CITY WITH A HIGH CAR THEFT RATE?

With our map of car theft rates by city, you can find stats on an area near where you call home. What if you live in an area that ranks highest in car theft? Cities like Pueblo, CO, and Oakland, CA, have extremely high rates, for instance, but by being alert and taking proper precautions, you can help lower your risk no matter where you live. Remember to be safe in those U.S. cities, but be safe in your hometown, too. Don’t leave your car on or your keys unattended, and always lock your doors.

Readers:

I saw this dataviz by Laine Caruzca on Tableau Public. Being a life-long Detroit Tigers fan, I just had to share this. The link to interact with it on Tableau Public is below.

Best regards,

Michael

https://public.tableau.com/profile/laine.caruzca#!/vizhome/BaseballVizz/Dashboard1

Readers:

Here are screenshots of my slides from last Thursday’s Tableau Fringe Festival – APAC.

We are launching the new Follow Your Money (FYM) next Friday, August 24th, so please check it out then. The link is on the last slide.

My thanks to Bridget Cogley, Joshua Milligan, Tim Messar and the Tableau Technical Support Team for their help and inspiration in the development of this application.

Best wishes,

Michael

TFF – APAC Presentation Slides

Readers:

Last week, I taught an internal Tableau Desktop class at work. Usually, before I started a particular topic, I would go out to various data visualization blogs and show the class some examples of workbooks created by some of the Tableau community. On the last day of class, the group asked if I could provide them a list of some of the data visualizations blogs I like.

I created a new blog page today titled My Favorite Data Visualization Blogs. You can get to it using the menu option at the top of my website page to the right (see screenshot below).

On this page, I have provided a “first cut” list of blog sites I visit fairly often. This by no means is a complete list of all the sites I visit, but were the ones that first came to mind as I was putting it together this morning. I tried to include, in this round, sites that are kept fairly current or offer a lot of Tableau tips and tricks.

I plan to iteratively continue to grow this list as I remember more sites I visit.

I hope you find this helpful.

Best Regards,

Michael

Mark Bradbourne Bio

Mark Bradbourne has worked in the data warehousing and business intelligence arena since being introduced to the practice in 1997. He has worked on the complete life cycle but enjoys the “user-facing” roles most including requirements gathering, visualization, reporting and user training. He has worked for many companies across many industries including financial, manufacturing, internet and legal.

Mark is a graduate of the University of Akron with degrees in computer programming as well as business and organizational communication. He received his Certified Business Intelligence Professional (CBIP) certification from TDWI in February of 2011 in Business Analytics. In 2017, he passed the Tableau Desktop Qualified Associate exam, and this was honored with the title of Tableau Social Ambassador.

Mark and his wife Rose, along with their two daughters live in the Cleveland area of Ohio. In his free time he enjoys motorcycling, travel, disc golf and drumming. He is a life member of Kappa Kappa Psi and an honorary member of Tau Beta Sigma.

QUESTIONS

Michael: Hi Mark. I really enjoyed your presentation at the Tableau Fringe Festival – APAC last week. Can you tell my readers a bit about your Tableau Doctor Practice that you initiated at work? What benefits have you seen from implementing this program?

Mark: Thanks! I really enjoy the Tableau Fringe Festival and have been lucky enough to have been picked to speak at the last two for EMEA and APAC.

At KeyBank, Tableau as a platform is relatively new, having been rolled out in March of 2017. I joined the organization in July of 2017 and part of my role was to help drive adoption and education. After I attended the 2017 Tableau Conference I had the idea to launch and internal “Tableau Doctor” program. I put together a quick summary of what I wanted to do and what I thought the benefits would be. After discussions with the BI&ACC (Business Intelligence and Analytics Competency Center) we decided to launch it and see how it went… almost a Proof of Concept. With only myself acting as the primary doctor, we set really modest goals; 48 sessions during 2018. We launched in February/March and since then we’ve completed over 100 sessions. It’s a very popular initiative and the feedback has been outstanding.

At a high level, as developers run in to issues or want advice, they can schedule and appointment through a SharePoint form. I’ll take a look at the description they provide of the issue and schedule a time block. Anywhere from 30-60 minutes generally. If we are in the same location, we can meet in person, but most sessions happen via WebEx. During the sessions I can walk them through the process, point them to internal or external reference materials, or in some complex cases I can do development directly on their workbook and explain the process as I come up with the solution.

The benefits vary, but I’ve seen users who have made multiple visits and weren’t so sure about the tool then become much more comfortable. I recently had one user present at our internal User Group and she showed all the tips and tricks she’d learned and shared with her team. So, she has become comfortable enough to teach others. To me, that’s fantastic and the ultimate goal; an Army of Tableau Ninjas.

