Dataskera

Slope Chart

Two columns, one line per category between them. Rank changes, crossings and the categories that went the other way read at a glance, which is what a slope chart does better than any pair of bars.

Data Requirements

Your Tableau worksheet should include:

  • 1 Dimension for the Category encoding. One line per value.
  • 1 Measure for the Left Value encoding. The left column.
  • 1 Measure for the Right Value encoding. The right column.

Add Slope Chart to your worksheet

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

Download slopechart.trex

Direct link: https://dataskera.com/downloads/slopechart.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 slopechart.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 a dimension onto Category and the two measures onto Left Value and Right 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/slopechart/slopechart.html

Signing in & access

Slope Chart 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:

  • Columns: the title over each column, the sort, click to select, background.
  • Lines and Dots: line width and dot size, colour by category or by direction with a colour for rises, falls and flat lines, and the hover highlight.
  • Labels: category names on one side, both or neither, the values next to the dots, the hairline back to a moved label, the value axis, 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.
A moved label keeps its line:
Labels that would collide are pushed apart, and each one that moved keeps a hairline back to its own dot. Without it, a label read against the wrong line is a wrong answer that looks right.
A slope needs both ends:
A category carrying only one of the two measures cannot be a slope and is left out. The chart says how many, because a total that quietly lost rows is worse than no total.
Sort by how far, not which way:
Sorting by the size of the change, either way, brings the biggest movers to the top whichever direction they went.
Too many lines for labels:
When there is no room for the labels at all they are left out and the chart says so. Hovering a line still names it and reads both values.