Simple Guide To Build A Tableau Gantt Chart

By Brian Laleye · October 24, 2022 · 7 min read

Tableau Gantt Charts have been used for a long time to visualize project timelines.

It is a fact that ‘Gantt Bar’ is a mark-type option that gives flexibility in using this chart in many ways, as it can generate various other types of visualizations generated with Tableau’s help.

It best shows your task duration and the following relatable dependencies for large business operations.

Nowadays, various project management tasks along with long-term analysis can be done efficiently with the help of Tableau Gantt Charts.

Moreover, the time dimension is the most critical point in the Tableau Gantt Chart.

Along with time dimension, the minimum requirement for Tableau Gantt Chart is a dimension and a measure.

In this article, we will discuss Tableau Gantt Charts along with providing all the steps required to create Tableau Gantt Charts.

Summary

What is Tableau?

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Tableau is one of the widely used Business Intelligence and Data Visualization tools in the organization or at the individual level.

This tool helps visualize their collected data so everyone can easily interpret it.

With Tableau, you can create multiple kinds of visualization with its help and aggregate them to display in the dashboard.

Features of Tableau

Tableau has some crucial features, as mentioned below:

Tableau users can create interactive dashboards with their data through their excellent visualization techniques.
It gives the extensive feature of sharing the dashboard over the cloud, thus can be available from anywhere the user wants.
In Tableau, users get 200+ connectors that can be actively connected to data sources.
It provides security features when sharing data with teammates.

What is a Tableau Gantt Chart?

In simple words, Tableau Gantt Chart is useful for estimating the progress of a task or resource’s value for a given time.

This chart is useful for project management and analysis of long-term variation of large data over a period.

Along with the time dimension, the Tableau Gantt Chart requires at least one measure and dimension. Thus, the time dimension plays an important role in the Tableau Gantt Chart.

In Tableau Gantt Chart, all project subtasks, along with the format in which they are related, are depicted in this.

This chart shows which task needs to be completed, the estimated time required for completing the task, the time frame each individual task takes for completion, and the relationship between them.

Thus it becomes easy for you to complete every task on time, and no time would be wasted waiting for a task that has to be completed earlier.

A Tableau Gantt Chart is a horizontal bar chart showing the total duration the event will take to complete for multiple values.

With Tableau Gantt Charts, data can be visualized in the way you want, i.e. daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, or yearly.

In addition, you can add different colours for years and months, making it easy to analyze trends in data.

Tableau Gantt Charts give all these features and thus show a variety of information in a small space very efficiently.

Steps for building Tableau Gantt Chart

Tableau Gantt Charts are very simple and easy to use. There are basic components in Tableau Gantt Chart you need to know:

Mark Type

Gantt Bar

Columns Shelf

Date or Time Field

Row Shelf

Dimension

Size

Continuous Measure

Below we will make a Tableau Gantt Chart systematically that will display will show the number of days between the order and its shipment dates:

Step 1- Firstly, make a connection to the data source: Sample Superstore.
Step 2- Now move the order date dimension to the column section for a particular screen. Tableau arranges the dates by year format and assigns a specific column, header, and level for each year.
Step 3-Now choose the week number from the drop-down arrow menu under the year section on the column line.
Step 4-Now move the dimensions of the sub-category and ship modes to the rows shelf. The sub-category after that needs to move to the right of Ship mode. If talking about the left axis, the two-level nested hierarchy of dimensions is created.
Step 5-The marks would be sized based on the time between the dates of order and shipment. Thus to make things happen, make a calculated field for recording the interval.
Step 6-In this step, you need to label the calculated order field until shipped in the dialogue box made for calculation.
Step 7-Erase all the by default content in the Formula box.
Step 8- Now you need to enter the formula given below in the Formula box, and after that, click the OK button: DATEDIFF(‘day’, [Order Date], [Ship Date])

Step 9- Move the “orderuntilship” measure to the size option from the marks card section. The default aggregation for “Orderuntilship” is Sum. But in this case, it makes more sense if the value is taken on average.
Step 10- Now measure (SUM) > Average by just right-clicking the SUM(Orderuntilship) field option given in the marks card, and after that, select Measure(SUM)> Average.
Step 11-In this step, we need to move the “week” field from the column section to the filter section while keeping hold over the Ctrl key. Tips: While you keep hold over the Ctrl key, it instructs Tableau to make a copy of the field to different locations along with every customization we have made, parallelly erasing it from the old one.

Step 12-Now choose the Range of Dates option and click on the next button in the filter field dialogue box.
Step 13- Make a range in a three-month interval, like January 1, 2013, to March 31, 2013, and then click on the OK button. You can directly enter the date in the date box manually or can do it by selecting from the calendar by sliding to get the exact date.
Step 14-Finally, move the Ship Mode dimension to the colour section on the mark card. Now in front of you, a view displays information about wealth between the time lag of order and shipment.

Conclusion

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