Data relationships model in Tableau - Real Business Scenario

Scenario Mode

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

📋 Request: Your manager wants you to create a report that shows total sales by product category and region, using multiple data tables linked together.

📊 Data: You have three tables: Sales (OrderID, ProductID, RegionID, SalesAmount), Products (ProductID, ProductName, Category), and Regions (RegionID, RegionName).

🎯 Deliverable: Build a Tableau data model using relationships between these tables and create a dashboard showing total sales by product category and region.

Sample Data

Sales
OrderID	ProductID	RegionID	SalesAmount
1001	200	10	150
1002	201	11	200
1003	202	10	300
1004	200	12	250
1005	203	11	100

Products
ProductID	ProductName	Category
200	Chair	Furniture
201	Desk	Furniture
202	Lamp	Lighting
203	Pen	Office Supplies

Regions
RegionID	RegionName
10	East
11	West
12	South

1

Step 1: Connect the three tables (Sales, Products, Regions) into Tableau.

Import Sales, Products, and Regions tables into Tableau's data source.

Expected Result

All three tables are available in Tableau's data source pane.

2

Step 2: Create relationships between tables using common keys.

Link Sales.ProductID to Products.ProductID and Sales.RegionID to Regions.RegionID using Tableau's relationship feature.

Expected Result

Tables are related but not joined, enabling flexible analysis.

3

Step 3: Create a calculated field for Total Sales.

SUM([SalesAmount])

Expected Result

A measure named Total Sales that sums sales amounts.

4

Step 4: Build a worksheet showing Total Sales by Product Category and Region Name.

Rows: [Category], Columns: [RegionName], Values: Total Sales (SUM of SalesAmount)

Expected Result

A table showing total sales for each product category across regions.

5

Step 5: Create a dashboard to display the worksheet with clear titles and legends.

Add the worksheet to a new dashboard, add title 'Sales by Category and Region', ensure color legend is visible.

Expected Result

Dashboard clearly shows sales distribution by category and region.

Final Result

Dashboard: Sales by Category and Region

+----------------+---------+---------+---------+
| Category       | East    | West    | South   |
+----------------+---------+---------+---------+
| Furniture      | 150     | 200     | 250     |
| Lighting       | 300     | 0       | 0       |
| Office Supplies| 0       | 100     | 0       |
+----------------+---------+---------+---------+

Total Sales values are sums of SalesAmount from Sales table linked by ProductID and RegionID.

✓Furniture category has sales in all three regions, with South region having the highest sales.

✓Lighting sales are only in the East region.

✓Office Supplies sales appear only in the West region.

Bonus Challenge

Add a filter to the dashboard to allow users to select specific regions and see updated sales by category.

Show Hint

Use Tableau's filter action on RegionName and apply it to the worksheet in the dashboard.