Aggregate vs row-level calculations in Tableau - Dashboard Approaches Compared

Dashboard Mode - Aggregate vs row-level calculations

Business Question

How do total sales and average sales per order compare, and how does each order contribute to these totals?

Sample Data

Order ID	Customer	Sales Amount
1001	Alice	150
1002	Bob	200
1003	Charlie	100
1004	Diana	250
1005	Eva	300

Dashboard Components

• KPI Card: Total Sales
  Formula: SUM([Sales Amount])
  Result: 1000
• KPI Card: Average Sales per Order
  Formula: AVG([Sales Amount])
  Result: 200
• Bar Chart: Sales Amount by Order ID
  Shows each order's sales amount as a separate bar (row-level data)
• Table: Orders with Sales and % of Total Sales
  Calculated field for % of total sales:
  [Sales Amount] / SUM([Sales Amount])
  Shows contribution of each order to total sales

Dashboard Layout

+----------------------+-------------------------+
| Total Sales (KPI)    | Average Sales (KPI)     |
|       [1000]         |         [200]           |
+----------------------+-------------------------+
|                                              |
|  Bar Chart: Sales by Order ID                 |
|                                              |
+----------------------------------------------+
|                                              |
| Table: Orders with Sales and % of Total Sales|
|                                              |
+----------------------------------------------+
  

Interactivity

Adding a filter for Customer name updates the bar chart and table to show only selected customers' orders. The KPI cards recalculate total and average sales for the filtered data.

Self Check

If you add a filter for Customer = 'Bob', which components update and what are their new values?

• KPI Cards update: Total Sales = 200, Average Sales = 200
• Bar Chart shows only Order 1002 with sales 200
• Table shows only Bob's order with 100% of total sales

Key Result

Dashboard compares total and average sales with individual order sales and their contribution.