Michael: Last January, you posted a blog titled The Importance of Feedback and Iteration. I found this post to be important and insightful. Can you discuss this a bit and why you feel it is important to iterate and get feedback when working on a project?

Link: http://sonsofhierarchies.com/?p=480

Mark:  It’s really become crucial to me. Whether it’s an internal project at work, a makeover Monday viz, an Iron Viz feeder or even a blog post… getting someone else’s eyes and feedback is essential. We are creatures of habit and we have set things in our mind about how things should look, feel and function. We fall in to that trap and the audience may not, and chances are will not, have the same experience, knowledge and background as you. They don’t understand the way you think, and the message could get lost. A good example of this was my Iron Viz entry I did on my recent weight loss. I showed the viz to my wife with a very confident “What do you think?” She totally sunk my battleship and said it didn’t really flow, parts didn’t make sense and certain parts needed to be reworked. She’s a fifth grade teacher, not a data person so it made me take a step back and rework the story. To me, I had lived the entire thing so it all made sense, but to her it needed a beginning, middle and end. Ultimately, that’s what I ended up with and she could then follow it much better.

Michael: In your LinkedIn bio, you state the following:

Perform proof of concept development work for internal departments of the bank to show them “The Art of the Possible” in regards to Tableau and analytics. 

What is the “The Art of the Possible”?

Mark:  There is a saying “You don’t know what you don’t know” and the same is true with analytics. If a department has always looked at a “wall of number” in Excel or a series of pie charts to compare period to period they may not know that are more efficient, or more visual ways to present data and derive insight. So, what I do as part of the BI&ACC is I will receive their data, and a set of questions they want to answer with that data. I’ll go off and build proof of concept dashboards and become their “Art of the Possible”. The hope of this is to inspire them to rethink their approach to data and how they use it in their day to day business practices.

Michael: Can you tell us three of your favorite Tableau Desktop tips and tricks?

Mark:  Only 3?  O.K., they aren’t super fancy, but I use them a lot. The first is the ability to take part of a calculation you are working on in a calculation window and copy to the rows or columns shelf to see the result. This is super handy when you are doing nested calculations.

The second is using actions as a menu. Using Filter Actions, I create a worksheet that has a custom shape, then build a menu to navigate across multi-dashboard workbooks.

The third would be using parameters to drive highlighting. On the Big Mac Index I did as part of Makeover Monday, you can see I use a drop down parameter to change what row is highlighted to compare to the U.S. Big Mac cost.

Link: https://public.tableau.com/shared/GX54Z6ZN5?:display_count=yes

Michael: TC18 is two months away. In your blog post you recently posted, #TC18 ~ Planning for Before, During, and After the Conference, you provide some ‘Alternative Tips’ for maximizing the conference before you arrive, while you are there, and when you go home. Can you provide my readers a summary of these tips?

Mark: In brief. Go with a goal in mind. There is so much you can do, but you can’t do it all. Pick a path but have an alternate. The biggest mistake I made the first time was not realizing what sessions were recorded, what session I could take home and do on my own (Hands-On) and what sessions were ‘Do not miss!’. If you aren’t sure as you are planning, ask!

Once you are there, do your best to keep your phone charged. Take notes on sessions so you don’t forget those magic nuggets of knowledge… and while I don’t mention it in the blog post, ignore work. You are at the conference to learn. It kills me when I see people on conference calls, or they are building PowerPoint presentations. If you aren’t able to 100% (or near 100%) immerse in the conference you are going to miss out.

Also, as awkward as it may feel, just put yourself out there. Say hello to random people, or a name you recognize. Make a friend or 50… it enriches the experience.

If you’ve done it right, you will be sad after the conference it over. Not only is it an amazing learning activity, but it’s a ton of fun. When you get home, review your notes and download the extra content that you didn’t manage to see while you were there. Share what you learned and experienced with your co-workers or your local Tableau User Group; the best way to absorb knowledge it to share it with others!

Michael: Tell us a little bit about the Sons of Hierarchies.

Mark: This makes me laugh to think about the origins. When I attended the 2015 conference in Las Vegas I was just starting to get involved with 

the online community. I worked for Harley-Davidson at the time and the team that was going out with me had planned to rent some motorcycles and ride out to Hoover Dam and through the desert. Dan Montgomery (@DanRMonty) posted about renting motorcycles and ride and included the hashtag SonsOfHierarchies. I responded, telling him our riding plans and I was apparently feeling creative and came up with an initial design for a logo.

