Types of Groups

Types of Groups


    Pull ‘Sales’ onto Columns, ‘Sub-Category’ on Rows. Database used is Sample Super Store and Tableau 10.3

1. Let’s Create a group of Sub-Categories which are performing low.

·       Click on Control, Select ‘Art, Envelopes, Fasteners, Labels and Supplies’. Release the Control and you can see the ‘Paperclip’ Icon. Click on it, a new group is created. You can name it as ‘Small Offices’, using ‘Edit Alias’ (Right Click on the group)

·    Note: Creating a group brings down the performance of the dashboard as it increases the redundancy of the data.

•   You can observe that ‘Sub- category (group)’ is created even though there is Sub-Category field. This duplicates the data and reduces the performance highly.

·       Note:  Difference between Groups and Sets: Groups can be created on both Measures and Dimensions whereas Sets can only be created on Dimensions. Sets are specifically designed to understand the nature and pattern of the Dimensions.

·       Note: Groups can be created using Calculated Fields whereas Sets can’t be created using Calculated Fields

·       Sets can be used in calculated Fields.

2   Let’s Create a group on Customer Name, with name starting with letter A

·       In Dimensions, Right click on Customer Name, Create, Group.

•  Manually Select the Names starting with Letter A, Click on Group. A group will be created. Name it as ‘Cust Names starting with Letter A’.
•  Select the option ‘Include Others’. All the Customer names, which are not starting with A will be under Others as in pic below.
• You can also observe a new group (Customer Name(group)) is created in Dimension beneath Customer Name.

3  Visual Grouping

•  Pull ‘Sales’ onto Columns, Pull ‘Category, Region and Sub-Category’ onto Rows. We have 1 measure and multiple Dimensions. Select all the ‘Sub-Categories’ in ‘Central’ Region. Click on ‘Group icon’, it will give us an option to choose All, Category, Region, Sub-Category.

•  If we select Region in group. It will group on Central Region. A separate group for Central is created and the rest will be under Others. This is not recommended, as it highly reduces the performance as it will create duplicate data.
•  In the same way, create groups for East, South, West Regions. Different colors will be assigned to each group.

4.     Groups On Geo Map

•  Pull ‘State’ on the ‘Details’ Section of ‘Marks’ card. A ‘Symbol map’ with all States is shown.
• Select a set of states manually, Right Click on the particular selected state, Select ‘Group’. A new group is created. You can name it using ‘Edit Alias’. Create the groups, East, West, Central, South.
• You can use these groups in ‘Filter’. Pull the State(group) onto Filters and select ‘Show Quick Filter’. 

5.     Creating Groups using Calculated Field.

·       Let’s create a group with ‘States starting with Letter A’.

·       Create a ‘Calculated Field’. Name it as ‘States start with A’ and give the formula

IF Left (State,1) = “A”

THEN “States Starting with Letter A”

ELSE “Other”

END

·       Pull ‘State starts with A’ and State onto Rows as in above pic.

·       You can observe the groups created using Calculated field have a prefix “=”

·       Whereas the groups created manually have a prefix of paperclip.

Note: It’s better to create a group using Calculated field than manually, as the data is replicated when created manually and brings down the performance.