URL actions in Tableau - Real Business Scenario

Scenario Mode

👤 Your Role: You are a sales analyst at an e-commerce company.

📋 Request: Your manager wants an interactive sales dashboard where users can click on a product category and be taken directly to the product page on the company website for more details.

📊 Data: You have monthly sales data by product category including Category Name, Month, Sales Amount, and Number of Orders.

🎯 Deliverable: Create a Tableau dashboard showing monthly sales by category with a URL action that opens the product category page on the company website when a user clicks on a category.

Sample Data

Category	Month	Sales	Orders
Electronics	2024-01	15000	120
Electronics	2024-02	18000	140
Clothing	2024-01	12000	200
Clothing	2024-02	13000	210
Home & Garden	2024-01	9000	80
Home & Garden	2024-02	11000	95
Sports	2024-01	7000	60
Sports	2024-02	8500	70

1

Step 1: Connect to the sales data source in Tableau and load the data.

Use the provided data table with columns: Category, Month, Sales, Orders.

Expected Result

Data is loaded and visible in Tableau data pane.

2

Step 2: Create a line chart showing Sales over Month for each Category.

Rows: SUM(Sales), Columns: Month, Color: Category, Detail: Category

Expected Result

Line chart displays monthly sales trends for each product category.

3

Step 3: Create a calculated field named 'Category URL' to build the URL for each category's product page.

Formula: 'https://www.companywebsite.com/products/' + REPLACE(LOWER([Category]), ' ', '-')

Expected Result

Calculated field returns URLs like 'https://www.companywebsite.com/products/electronics'.

4

Step 4: Add the 'Category URL' field to the worksheet (hidden if needed).

Drag 'Category URL' to Detail on Marks card.

Expected Result

Each category has its URL associated in the view.

5

Step 5: Create a dashboard and add the sales line chart worksheet.

Drag worksheet to dashboard canvas.

Expected Result

Dashboard shows the sales line chart.

6

Step 6: Add a URL action to the dashboard that opens the category product page when a user clicks on a category.

Dashboard > Actions > Add Action > URL. Set URL to [Category URL]. Run action on Select.

Expected Result

Clicking a category in the chart opens the corresponding product page in a web browser.

7

Step 7: Test the URL action by clicking on different categories in the dashboard.

Click on 'Electronics' line or legend item.

Expected Result

Browser opens 'https://www.companywebsite.com/products/electronics'.

Final Result

Dashboard: Monthly Sales by Category

+---------------------------------------+
| Month   | Electronics | Clothing | Home & Garden | Sports |
|---------|-------------|----------|---------------|--------|
| 2024-01 | 15000       | 12000    | 9000          | 7000   |
| 2024-02 | 18000       | 13000    | 11000         | 8500   |
+---------------------------------------+

[Click a category line to open its product page in your browser]

✓Electronics category has the highest sales and shows growth from January to February.

✓Clothing category has steady sales with slight increase.

✓Home & Garden and Sports have lower sales but show positive trends.

✓URL actions enable quick access to detailed product pages directly from the dashboard.

Bonus Challenge

Enhance the dashboard by adding a filter for Month and update the URL action to include the selected month as a query parameter in the URL.

Show Hint

Create a calculated field that concatenates the base URL with '?month=' + [Month] and use this field in the URL action.