The conversation continued and Aaron Romeo and I decided to sell some shirts as a laugh and gave the proceeds to the Tableau Foundation. After Data15, I wanted to set up a Tableau blog, so I registered the domain and the rest is history.

Michael: What is still missing from Tableau Desktop (assume we are talking about the latest iteration v2018.2) and why do we need it?

Mark: I’d like to see Multi-Value parameters. I think in some instances it would be nice so you don’t have to build simple matrix of values to crowbar that when needed (Select A, B, C, A and B, A and C, or B and C.)

Personally, I’d like a CSS-like functionality where I can set default color (not Blue) and Fonts every time I go in to Desktop. It would save me a bit of time as I go through every format setting to set those things.

Lastly, I’d like to see some global setting on Tool Tips, mainly an option to disable command buttons on all tool tips.

Michael: What is next on your “To Do” list? What can the Tableau community expect to see from you in the near future?

Mark: I personally want to continue to learn and grow and if I inspire a few people along the way that’s awesome too. This year I became a collaborative blogger with Mark Kernke and Mark Jurries II, cleverly knows as The Data Marks. Next year, I want to see that project take off and find a good rhythm with projects and challenges. I plan to continue to grow the Cleveland Tableau User Group with Jeremy Paytas and Mark Rogozinski and have it help raise the overall Tableau talent pool in Northeast Ohio. Lastly I want to complete the TFF trifecta and speak at TFF – Americas and while I got close this year, I want to speak at the Tableau Conference in 2019…. topic to be determined.

Tableau Public Link: https://public.tableau.com/profile/mark.bradbourne#!/

Density Mark Type (Heatmap) – The Beta Team brought heatmaps, a powerful new mark type, to Tableau. With one click, turn millions of marks into a meaningful representation of your data. Understand where there are concentrations of points, and identify patterns in seconds—whether on a map or scatterplot.

Navigation Action – The Beta Team brought a new action type to Tableau. Easily add navigation between sheets with the navigation action, now available as an option in the actions dialog.

JDBC Driver-Based Connections – You’ve asked and it’s almost here! Due to customer demand, The Beta Team has started working on adding support for using JDBC driver-based connections similar to the Other ODBC functionality in Tableau today.

Increased Column Limit for Tables – In this release, The Beta Team has increased the upper bound on the column limit, allowing users to create tables with up to 50 dimension columns.

Filter Query Cancellation on the Web – In Tableau 2018.3 you can cancel long-running filter queries on the Web, just like on Tableau Desktop.

TabCmd Auto-Completion on Linux – This feature enables built-in auto-completion of commands for TabCmd on Linux.

Web Save Performance Improvement – With this improvement web authoring users will experience a much faster response time when saving a workbook on the web.

Connect to Google Big Query data – Gain access to the trove of data in Google BigQuery by connecting to your data directly from the web.

Data Enhancements for the Web – Connect to OneDrive and Dropbox to download and open Excel and CSV files, all on the web.

Web Authoring Improvements – In 2018.3, you will have more control over the size of annotations, duplicate a worksheet as a cross tab, and more.

Spatial Data Updates – ESRI Geodatabase, KML, and TopoJSON support. Tableau now supports new spatial file connections to ESRI File Geodatabases and TopoJSON files. The Beta Team updated the spatial file connector to support KML files with multiple layers.

Tableau Bridge Improvements – With this release, Tableau Bridge admins will be able to see more data around the performance of their extract refreshes and how best to manage them.

New User Notifications – New single-sign on users get an automatic email notification when they are added to a Tableau Online site. The email lets users know where to sign-in and tips for using Tableau.

Identity Auto-Sync with SCIM for Tableau Online – Streamline the user permissioning process by auto-syncing with your existing cloud-based ID management systems. Seamlessly grant or remove access to Tableau by permissioning users in Okta and OneLogin.

Tableau Mobile for Citrix XenMobile and Microsoft Intune – You can now add MDM solutions Citrix XenMobile and Microsoft Intune via AppConfig for Tableau Mobile.

Tableau Mobile for Blackberry – Blackberry customers are now able to deploy a special version of Tableau Mobile that is compatible with the Blackberry Dynamics MDM platform.

Sources:

U/Udzu, Flags of the World, Sorted by Average Hue, Reddit.com, August 29, 2018, https://www.reddit.com/user/Udzu.

Wikipedia, sRGB, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SRGB.

Wikipedia, Gamma correction, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma_correction.

{\displaystyle V_{\text{out}}=A{V_{\text{in}}^{\gamma }}}

where the non-negative real input value {\displaystyle V_{\text{in}}} is raised to the power {\displaystyle \gamma } and multiplied by the constant A, to get the output value {\displaystyle V_{\text{out}}}. In the common case of A = 1, inputs and outputs are typically in the range 0–1.

