Combo charts (bar + line) in Tableau - Real Business Scenario

Scenario Mode

👤 Your Role: You are a sales analyst at a retail company.

📋 Request: Your manager wants a visual report showing monthly sales revenue and the number of units sold over the past year. The report should help identify trends and compare sales volume with revenue.

📊 Data: You have a dataset with monthly sales data including columns: Month, Sales Revenue, and Units Sold.

🎯 Deliverable: Create a combo chart in Tableau with bars representing Sales Revenue and a line representing Units Sold, both plotted over the months.

Sample Data

Month	Sales Revenue	Units Sold
Jan	12000	300
Feb	15000	350
Mar	13000	320
Apr	17000	400
May	16000	380
Jun	18000	420
Jul	20000	450
Aug	19000	430
Sep	21000	460
Oct	22000	480
Nov	23000	500
Dec	25000	520

1

Step 1: Connect your Tableau workbook to the sales data source containing Month, Sales Revenue, and Units Sold.

No formula needed; just connect the data source.

Expected Result

Tableau data source is connected and data is loaded.

2

Step 2: Drag the 'Month' field to the Columns shelf to set the horizontal axis. Right-click the Month pill and select 'Sort...' to ensure chronological order (e.g., manual sort: Jan, Feb, Mar, etc.).

Columns: Month (sorted chronologically)

Expected Result

Months appear along the horizontal axis in chronological order.

3

Step 3: Drag 'Sales Revenue' to the Rows shelf to create a bar chart showing revenue by month.

Rows: SUM(Sales Revenue)

Expected Result

Vertical bars show total sales revenue for each month.

4

Step 4: Drag 'Units Sold' to the Rows shelf next to Sales Revenue to add a second measure.

Rows: SUM(Sales Revenue), SUM(Units Sold)

Expected Result

Two vertical axes appear, one for revenue and one for units sold.

5

Step 5: On the Marks card, select the second measure (Units Sold) and change its mark type from Bar to Line.

Marks for Units Sold: Change mark type to Line

Expected Result

Sales Revenue is shown as bars; Units Sold is shown as a line over the bars.

6

Step 6: Keep the axes unsynchronized since Sales Revenue and Units Sold have different scales. Right-click each axis to format if needed.

Axes: Independent (do not synchronize)

Expected Result

Dual axes with independent scales for accurate representation and comparison.

7

Step 7: Add axis titles and chart title to clearly label the combo chart.

Edit axis titles: 'Sales Revenue ($)', 'Units Sold'; Add chart title: 'Monthly Sales Revenue and Units Sold'

Expected Result

Chart is clearly labeled for easy understanding.

Final Result

Month | Jan  Feb  Mar  Apr  May  Jun  Jul  Aug  Sep  Oct  Nov  Dec
---------------------------------------------------------------
Revenue (Bar):  ████ █████ ████ ██████ █████ ██████ ███████ ██████ ███████ ████████ ████████ █████████
Units Sold (Line):  *----*----*----*----*----*----*----*----*----*----*----*----*

✓Sales revenue generally increases from January to December.

✓Units sold follow a similar upward trend, indicating consistent growth.

✓The combo chart helps compare revenue and sales volume trends together.

Bonus Challenge

Add a third measure showing profit margin as a separate line on the same combo chart.

Show Hint

Calculate profit margin as (Sales Revenue - Cost) / Sales Revenue, then add it as a new measure and set its mark type to Line with a different color.