Excel and CSV connections in Tableau - Dashboard Guide

Dashboard Mode - Excel and CSV connections

Business Question

How can we analyze sales data imported from Excel and CSV files to understand monthly sales trends and total revenue?

Sample Data

Below are two sample data tables representing sales data imported from Excel and CSV files.

Excel Data: Monthly Sales

Month	Sales
January	1000
February	1500
March	1200
April	1700
May	1600

CSV Data: Product Revenue

Product	Revenue
Widget A	3000
Widget B	2500
Widget C	4000
Widget D	3500
Widget E	2800

Dashboard Components

• KPI Card: Total Sales
  Formula: SUM([Sales])
  Result: 7000 (sum of sales from Excel data)
• KPI Card: Total Revenue
  Formula: SUM([Revenue])
  Result: 15800 (sum of revenue from CSV data)
• Line Chart: Monthly Sales Trend
  X-axis: Month
  Y-axis: Sales
  Data Source: Excel data
  Description: Shows sales progression from January to May.
• Bar Chart: Revenue by Product
  X-axis: Product
  Y-axis: Revenue
  Data Source: CSV data
  Description: Compares revenue across products.

Dashboard Layout

+----------------------+----------------------+
|   Total Sales (KPI)  |  Total Revenue (KPI) |
+----------------------+----------------------+
|                                              |
|          Monthly Sales Trend (Line Chart)    |
|                                              |
+----------------------------------------------+
|                                              |
|          Revenue by Product (Bar Chart)      |
|                                              |
+----------------------------------------------+

Interactivity

Adding a filter for Month will update the Monthly Sales Trend line chart and the Total Sales KPI card to show data only for the selected months.

Adding a filter for Product will update the Revenue by Product bar chart and the Total Revenue KPI card to show data only for the selected products.

Filters do not cross-filter between Excel and CSV data sources because they represent different data sets.

Self Check

If you add a filter to show only March and April in the Month filter, which components update and what are their new values?

• Monthly Sales Trend updates to show sales for March (1200) and April (1700).
• Total Sales KPI updates to 2900 (1200 + 1700).
• Revenue by Product and Total Revenue KPI remain unchanged.

Key Result

Dashboard showing total sales and revenue with monthly sales trend and product revenue charts from Excel and CSV data.