Data structure

Data structure for waterfall chart

This section outlines the necessary data structure for creating a waterfall chart. This type of chart can be utilized for various purposes, such as analyzing positive and negative contributions across different categories, comparing sales against budget, or understanding the breakdown from gross sales to net sales.

The following examples illustrate three distinct use cases to enhance comprehension of the extension's capabilities.

Aggregate first category: To understand positive/negative contributions

To understand the positive and negative impacts of various categories over time, we require two dimensions. The first dimension represents the aggregated higher order and is positioned as the first and last dimension (plotted as a category). The second dimension consists of the categories used for comparison, represented along the x-axis.

Comparison: To understand the decomposition in subcategories between the budget and sales

To compare and understand the decomposition in subcategories between the budget and actual sales, we need two measures: the budget and the sales, along with the subcategories for each sales and budget figure. Similar to the previous section, categories are aggregated and represented as the first and last bars in the chart. The x-axis will represent the subcategories in this case. Since we need to pass two measures, we can utilize the Measure Values and Measure Names in Tableau.

Subtotal: To understand the conversation from gross sales to net sales

To understand the conversion from gross sales to net sales, we require information on both net sales and gross sales, as well as all expenditures. When preparing data in the sheet, you should place net sales and gross sales as the first and last items, respectively, with the remaining expenditure listed in between. This arrangement helps to facilitate the calculation of the conversion.