OLD! See Description: Tableau Layout Containers: Part 1 - The basics

0:00Hello and welcome to this short video

0:03tutorial on layout containers. I think

0:05layout containers

0:06are one of the most important parts of the

0:08dashboarding experience. Sometimes they

0:11behave

0:12slightly odd, so I thought I'd try and demy

0:15stify their behavior by showing you rather

0:18than

0:18just writing about it. So we've got three

0:21sheets. I've created these already. If you

0:25're

0:25familiar with the Information Lab Speed

0:28Challenge, you'll be very familiar with

0:30those sheets.

0:31But I thought I'd start by asking you, the

0:34viewer, if I drag a sheet onto this

0:36dashboard,

0:37what happens? Actually, at the moment it's

0:39not a blank dashboard. I'll completely

0:41clear

0:41out. So there we go, we've got a clear

0:43dashboard. If I drag a sheet onto this

0:45dashboard, what

0:45happens? And I think most of you would say

0:48that Tableau drags a sheet and it places it

0:51on the dashboard and on the right-hand side

0:54it creates a legend and any associated

0:57items,

0:58so parameters and filters would also go

1:01here. And that makes a lot of sense. But I

1:04'd actually

1:05challenge that perspective a little bit

1:06more and say, well, that's not actually

1:08what's

1:08going on. What's going on is happening over

1:12here. You've got a very detailed breakdown

1:15of what's actually happening on the

1:17dashboard. You've got your two legend items

1:20. They're

1:20inside a vertical container. You can see

1:23that as I highlight them here. Then you've

1:25got

1:25your sheet. The sheet is tiled next to that

1:28vertical container. So you can see there,

1:31they're side by side. I'll just collapse

1:34this to keep things clear. And then those

1:37two sort

1:38of sections, the tiled section and the

1:39vertical section, are inside a horizontal

1:42container.

1:43And the horizontal container is itself t

1:46iled on the main dashboard. And that just

1:48basically

1:49means, well, if you've only got one tile,

1:51then you're pretty much taking up the whole

1:53view. It's pretty straightforward. So in

1:59order to understand layout containers, I

2:02think you're

2:02actually better off not using any sheets

2:05and starting with blank layout containers.

2:08So

2:09you can truly understand what's going on.

2:12So I've just cleared those sheets from the

2:14dashboard and moved back to having a plain

2:17dashboard. And instead I'm going to drag a

2:19horizontal container in. And when I do that

2:22, you notice immediately the Tableau creates

2:26a tiled section and then it puts a

2:28horizontal container. And that's, I guess,

2:32the first

2:33thing to be aware of. Everything that you

2:35drag onto the dashboard from the very

2:36moment

2:37you start is essentially being tiled. And

2:40that's because we've selected the tiling

2:42option

2:43here. If I was to select floating and then

2:45drag a horizontal section on there, you'd

2:48see this sits above the tiled section. It's

2:53floating. It doesn't have any sort of

2:57belonging

2:58anywhere. You can move it around. It's not

3:00part of any structure. And that's a really

3:02important thing to notice. And if you

3:05change that from a floating to a tiled

3:08section, well,

3:09guess what? Tableau puts it where it thinks

3:12it makes the most sense. So if I deselect

3:17that and I select the parent horizontal

3:21layout container and we go to format that,

3:24see if

3:25we can make it a different color, you can

3:28just see here on the edge the red layout

3:30container

3:31is inside the yellow one. So that's sort of

3:36one of the first things to understand. The

3:39difference between tiled and floating

3:43layout containers. The next thing to

3:46understand is

3:47the hints that Tableau gives you when you

3:50drag an item onto the dashboard. So if I

3:53drag

3:53a horizontal container onto an empty

3:56dashboard and hopefully make sure the tiled

4:00section

4:00is triggered, when I put it anywhere in the

4:04middle, it highlights the whole dashboard

4:07gray. And that's telling me that it's just

4:10going to put it there in one tile on the

4:12dashboard.

4:13Because there's nothing else on the

4:15dashboard, if I go to the edges, nothing

4:17happens because

4:18it's the first item on the dashboard. So

4:20let's put that in there and let's color

4:23that yellow.

4:26And if we take another horizontal container

4:29, notice how now the hints are different. So

4:32when I highlight the layout container that

4:35I've already got on the dashboard, it tells

4:38me that you can put something inside of

4:40this layout container because you can see

4:42here

4:42that the yellow box now has a blue outline

4:44all the way around. And that's Tableau's

4:46hint

4:47to you that whatever you're dragging on,

4:49whatever part of the dashboard that you're

4:52about to

4:53bring on is going to be inside this layout

4:55container. And this layout container is a

4:57horizontal one. If, however, I go to the

5:01edge, you can see it's a very thin edge,

5:04then it's

5:05essentially going to tile it in the same

5:09position. If I bring it to the bottom, it

5:12will tile

5:12it in that bottom half. If I bring it to

5:15the left, it will tile it in the left half.

5:19If

5:19I bring it to the top, it will tile it in

5:21the top. But the minute I move off the edge

5:25,

5:25it instantly goes to highlighting the whole

5:27thing because, again, I've got really no

5:29other

5:29option. So I'm going to put that here just

5:32below. I missed that. Let's try again.

5:37Perfect.

