Dataskera

Decomposition Tree

The Decomposition Tree is root cause analysis for business users: start from one number and break it down dimension by dimension, choosing the next split at each node while exploring. Why did margin drop; which segment drives the churn; where the overrun sits. No prebuilt hierarchy, no wall of worksheets.

Data Requirements

Your Tableau worksheet should include:

  • 1 Measure for the Value encoding. The number being decomposed.
  • 2 to 6 Dimensions for the Break down by encoding. The pool available for splitting; the reader picks the order at each node.

Add Decomposition Tree to your worksheet

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

Download decompositiontree.trex

Direct link: https://dataskera.com/downloads/decompositiontree.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 decompositiontree.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: drag the measure onto Value and two to six dimensions onto Break down by. Click the + on a node, pick the dimension to split by, and keep going.
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/decompositiontree/decompositiontree.html

Signing in & access

Decomposition Tree 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:

  • Tree: how many children per node before the rest folds into Other, percentages against the parent or the total, the bar on each node, node width, a button to collapse the saved exploration, number format and font.
  • 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.
Your exploration ships with the workbook:
The author's expansion is saved in the workbook, so viewers open the tree exactly as it was left and explore on from there. A viewer's own exploration stays on their screen and is never written back.
An honest Other:
Past the children cap, the rest folds into a non-expandable Other node that carries their true total, so the arithmetic keeps adding up whatever the cap.
Negatives are first-class:
Bars are signed and diverge from a zero mark, percentages of the parent carry their sign, and one loss-making branch reads as exactly that.
Re-splitting has rules:
SUM and COUNT re-aggregate exactly and MIN and MAX recompute, but AVG, MEDIAN and COUNTD cannot be rebuilt from summary rows; the tree says so instead of printing a plausible wrong number.