Practical examples
Having looked at some of the essential concepts of table calculations, let's consider some practical examples. We'll look at several examples, although the practical use of table calculations is nearly endless. You can do everything from running sums and analyzing year-over-year growth to viewing percentage differences between categories, and much more.
Year over year growth
Often, you may want to compare year over year values. How much has our customer base grown over the last year? How did sales in each quarter compare to sales in the same quarter last year? These types of question can be answered using Year over Year Growth.
Tableau exposes Year over Year Growth as one option in the quick table calculations. Here, for example, is a view that demonstrates Sales by Quarter, along with the percentage difference in sales for a quarter compared with the previous year:
Figure 6.24: Year over year growth of Sales
The second Sum(Sales...