5:39And let's make this a green section. It's

5:42perfect. We have a green section. Now let's

5:46bring in two verticals. And now when we

5:48bring in a vertical, you get the same

5:51options as

5:51you did before. So I can put it inside this

5:54yellow horizontal container or the green

5:56horizontal

5:57container. But now when I go to the edge, I

5:59'm faced with two new options. I get this

6:03option to tile it with the existing

6:05horizontal section at the top, to tile it

6:08with the existing

6:09horizontal section in the bottom right, or

6:13to tile it with both layout containers. Now

6:16if I put that here, it tiles it adjacent to

6:21those two sections. That's not actually

6:24where

6:24I want to put that. I actually want to put

6:25it right here in the top right. So I'm

6:27going

6:27to go back as I just did, and I'm going to

6:30drag the vertical container. And when I get

6:33to nearly the edge but not quite, you can

6:35see it just changes. And then when I go to

6:37the edge again, it changes again. Very

6:40small movements. So if I just drop that

6:43there, it

6:43might make that blue. We now have a blue

6:49vertical layout container next to the

6:53yellow layout

6:54container. And we're going to do that again

6:56. We're going to make a red one here on the

6:59bottom right. Did exactly the same thing.

7:03We're going to make that red. So now we

7:07have

7:08four amazing pastel layout containers. Two

7:12horizontal and two vertical. Awesome. Okay,

7:17so now this is probably a good opportunity

7:20to explain some of the sort of dashboarding

7:23options you've got here. You've got a whole

7:26range of size options. I don't think enough

7:28people really play around with these sizes.

7:31Recently I've been designing some dash

7:33boards

7:33for print, and it's actually been really

7:36useful to have the A3 or A4 sort of

7:39perspective there.

7:40So be sure to play around with those sizes.

7:43Tableau dashboards just don't live on the

7:46screen. They live well beyond that. And so

7:51I'm going to go to an automatic view, and

7:55I'm just going to close that, and I'm going

7:59to drag Tableau here. And you see this is a

8:03very fluid design. When we make the height

8:06minimal, it splits everything equally in

8:09terms

8:09of vertical height. And if you make it

8:12really wide, it splits everything really

8:14nicely vertically.

8:16So Tableau does have the ability to be

8:18fluid. And you're probably thinking, "Yes,

8:20well,

8:21how do I do this in a dashboard?" We'll

8:23cover that in the next video. But at the

8:26moment,

8:27I just want to cover the basics. Now, one

8:31of the things I often see from, I guess,

8:34new

8:34users is they start dragging a lot of

8:36things onto the dashboard, and it gets

8:38pretty hectic

8:39in terms of layout containers and what's

8:41going on, and they're not really paying

8:43attention

8:43to this area. And I'll show you one really,

8:45really good example of that. So I drag a

8:48text

8:48container here onto the horizontal layout

8:54container, and I say "First line of text."

9:00I click OK. You can see, there you go, my

9:04first line of text has been placed inside

9:07the horizontal container. Now, if I drag

9:11another text box and I go to put it there,

9:16now notice

9:17where that is. I'm not tiling it. It's

9:20actually saying, "Put it inside the layout

9:23container,"

9:24but it's also highlighting the bottom gray

9:26section. So you would think that when I

9:29drop

9:29that in there, you get two horizontal

9:39containers. But actually, no, that's not

9:41what happened.

9:42What happened is Tableau decided that when

9:45you placed that second line of text below

9:48the first line of text, you were actually

9:51vertically stacking the options. Whereas

9:54before,

9:54this was a horizontal container, it's now

9:57changed into a vertical container, and it's

9:59adopted the behavior of a vertical

10:01container. So if we go back one, you'll

10:03notice that was

10:04a horizontal container, and now it's a

10:08vertical container. So that's one of the

10:11things to

10:12watch out for. Sometimes when you're

10:15dragging elements and you put things where

10:18it would

10:19suggest that you actually want different

10:21behavior, Tableau will make a change based

10:24on that assumption.

10:26And just to prove that that's the case, I'm

10:29going to drag a new text item here, call

10:33that

10:33first line of text. Click OK. And drag a

10:42second line of text there. And there you go

10:48. Exactly

10:48the same behavior, and those are both

10:51vertical. You can see that there, I'm

10:53selecting them

10:54here in the layout view. So it's really,

10:56really important to pay attention to what's

10:58going

10:58on here. And this can happen the other way

11:02around. So you can do it to a horizontal

11:06container,

11:07but it's actually slightly more difficult

11:10to do the same thing with a vertical

11:12container,

11:12to make a vertical container stack

11:15horizontally. And I find that the only way

11:17really to do

11:18this is if you happen to use a blank layout

11:22container in the layout. So if I drag a

11:25blank

11:25layout container here onto this vertical

11:30container here, you'll notice, OK, that's

11:34still vertical.

11:36And you've got the blank section inside of

11:38that. You can see that. But now if I drag

11:40a text item and I put it on either side and

11:46I click, and I'm going to say, "This used

11:52to be a vertical container." Click OK. You

11:57'll notice that vertical container now

12:02became

12:02a horizontal container. And let's just go

12:07back one step to prove that. Vertical is

12:11now

12:11horizontal. So when users are dragging

12:15around lots of items, maybe you've got a

12:18dashboard

12:18with six or seven sheets, you've maybe got

12:21some floating items, you've got a parameter

12:23that you want to wedge in a specific area,

12:25it's really important to pay attention to

12:28the hints that Tableau is giving you. It's

12:30pretty much telling you what's about to

12:32happen

12:32before it happens. So if you pay attention

12:34to those, you're less likely to get lost on

12:37the dashboard. And so that's it. That's the

12:40first video showing you the basics around

12:42layout containers.