EDUCBA

EDUCBA

MENUMENU
  • Free Tutorials
  • Free Courses
  • Certification Courses
  • 360+ Courses All in One Bundle
  • Login

Tableau Bullet Chart

Home » Data Science » Data Science Tutorials » Tableau Tutorial » Tableau Bullet Chart

tableau bullet chart

Introduction to Tableau Bullet Chart

Amongst the special types of visualizations provided by Tableau, the Bullet Chart is one. The chart essentially works with two measures and represents data in the form of a thermometer style of visualization. Tableau’s capability to generate such exquisite visualization gives it a unique place amongst most of the BI tools. The bullet chart is slightly complex and suitable for situations where we want to analyze two measures for various categories. It can also be considered an advanced variant of a bar graph, where one measure represents the bars, while the other measure represents the black line across the bars.

Building Bullet Chart in Tableau

Now, we shall look into the step-by-step procedure to build the bullet chart. For the demonstration, we are using Daily Precipitation and Temperature dataset. This dataset contains daily temperature (in Celsius) and precipitation (in percentage) for ten major Indian cities over the period of the month of September. We want to understand if temperature and precipitation patterns are the same across the cities, and derive other insights.

Start Your Free Data Science Course

Hadoop, Data Science, Statistics & others

Let’s proceed to build a bullet chart using the above steps as follow:

Step 1: First, load the dataset into Tableau. For this click on “New Data Source” under the Data menu. Alternatively, click on “Connect to Data”.

new data (Tableau Bullet Chart)

Step 2: The data gets loaded as can be seen in the “Data Source” tab as shown in the following screenshot.

data source (Tableau Bullet Chart)

Step 3: Moving to the sheet tab, we can find the measures “Precipitation in %” and “Temperature in Celsius” and dimensions City and Date present in the respective sections.

 moved sheet (Tableau Bullet Chart)

Step 4: Initially, drag measures “Precipitation in %” and “Temperature in Celsius” into Rows region. Then drag dimension City into columns region. We get a simple bar graph visualization as shown by the following screenshot.

simple bar graph (Tableau Bullet Chart)

Step 5: The next step is to proceed with converting the bar graph into a bullet chart. This can be done as shown below. Just click on “Show Me”, and then click on the bullet chart symbol which is located in the last row of symbols in the Show Me options. Hovering mouse over the bullet chart symbols gives the details of conditions pertaining to the requirement of dimensions and measures for producing the graph. Note, for bullet chart, two measures are required, while there’s no requirement of any dimension.

Popular Course in this category
Tableau Training (4 Courses, 6+ Projects)4 Online Courses | 6 Hands-on Projects | 39+ Hours | Verifiable Certificate of Completion | Lifetime Access
4.5 (5,734 ratings)
Course Price

View Course

Related Courses
Business Intelligence Training (12 Courses, 6+ Projects)Data Visualization Training (15 Courses, 5+ Projects)

convert to bullet chart

Step 6: The following screenshot gives a closer look into the Show Me options and selection of Bullet Chart type.

show me

Step 7: Clicking over bullet chart type in Show Me gives the bullet chart which is as shown in the below screenshot. By default, the chart is present in a horizontal form. We can have it either horizontal or vertical. To make it vertical use Ctrl + W command.

horizontal form

Step 8: The below screenshot shows us the bullet chart built on two weather measures viz. temperature and precipitation. We can see that automatically, Temperature in Celsius measure has been considered over Detail in the Marks Card, while Precipitation in % measure continues to remain in the rows region. Here, it must be noted that the application of a bullet chart is to explore insights from two closely related measures and to interpret the results to come up with a conclusion based on the correlation and correspondence trends that the chart beautifully explains.

However, the graph shown in the below screenshot doesn’t give the right insights. Because, though trends have been depicted properly by the graph, it is based on total values of the measures Precipitation in % and Temperature in Celsius. Total values for the entire month doesn’t make a sense, as we intend to analyze average daily temperature and precipitation for a month.

vertical form

Step 9: To overcome the above issue, we will change the function applied over the measures “Temperature in Celsius” and “Precipitation in %” from SUM (summation or total) to AVG (average) using the steps, as shown in the below screenshot. Click on the drop-down menu of a measure. Then in Measure (SUM) select Average. Do this for both measures.

measure sum

Step 10: Performing the above steps properly would lead us to get the right bullet chart which is shown in the below screenshot. Note, we have named the sheet appropriately. This is essential so as to better understand the meaning conveyed through insights by two measures. The importance of bullet chart lies not just in its ability to present the data as a beautiful visualization but in its ability to explore important insights which are otherwise tough to obtain.

bullet chart

Step 11: Let’s have a closer into the analysis through bullet chart visualization. Just hover the mouse over a bar, and we find that details represented by that bar appear. In the following screenshot, we can see find details pertaining to temperature and precipitation for the city of Chennai. The bullet chart helps us understand how precipitation and temperature are varying across the cities. We can compare the measure for multiple cities at a time and validate certain hypotheses. Like, let’s assume that we consider if average temperature conditions are different then precipitation will also differ. Now, if we compare the cities of Delhi and Raipur, we can find that though temperatures are different, the precipitation levels are the same. Like this, we can perform an extensive analysis using two measures in a particular context.

chart analysis

Step 12: When we hover the mouse over the black line, we get to know the average temperature for that city. The black line represents the temperature. Also, we can find the grey shady filling around the bars. These grey shades are associated with the measure that represents the black line, like Temperature in Celsius in this case. The height of the shady filling is governed by the value of the measure and corresponds with the level at which the black line is located.

