10 THINGS YOU SHOULD DO WHILE PUBLISHING YOUR VISUALIZATION TO TABLEAU PUBLIC

Apart from creating interesting visualizations, there are some simple tricks to achieve better results when viewing your vizzes in Tableau Public. In this blog, I will share some tricks and techniques that I follow while publishing my vizzes to Tableau Public.

1. Save your workbook as .twbx

After completing your dashboard development, save it as .twbx (Tableau Packaged Workbook.) A packaged workbook is a single zip file that contains a workbook along with any supporting local file data and background images. You can share this workbook with everyone to access the file without importing the data.

2. Remove 'default' the mobile layout while publishing

Dashboards are viewed on different devices like laptops, desktops, mobile, and tablets. If the default mobile layout is enabled, the viz will look messy when you view it on mobile devices. Always make sure to remove the mobile layout if not necessary.

Below is the viz screenshot without removing the phone layout

3. Checking filter, set, and parameter actions

By using filter, set and parameter actions, users can interact with the viz by clicking on any chart or data points. It is important to check the interactivity actions (filter, set, parameter) before publishing the viz, or else the users might end up with inappropriate outputs.

4. Editing visualization in Tableau Public using 'Web Editor

Sometimes, the font size and layout of the visualization may be affected or misaligned after publishing to Tableau Public. In such situations, we can edit the viz using Tableau Public Web Editor. For instance, I faced a font size issue in one of my visualizations. While viewing on the Tableau desktop, the font size looked good. But in Tableau Public, the fonts looked comparatively small. So, I solved this issue by fixing the proper font size directly in Tableau Public web editor.

5. Adding 'Viz Description' in Tableau Public

While publishing any viz to the Tableau Public, add short/detailed descriptions about the visualization and add relevant hashtags to reach more people easily. If you are inspired by other Tableau authors, kindly mention them in the inspiration section by crediting their vizzes.

6. Tooltip check

After creating the viz, check if the tooltips are working properly. Uncheck Include command buttons and Allow selection by category. Otherwise, the tooltip will display Keep Only and Exclude options (which might be annoying sometimes!) Also, users may accidentally click the keep only or exclude option and end up with weird-looking charts. Also, check if the tooltip has some missing fields and correct it before publishing.

7. Hide / Delete worksheets

A dashboard may contain several worksheets. It is always recommended to hide all worksheets and delete unwanted worksheets before publishing a viz.

8. Hide all unused fields

Optimization of dashboards is an important step to get a better dashboard viewing experience. One of the simple and effective optimization ways is to hide all unused fields present in the data. Removing unused columns can significantly speed up the performance, especially if the dataset is very wide but only a few columns are needed.

9. Extract data

Before publishing the dashboard, it is required to extract the data source(s) used in the viz. To extract data, right-click on the data source and click the Extract Data option.

Note: You will not publish a viz to Tableau Public without extracting the data connected to the workbook.

10. Show/ Hide vizzes

In Tableau Public, you can turn on/off "Show viz on the profile" to show or hide your individual vizzes from the audience (sharing and embedding won't be affected.)

You can set your default show/hide viz choice under the Visualization Permissions option in settings.

I hope you find this blog useful. Many thanks to my brother and mentor Pradeep Kumar G, who is always encouraging and helped me to write my first blog. Please support me and reach out to me in case of any queries.

Thanks for reading,

Kavin Kumar G

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