Tableau Unable to create Stacked Area Chart

Question

I am trying to create Stacked Area Chart in Tableau.

Data is left joined via CUSIP, i.e - excel sheet of CUSIP with interest rates - excel sheet of CUSIP with date and index ratios

Workbook is filtered by CUSIP, and has a parameter called Principal (integer) which the user can input via adjusting slider, and has calculated field Inflation-Adjusted Principal which is

[Principal] * [Index Ratio]

Now, I am trying to create this type of Area Map from this webpage

But my chart ends up like this (refer tab Inflation-Adjusted Trend). It just adds up everything together.

And if I try to deliberately create an Area Chart, it looks like a bunch of color blocks (refer tab Inflation-Adjusted Trend 2) ... How to fix?

Andrew LaPrise Andrew LaPrise · Accepted Answer · 2015-09-13T18:54:28

I did a quick check on the range of your [Index Ratio]s:

MAX([Index Ratio]) - MIN([Index Ratio])

For every CUSIP, it's 0.00007.

+-----------+------------------+------------------+
| Cusip     | Max. Index Ratio | Min. Index Ratio |
+-----------+------------------+------------------+
| 912828H45 | 1.00760          | 1.00753          |
| 912828TE0 | 1.03779          | 1.03772          |
| 912828SA9 | 1.05443          | 1.05436          |
| 912828QV5 | 1.05888          | 1.05881          |
| 912828PP9 | 1.09097          | 1.09090          |
| 912828NM8 | 1.09431          | 1.09424          |
+-----------+------------------+------------------+

For any line, if your scale is too large, it's going to look like a straight line. Here's a line chart of a single CUSIP's [Inflation-Adjusted Principal]:

Here's that same line chart if I change the axis to not show zero:

The axis now spans from approximately the min to the max, so we can see the detail easily.

All of your [Index Ratio]s are pretty far apart from one another, considering the scale. Here's a shot of another line chart, but this time with a line per CUSIP:

If you're going to group by [CUSIP], your scale is going to be too large to see the detail in the lines in this type of view. This isn't a Tableau problem, it's just the nature of your data. Looks like you're going to need to find another creative way to visualize this, or choose a different aspect of the data to visualize that can tell the same story.

Tableau Unable to create Stacked Area Chart

1 Answers