Dataskera

Cycle Plot

Is it falling, or is it August. A line by date mixes the shape of the week with the shape of the year and hands back a sawtooth nobody can read. This separates them: one panel per position in the cycle, the trend running left to right inside each panel, and a level line showing where that position usually sits. Two questions, read apart, and they are the two everyone actually has: which day is the busy one, and is that day getting busier.

Data Requirements

Your Tableau worksheet should include:

  • 1 Dimension for the Cycle encoding. The repeating position: day of week, month of year, hour of day.
  • 1 Dimension for the Sequence encoding. What runs across the cycles: the week, the year, the date.
  • 1 Measure for the Value encoding. What each line follows.

Add Cycle Plot to your worksheet

First, download the manifest file. It tells Tableau where to load the extension from.

Download cycleplot.trex

Direct link: https://dataskera.com/downloads/cycleplot.trex

Then, in Tableau:

  1. On the Marks card, open the Mark type dropdown, and under Viz Extensions choose Add Extension.
  2. In the Add an Extension dialog, choose Access Local Viz Extensions, then open the cycleplot.trex file you just downloaded.
  3. When Tableau asks, allow the extension to access the data in the workbook.
  4. The welcome screen appears. Sign in with your Dataskera account, or on Tableau Desktop choose Use on Desktop without an account. See Signing in & access below.
  5. Build the chart: put two date parts of the same field on the two shelves, the repeating one on Cycle and the running one on Sequence, then drag the measure onto Value.
Tableau Server or Cloud:
A site admin must allow the extension by adding its URL to the site's safe list, and the view needs the Download Summary Data permission. Extension URL: https://vizextension.dataskera.com/cycleplot/cycleplot.html

Signing in & access

Cycle Plot is free. Whether you need to sign in depends only on what you are doing. Viewing a dashboard never asks for an account, and authoring is free too.

Viewing a dashboard
No account

People who only view a dashboard are never asked to sign in and are never blocked.

Editing on Tableau Desktop
Optional

Sign in, or continue without an account in a single click.

Editing on Server or Cloud
Free account

Sign in with your Dataskera account to author on the web.

No account yet? Create one free in under a minute. No credit card required.

Format panel

Open the Format panel from the extension menu to customize the chart. It is for the dashboard author and is not shown to viewers. It has four tabs:

  • Reading the Cycle: the average or the median as the level line, the order of the panels, and one shared axis or an axis per panel.
  • Lines and Panels: line width, the gap between panels, which periods are marked, and the value axis.
  • Color: a palette, a precise colour per category, and the overall opacity.
  • Legend: show or hide it, its position around the chart, an optional show/hide toggle for viewers, the colour swatch, and the content of each entry.
  • Tooltip: show or hide it, its colours, decimals, and a template you write yourself from the placeholders the chart provides.
The cycle keeps its own order:
Alphabetical opens the week on Friday and the year on April. Days, months, quarters and plain numbers are recognised and put in their own order, with numbers sorted as numbers so hour 10 does not land between hour 1 and hour 2.
And it starts where your data starts:
A week delivered Monday first stays a Monday-first week, and a year delivered from April stays a fiscal year. The chart rotates the known order to begin where the data begins rather than imposing a Sunday or a January nobody asked for.
A gap breaks the line:
A straight segment across a missing period would draw data that was never collected, so the line stops and starts again. A period left alone between two gaps becomes a dot rather than disappearing.
One shared axis is the default:
Panels scaled to themselves fill the space better and stop being comparable with each other, which is most of the point of the chart, so choosing that is declared in the data notes.
A trend needs a run of periods:
Fewer than three periods in each panel is not a trend, and the chart says so rather than drawing a line between two dots and letting it be read as one.
One click, the whole position:
Clicking a panel selects that position of the cycle on the worksheet, every period of it, because the panel is one answer to the question being asked.