In case, if we remove Temperature in Celsius measure from the analysis, we will only have the bars left. We can have them back into the analysis by dragging the measure over Detail in Marks card.

final bullet chart

Conclusion

The Bullet charts are similar to in-cell charts in MS EXCEL. However, unlike the Excel in-cell charts, the Tableau Bullet charts are quite robust with the ability to handle complex problems. The easy-to-leverage mechanism in Tableau, allow building the visualization fast. It best suits the context that involves two related measures.

Recommended Articles

This is a guide to Tableau Bullet Chart. Here we discuss how to build a bullet chart in the step by step process. You can also go through our other related articles to learn more –

  1. Tableau Chart Types
  2. Donut Chart in Tableau
  3. Case Statement in Tableau
  4. Stacked Bar Chart in Tableau
  5. How the Bar Graph is used in Matlab (Examples)
  6. Introduction to Features and Attributes of Tableau
  7. Create JavaFX Bar Chart with Program?

Tableau Training (4 Courses, 6+ Projects)

4 Online Courses

6 Hands-on Projects

39+ Hours

Verifiable Certificate of Completion

Lifetime Access

Learn More

0 Shares
Share
Tweet
Share
Primary Sidebar
Tableau Tutorial
  • Charts
    • Tableau Charts
    • Tableau Chart Types
    • Donut Chart in Tableau
    • Funnel Chart in Tableau
    • Gantt Chart in Tableau
    • Bubble Chart in Tableau
    • Pareto Chart in Tableau
    • Sankey Chart In Tableau
    • Stacked Bar Chart in Tableau
    • Tableau Bullet Chart
    • Waterfall Chart in Tableau
    • Line Chart in Tableau
    • Heat Map in Tableau
    • Histogram in Tableau
    • CrossTab in Tableau
    • Treemap in Tableau
    • Trend Lines in Tableau
    • Tableau Reference Lines
    • Tableau Dual Axis
    • Legend in Tableau
    • Pie Chart in Tableau
    • Tableau Storyline
  • Basic
    • What is Tableau
    • What is Tableau Dashboard
    • What is Tableau Server
    • Uses of Tableau
    • Tableau Versions
    • Tableau Architecture
    • Is Tableau Free
    • Tableau New Features
    • How To Install Tableau
    • How to Use Tableau?
    • Install Tableau Server
    • Tableau Commands
  • Statement
    • Tableau IF Statement
    • Case Statement in Tableau
  • Functions
    • Tableau Functions
    • Tableau String Functions
    • Concatenate in Tableau
    • Rank Function in Tableau
    • Tableau Aggregate Functions
    • Tableau Date Functions
    • Window Sum Tableau
    • LOD Expressions in Tableau
    • LOOKUP Function in Tableau
    • Tableau Fixed Function
    • Tableau Count Distinct
    • Tableau Window Functions
  • Sort/Filters
    • Sorting in Tableau
    • Filters in Tableau
    • Types of Filters in Tableau
    • Tableau Action Filter
    • Context Filter in Tableau
    • Tableau Parameter Filter
    • Adding Filters in Tableau Dashboard
    • Tableau Context Filter
  • Tableau Dashboard
    • Dashboard in Tableau
    • Tableau Dashboard Creation
    • Tableau Dashboard Design
    • Tableau Workbook
  • Advanced
    • Tableau Reporting
    • Tableau Reporting Tool
    • Conditional Formatting in Tableau
    • Data Blending in Tableau
    • Parameters in Tableau
    • Tableau Data Sets
    • Tableau Drill Down
    • Tableau Dynamic Parameters
    • Tableau Table Calculation
    • Tableau Visualization
    • Tableau Joins
    • Pivot in Tableau
    • Data Visualization With Tableau
    • Forecast in Tableau
    • Map Layers in Tableau
    • Group in Tableau
    • Tableau Group by
    • Hierarchy in Tableau
    • Sets in Tableau
    • How to create a Set in Tableau
    • Tableau Order of Operations
    • Tableau User Group
    • Tableau Calculated Field
    • Custom SQL in Tableau
  • Interview Questions
    • Tableau Interview Questions

Related Courses

Tableau Certification Course

Business Intelligence Courses

Data Visualization Courses

Footer
About Us
  • Blog
  • Who is EDUCBA?
  • Sign Up
  • Corporate Training
  • Certificate from Top Institutions
  • Contact Us
  • Verifiable Certificate
  • Reviews
  • Terms and Conditions
  • Privacy Policy
  •  
Apps
  • iPhone & iPad
  • Android
Resources
  • Free Courses
  • Database Management
  • Machine Learning
  • All Tutorials
Certification Courses
  • All Courses
  • Data Science Course - All in One Bundle
  • Machine Learning Course
  • Hadoop Certification Training
  • Cloud Computing Training Course
  • R Programming Course
  • AWS Training Course
  • SAS Training Course

© 2020 - EDUCBA. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. THE CERTIFICATION NAMES ARE THE TRADEMARKS OF THEIR RESPECTIVE OWNERS.

EDUCBA
Free Data Science Course

Hadoop, Data Science, Statistics & others

*Please provide your correct email id. Login details for this Free course will be emailed to you
Book Your One Instructor : One Learner Free Class

Let’s Get Started

This website or its third-party tools use cookies, which are necessary to its functioning and required to achieve the purposes illustrated in the cookie policy. By closing this banner, scrolling this page, clicking a link or continuing to browse otherwise, you agree to our Privacy Policy

EDUCBA

*Please provide your correct email id. Login details for this Free course will be emailed to you
EDUCBA Login

Forgot Password?

EDUCBA
Free Data Science Course

Hadoop, Data Science, Statistics & others

*Please provide your correct email id. Login details for this Free course will be emailed to you

Special Offer - Tableau Training (4 Courses, 6+ Projects) Learn More