A gamma value {\displaystyle \gamma <1} is sometimes called an encoding gamma, and the process of encoding with this compressive power-law nonlinearity is called gamma compression; conversely, a gamma value {\displaystyle \gamma >1} is called a decoding gamma and the application of the expansive power-law nonlinearity is called gamma expansion.

Source: Kuestenmacher, Simon, Types of Screw Drives, Twitter, 9/6/18, 10:35AM, https://twitter.com/simongerman600/status/1037756072168247296/photo/1.

Readers:

Today is the first day of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. It begins at sundown tonight. It is the year 5779 in the Hebrew calendar.

The Hebrew or Jewish calendar is a lunisolar calendar used today predominantly for Jewish religious observances. It determines the dates for Jewish holidays and the appropriate public reading of Torah portions, yahrzeits (dates to commemorate the death of a relative), and daily Psalm readings, among many ceremonial uses. In Israel, it is used for religious purposes, provides a time frame for agriculture and is an official calendar for civil purposes, although the latter usage has been steadily declining in favor of the Gregorian calendar.

The present Hebrew calendar is the product of evolution, including a Babylonian influence. Until the Tannaitic period (approximately 10–220 CE), the calendar employed a new crescent moon, with an additional month normally added every two or three years to correct for the difference between twelve lunar months and the solar year. The year in which it was added was based on observation of natural agriculture-related events in Israel. Through the Amoraic period (200–500 CE) and into the Geonic period, this system was gradually displaced by the mathematical rules used today. The principles and rules were fully codified by Maimonides in the Mishneh Torah in the 12th century. Maimonides’ work also replaced counting “years since the destruction of the Temple” with the modern creation-era Anno Mundi.

The Hebrew lunar year is about eleven days shorter than the solar year and uses the 19-year Metonic cycle to bring it into line with the solar year, with the addition of an intercalary month every two or three years, for a total of seven times per 19 years. Even with this intercalation, the average Hebrew calendar year is longer by about 6 minutes and 40 seconds than the current mean tropical year, so that every 216 years the Hebrew calendar will fall a day behind the current mean tropical year; and about every 231 years it will fall a day behind the mean Gregorian calendar year.

The era used since the Middle Ages is the Anno Mundi epoch (Latin for “in the year of the world”). As with Anno Domini (A.D. or AD), the words or abbreviation for Anno Mundi (A.M. or AM) for the era should properly precede the date rather than follow it.

Sources:

[1] Wikipedia, Hebrew Calendar, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebrew_calendar.

[2] Jewish Food Hero, Digital Jewish Holiday Calendar 5779, https://shop.jewishfoodhero.com/product/digital-jewish-holiday-calendar-5779/.

Readers:

I had previously blogged about Vanessa Otero’s Media Bias Chart v3.0 (blog post link here). Ms. Otero has revised and enhanced her chart and just released v4.0 through her company, ad fontes media.

Vanessa Otero and ad fontes media

To see more detailed information about the changes to the Media Bias Chart v4.0, please visit Vanessa’s web site at

adfontesmedia.com

Readers:

CM Campbell discusses social commentary through the comics he draws. In this particular one, he addresses stereotypes and misconceptions by using humor and references to comics and cartoons that were very tone deaf for their times.

Mr. Campbell received his BA in Fine Art with a studio emphasis at San Francisco State University, and his MFA in Comics at California College of the Arts. He grew up in Evanston, Illinois and lives in Brooklyn, New York.

More of Mr. Campbell’s work can be found here.

Best regards,

Michael

Source: CM Campbell, How to Draw a Black Guy, hyperallergic.com, March 13, 2018, https://hyperallergic.com/432066/draw-black-guy/.

Readers:

This is an infographic that Hiram Henriquez (photo, right) art directed for National Geographic’s Ocean special issue. The art was done by Bruce Morser. Research was by Darcy J. Bellido De Luna.

Rodrigo Calloni Bio

Rodrigo describes himself as

“A simple guy that likes to use Tableau and loves to have fun (sometimes the other way around). I also am a trustful friend that will do everything to help others to succeed in whatever they want to be. And, most importantly, proud dad of #babyAlice and #babyJulia.

Oh, yes, at work they label me as a Learning and Knowledge Management Specialist.”

Questions

Michael: Hi Rodrigo. When I think of Tableau and Twitter, I think of you. You are one of the most positive, encouraging people in the Tableau community. Can you tell my readers how you got started using Tableau?

