Why maps visualize location data in Tableau - Dashboard Impact

Dashboard Mode - Why maps visualize location data

Business Question

How can we use maps to understand sales distribution across different cities?

Sample Data

City	State	Sales	Latitude	Longitude
Seattle	WA	150000	47.6062	-122.3321
Portland	OR	90000	45.5152	-122.6784
San Francisco	CA	200000	37.7749	-122.4194
Los Angeles	CA	180000	34.0522	-118.2437
Denver	CO	120000	39.7392	-104.9903
Chicago	IL	160000	41.8781	-87.6298
New York	NY	250000	40.7128	-74.0060

Dashboard Components

• KPI Card: Total Sales
  Formula: SUM([Sales])
  Result: 1,150,000
• Map Visualization: Sales by City
  Marks: Circle size and color represent sales amount
  Location: Uses [Latitude] and [Longitude] fields
  Tooltip: Shows City, State, and Sales
• Bar Chart: Sales by State
  Formula: SUM([Sales]) grouped by [State]
  Shows total sales per state for comparison

Dashboard Layout

+----------------------+----------------------+
|      KPI Card        |      Map View        |
|  (Total Sales)       |  (Sales by City)     |
+----------------------+----------------------+
|                 Bar Chart (Sales by State)          |
+----------------------------------------------------+

Interactivity

Clicking on a city in the map filters the bar chart to show sales only for that city's state. Selecting a state in the bar chart highlights cities in that state on the map. The KPI card updates to show total sales for the selected filters.

Self Check

If you add a filter to show only cities in California, which components update and how?

• KPI Card updates to show total sales for California cities (San Francisco + Los Angeles = 380,000).
• Map shows only San Francisco and Los Angeles with their sales data.
• Bar chart shows only California's sales total.

Key Result

A dashboard showing total sales and sales distribution by city and state using a map and charts.