Sometimes you want to do something in Tableau that makes sense in your head and should be easy enough to accomplish. But then... it doesn't work. I've spent the last week on this issue. I've roped in my wife, a BI Developer. I've gone to sleep thinking about this problem and woke up thinking about it. Yes, I'm saying I've had nightmares about data. Here are the details of my dilemma:
I am very interested in using a Pareto chart to visualize some of my data. For the purposes of my question, I am going to use the Sample - Superstore dataset that comes with Tableau.
To begin, I created a Pareto chart showing the number of customers that contribute to profit:
But what I really want to do is compare multiple curves for Product Category, let's say. When I add Product Category to the color shelf, I get jagged curves. I believe this is due to the sorting of Customer Name. In the screenshot above, Customer Name is sorted by SUM(Profit) and it works great when there are no other dimensions. In the screenshot below, Customer Name is being sorted the same way, but it's not sorting Customer Name by SUM(Profit) for each Product Category. Customer Name is being sorted by SUM(Profit) across all Product Categories.
You can find a packaged workbook on Tableau's Forum: http://community.tableausoftware.com/thread/155394
Thank you for your help!