Rodrigo: First of all, thanks a lot for the introduction to the question. I really, really should police myself more on using Twitter (my +6K tweets tells a lot), but at least I try to show this positivity and, basically, have fun. BTW, key advise to you all, most of my tweets should NOT be taken seriously!

I am the typical incidental Tableau user. I started using Tableau as part of the efforts to develop an Open Data platform for my employer.

The long story: I am originally a Librarian but I tailored myself to deal with the systems that make a library execute its functions. And it was at the Library that requests were coming to get access to our organization data. The team that works at the Reference Desk captured the message and came up with the proposal to have a place for all our public data. Then as I was the system guy, I got involved in the technical part of this development, working with an external company to make it happen. Tableau was then presented to us as a tool to build charts, visualize data and allow people to consume it more easily. Basically, it would be a way to allow people with low data literacy to have some sort of access and understand the data that we were proving. At the end, we never used Tableau on the website but it was too late to “cure” me from loving it. It took a while to get comfortable with it (in special due to some unexpected family situation) and I still keep learning every day by using the tool both at work and in my personal life.

Michael: I really like your Top 10 FIFA World Cup Countries by Goals Scored data visualization you have out on Tableau Public. Can you talk about the process you go through to gather data, design and build a data visualization like this one?

Link: https://public.tableau.com/profile/calloni#!/vizhome/Top10FIFAWorldCupCupCountiesbyGoalsScores/Top10FifaWorldCupCountriesbyGoalsScored

Rodrigo: That was a funny story. The 2018 Fifa World Cup was getting closer and I had this idea of building a Sankey chart that could display the distribution of goals of national teams across all editions. Luckily the dataset of all goals was posted in Kaggle and I got access to it. But then the struggle, how to build the chart in Tableau? Well, I would try to Google it for some examples but before that, I sent a DM to the “Zen Master to be” Ken Flerlage asking if he knew how to build it. And guess what, not only he knew (of course, he knows it all), but he was developing a template and offered it to me for testing. Some days later, working during my lunch break, I got to a version that is closer to what the viz came to be at the end. Then I reserved the day to publish it: 100 days to World Cup start.

Note: the static image doesn’t show, but I really like the viz in tooltip on this one!

Michael: Can you tell my readers a little bit about #babyAlice and how they can help?

Rodrigo: As I mention in the first question, just as I was introduced to Tableau I had experienced two life-changing experiences. First, the born of #babyAlice on June 2014 (right in the middle of the Open Data project). Then, on January 5, 2015, around 5:45pm, the accident that resulted in almost her death and that left her with some injuries and several development delays. This really had a cascade effect in our lives but from the beginning, we decided to do all we can to make Alice the happy girl that she used to be. Really, Alice was a baby that was always smiling to folks when we were out with her. It was very traumatic to see that smile gone and to learn that her vision (among other issues) was injured. Alice acquired a condition named CVI (Cortical Vision Impairment) that basically broke the connection between her eyes and her brain. All she could see at the start was a kaleidoscope of colors and lights. So imagine this: you are a person learning data visualization to make people understand what they see better… And the little angel that we have a home may never be able to see or understand those. After spending a month in hospital and rehabilitation program (basically to heal her brain and stop it from bleeding) we came home and started an intense therapy program that we still continue today. The viz bellow represents all days when Alice had a therapy session so far this year:

Last month we had her first stem cell therapy injection, hoping that she can regenerate some of these missing connections and also boost up her brain. And it is a pretty expensive procedure that is not fully covered by health insurance. Also, last Monday I drove Alice to Pittsburg where her CVI doctor did her annual assessment. And she continues to amaze us with her resiliency, she keeps improving little by little!

The Tableau community provided us with great support via a GoFundMe project that we launched for Alice’s benefit. I believe that we got at least 1,200 donations from all the kind people from twitter. I really can’t thank you guys and gals enough!

The GoFundMe is still open because, as I mentioned, this was the first session. It is hard to detect evolution (we will do some brain scans to see if her activity there improved since) but I feel on my heart that, yes, these cells are helping her. She is being able to articulate more, play more (in special after the arrival of her little sister, #babyJulia) and understand life a little better. All these signs make us believe that she will be able to make it. She will be able to live well, have fun, and see daddy’s data viz, and understand it.

GoFundMe Link: https://www.gofundme.com/building-alice039s-brain

Michael: Can you tell us three of your favorite Tableau Desktop tips and tricks?

Rodrigo: That’s a hard question! There are so many tips out there. But let’s take the challenge:

1 – Drag and Drop a text file or Excel file from your computer to Tableau canvas to quickly load the data.

