Tableau Desktop Cookbook

Chapter 16. Advanced Table Calculations

Throughout this book, I have mentioned various types of Quick Table Calculations, which are available as an option to add to any continuous data field. A plethora of Table Calculations can be used in a calculated field.

Any Quick Table Calculation can be saved, which allows you to see the underlying Table Calculation involved. For example, look back at Recipe 3.5, on the Sum of Sales:

We can drag and drop the field to the Data pane on the left to save the calculation:

This will give you the option to name the calculation:

Then, once you have saved the calculation, you can right-click and edit the calculation to see what is happening under the hood:

In this chapter, we are going to cover some of the advanced Table Calculations and write them from the calculation window, instead of using Quick Table Calculations.

16.1 Previous Value

When creating analysis in Tableau, one use case is being able to compare to a previous value within your data. This can be seen as a difference from Quick Table Calculation, but being able to understand how ...