Showing comparison across groups in tooltip Tableau

Question

I have a dashboard that lets users compare a company selected from a drop down menu (Company A) to another company chosen from another drop down menu (Company B). This then displays stacked bar charts (5 categories) by year. I want to build a tooltip so that when the user hovers over one of the 5 categories in either set of bar charts, it shows a comparison of that category between Company A and Company B. Is this possible, and if so, what is the best way to do this?

astro11 astro11 · Accepted Answer · 2015-11-18T19:51:04

My previous answer showed a different approach for the problem without using too many workarounds. This answer will try to give exactly what has been asked.

First thing to understand is that you can't have the values for two different companies if you're filtering to show only one company. That means you'll need to circumvent this by filtering directly on the field.

Step 1: Create the new parameters that will be used as filters.

You want to create two parameters called "Company 1" and "Company 2" that will be used in each view to filter the company on the graphic.

Step 2: Create the new measures with the filter directly in the field.

Now you should create two new measures from your main measure, each one filtering one of the companies accordingly to the parameter, e.g. Sales Company 1 and Sales Company 2.

Step 3: Create a field with the variation and add it at the tooltip mark.

Simply enough, you want a calculated field with the difference between them:

SUM([Sales C1]) - SUM([Sales C2])

Step 4: Update the views and dashboard

Change the measure in each of the views for their following specific measure field, and remove the Company filter. And in the dashboard, substitute your usual filters to the parameter (which will be used to filter both views).