2 – Drag and Drop fields inside a Calculated Field box.

3 – Drag a Reference Line out of the canvas to remove.

Michael: What is still missing from Tableau Desktop (assume we are talking about the latest iteration v2018.2 and what we know about v2018.3) and why do we need it?

Rodrigo: I love typography. And the way Tableau (Server, Online and Public) handle fonts is far from the needs of data designers. All these are web platforms so the lack of support for more fonts is very frustrating. So it is not really a problem with Tableau Desktop (the custom fonts do work there) but what is the point of making a fantastic viz with some cool fonts and then realize that it will resolve Times New Roman instead? Tableau must find a way to allow us to use at least Web Fonts, like the ones Tableau uses in its own corporate page. That’s why I keep the #allfontsmatter dream alive.

Michael: What is next on your “To Do” list? What can the Tableau community expect to see from you in the near future?

Rodrigo: My To do list is now! I just started a new blog fully in Portuguese (http://tableaudicas.com.br) and my goal is to create a space to share tips and engage with the Brazilian folks that are using Tableau. I see very few people from Brazil (or Portugal) interacting in the community and this has to change. So I hope I can succeed and get folks participating in activities such as #makeovermonday, #vizforsocialgood, or at least showing their faces on Twitter. We are extremely creative Country (see our Carnaval parties!) and I believe the day Brazilians understand how Tableau can liberate the creativity to tell their data stories, we will see amazing vizzes that will inspire the whole community.

Tableau Public Link: https://public.tableau.com/profile/calloni#!/

David Napoli Bio

David Napoli has worked with data for over 20 years as an analyst, actuary, statistician, research manager, and director. His experience includes evaluation and outcomes studies, ROI analysis, IBNR determination, predictive modeling, risk adjustment methodologies, advanced data visualization, dashboard design and implementation, database development and management, and identifying and evaluating trends and forces in data. David has extensive experience working with claims data, including for Medicaid, Medicare, and Commercial lines of business. He recently held the position of Director of Business Intelligence for a nonprofit health plan.

David’s educational background includes Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in aeronautical engineering (yes – he was a rocket scientist), and early in his career he realized he desired to concentrate his professional efforts in an industry focused on helping people more than his fondness for space exploration. He also completed coursework towards his doctorate in Health Services Research with a focus on Biostatistics at the University of Colorado School of Public Health (All but Dissertation), and teaches Data Analytics and Data Visualization courses part-time for General Assembly and the Leeds School of Business at the University of Colorado Boulder.

Questions

Michael: Hi David. I have been following your newsletter for a while now. What motivated you to start a newsletter and what kinds of topics do you focus on in it?

David: I started using Nuzzel to help me keep informed on all whom I follow on Twitter – which is in excess of 3,000, an unmanageable amount to sanely follow in a timeline , not to mention work / consulting / teaching / hockey parent responsibilities tend to mean I only have a small window to hop on Twitter in the early AM and late PM. Nuzzel automatically aggregates all of the links shared on your timeline for set periods (previous hour, last 8 hours, last 24 hours, etc.), and is a very time-efficient way to keep up on the latest items and discussions. So I had not initially set out to create a newsletter, but as I was deriving value and wonderful insight from “standing on the shoulders of giants”, I wanted to pay it forward in some way … and since there was a newsletter option within the platform, it was almost a no-brainer to at least give it a try, and if others found value and were interested in reading what I had a passion for, it would be a natural “win-win”. So now I pull together the newsletter each evening, and in doing so I continue my continuous learning journey and get to share it with just over 100 newsletter subscribers, which is more than I had ever anticipated.

The topics I choose to share are my professional passions – data visualization, business intelligence, statistics, analytics workflow, data dexterity (a concept I am attempting to formalize into a full course curriculum), and health care. As my initial reasoning for using Nuzzel was to create an efficient continuous learning mechanism for myself, the topics I shared just flowed from what I loved learning about and wanted to share with others who either shared that same passion or perhaps had a desire to start learning, and I could offer a “spark” to get them started.

Link: https://nuzzel.com/biff_bruise

Michael: In the description of the Introduction to Data Analytics course you teach at the General Assembly, you state,

Data drives decisions; are you part of the conversation around data?

Can you tell my readers how data drives decisions and how we become part of the conversation around data?

David: I would tend to say “data properly and effectively transformed into understanding” drives decisions, but that was a bit too wordy for the site. So what I eluded to a bit above is what I attempt to do in my classes to foster the right environment, appropriate knowledge, and proper approaches for becoming part of the conversation around data … and this, IMHO, can be wholly done through the concept of Data Dexterity.

Data Dexterity is centered around communication of information to provide understanding which focuses on the amalgamation of data science, social sciences, and humanities – or as Giorgia Lupi (photo, above) stated it best, Data Humanism. The high-level framework for Data Dexterity – which I am more than happy to discuss more of – is as follows:

• Acknowledge error … Uncertainty is Information (which will be my blog site once I finally get the time to get it working and written)
• Identify assumptions … be transparent in data efforts
• Find the weakest link … challenge assumptions, evaluate quality
• Understand the business model … which is not equivalent to the organization’s vision / mission statement
• Separate past performance from future results … time allowed for testing and retesting, validation and re validation (continuous monitoring)
• Question the picture … recognize biases, in data, analytic methods, and visuals
• Don’t confuse feelings for measurement … this one on its surface can be contentious, but what my intent is to recognize the importance of not just quantitative analysis, but qualitative, too – value must be placed on feelings and behaviors, but they differ from “pure” measurement, and appropriate qualitative approaches must be applied
• Suspect the co(pany) they keep … apply analytic skepticism all along the analytic workflow, and the “co” applies to items such as coincidence and correlation
• Hold credentials at arm’s length … do not become enamored with sophisticated analytics and/or visual approaches in and of themselves – when applied appropriately, for the right audience, they can be invaluable to promote clarity, but focus on what the audience needs for understanding
• Respect the human condition … behind every number or analytic result is the story of the human condition – engage the audience through that story
• Do not start with the answer … follow established procedures, data governance, and ethical boundaries in every step of the analytic workflow – these will guide you to the appropriate messaging of the human condition to create understanding for your audience, shows integrity in everything you do, and fosters trust to be created
• Information visualization is a language … with many dialects – and it comes with the capability to explain the world, show & tell stories, elaborate ambiguous messages … the power is nearly endless, and you know what “power” brings.

Michael: Can you tell us some best practices for evaluating the quality and structure of a dataset?

David: As I teach an entire course in this, boiling it down to just a few elements will obviously leave some key components out of the discussion … but I will do my best to touch on some that may not be immediately obvious.

First and foremost – plot the data. Obviously with numeric data this is much more readily achievable than with character / string data, but even with the latter, counts of certain strings – such as by procedure or diagnoses – can be performed to compare against expectations and to determine if any anomalous data exists … and there are effective methods for visualizing qualitative data, as Stephanie Evergreen has a great post on exactly this. I always start with visually evaluating data in some way, shape, or form before I proceed with any of the next steps of the analytic workflow (data transformation, methods, etc.).

Another best practice that may not be overtly obvious is having a firm understanding of the business at hand. This can best be established through establishing a rapport with subject matter experts within the department(s) that have knowledge of the data involved. These discussions will lead to understandings and insights of the data that can not be established from just reviewing the data, be it within a data warehouse, a spreadsheet, and/or a visual representation. Establishing business acumen will create a baseline from which data quality can be evaluated, as well as provide deeper knowledge from which meaningful questions can be determined to ask of data.

The last best practice for evaluating the quality and structure of data I will mention here (and I am more than happy to discuss more for those that are interested!) is documentation. Building trust in analytics efforts comes, in part, from transparency of efforts, and this includes where and how data was sourced, what (if any) assumptions and/or transformations were made, what missing data may exist, what data may have been used as proxy for other unobtainable data elements, and so on. Creating a data governance process that supports capturing these findings not only will help current and future analytic efforts, but can provide the business clarity into the thoroughness taken with the evaluation process and – hopefully – build an environment of trust between the analytic and business groups.

Michael: When you work with clients and/or your business partners, what are some of the common data pain points they want to resolve?

David: The one data pain point that has been a constant for me over the last ~20 years has been the lack of quality in health care claims data. If you have seen one health care claims data structure, you now know just one health care claims data structure … which may not even apply to the entire dataset. Contract changes, legislation changes, claims processing rule changes – these all impact what ends up in a health care claims data system … and that is just part of a very long list of confounders to quality health care claims data. All of these elements impact the ability to determine proper claims payment amounts, which claim record is the most recent version, what the appropriate units are for a given procedure, and impacts risk adjustment and other predictive modeling efforts.

Other common data pain points I have dealt with – and continue to do so – are in determining meaningful data to evaluate … such as combining claims data with EMR (electronic medical record) data, and incorporating social determinants of health data, which must be sourced from a wide variety of locations, such as local public health departments, Social Vulnerability Index, Area Deprivation Index, and (much) more.

The last common data pain point I will mention is the need for a complete “source of truth” for all reporting and analytics, one in which is overseen by appropriate data governance policies, procedures, and appropriated trained and supported governance roles, such as a Data Governance Committee, Data Steward, and more. True health care data catalogs and data warehouses are few and far between, and I have spent more than a fair portion of my career pushing for these systems and their supporting structure, but technology and people, to be put in place to allow for effective understandings to be developed with meaningful data.

Michael: What are some ways we can use data visualization to help people better understand the health services industry?

David: Data Humanism is the key element that will help drive this understanding. Rooting every analysis, every presentation, every result provided in the human condition will create an environment of caring that will grow beyond the health services industry and take hold within communities.

This is at the heart of the data stories I have created over the last ~20 years – the concept is not a new one, as it was published in the Folsom Report over 50 years ago … it is called “Communities of Solution”. I have used data visualization to show & tell the stories of how the efforts of Communities of Solution – public health organizations, the medical community, health plans, and community organizations and resources – coming together positively impacted the quality of life of those living in their communities. These visuals drive home the stories that “health is local”, show the importance of working together for the greater good of our fellow humans, and provide insights to those involved on what works, what can be improved, and what there is still to do.

The last item I will touch on here (there are many more, but I will leave those for follow-up discussions which I hope this post will generate) that data visualization can help with is in fostering improvement in population’s understanding of health care experience literacy. Health care self-efficacy is an issue with many people, as lack of transparency of the health care system and the confusing system in and of itself creates an environment which makes it difficult to say the least for people to care for themselves and know what are the right choices to make to lead to improved health. This concept is a broader take on a method called PAM, or the Patient Activation Measure. Data visualization methods can be used to help further understanding of the human condition, through focused narrative of individual’s and community’s data, answering the question of “Why this is important?” to all involved (and HIPAA regulations of course being paramount in any such methods of visual delivery).

Michael: O.K., I have to ask. Your Twitter handle is @Biff_Bruise. What does this mean?

David: In short, a nickname bestowed upon me by a former coworker upon seeing my dusty and scraped-up self arrive at work after hitting the deck during my morning bike commute.

As those that follow me on Twitter may know, I am an avid cyclist, and have been so for many years. Quite some years ago (15+), one morning while I was bike commuting in to work, I was on a stretch of road where I saw quite a bit of gravel coming up around a bend I would be taking, which was left over from a previous snow storm. There also happened to be a car immediately to my left, so my choices were…

1. Swerve left and get hit by a car
2. Swerve right and end up plowing into a curb
3. Ride through the gravel and take my chances

I chose (3) – and my front wheel immediate washed out. I went down, slid on the road, hit said curb, and then went up and over and slid across the sidewalk.

Amazingly I did not injure myself (or at least that is what I initially thought, as none of my cycling gear was torn and nothing hurt), nor damage my bike beyond some scratches – I was able to get back on the bike and ride the rest of the way to work. When I arrived at work, my coworker – a fellow cyclist – greeted me with “Hey Biff! Yeah, you … Biff Bruise!” when I walked in … and then told me to check under my winter cycling gear – which, while my clothing had not a single tear, my skin was “road rashed” from shoulder to ankle.

Thankfully the road rash healed and I have not stopped cycling, but the nickname stuck … so much so, by the next day, my name tag at my cube had been changed to “Biff Bruise”.

James Round (photo, above) is a graphic designer and illustrator based in London who has created beautiful, award winning work for companies like Facebook and BAFTA.

James loves to create beautiful printed products, engaging data visualizations, rich illustrations and clean digital experiences that surprise and delight people.

Today, I am showcasing Mr. Round’s infographic exploring 228 years of The President of the United States. This infographic was longlisted for the 2017 Information is Beautiful Awards.

On April 30, 1789, George Washington made history when he was inaugurated as the first President of the United States, under the newly created Constitution. Over the following four centuries, 44 other people have inhabited what quickly came to be considered the world’s most powerful role. With unprecedented power, the president leads a contemporary global superpower, including the most expensive military and largest economy in the world. As many Americans, and indeed the wider world, look towards the current administration with a sense of uncomfortable intrigue, it feels like an appropriate time to look back at the legacy of this unique position in global affairs, and remind ourselves of those who have previously taken on the role of ‘Mr. President’ over the years.  

This visualization explores the history of American leadership, displaying a timeline of every past president and charting their lives from birth, through education, career and presidency. It also looks at some key numerical insights related to the presidency, taken from data in the visualization on the left, and finally displays some interesting ‘firsts’ from past presidents.

Source: Round, James, 228 years of POTUS Data Visulization, James Round Design, https://www.jamesrounddesign.com/presidents-data-viz/.