Ever built a dashboard, stared at it, and thought:
“It’s “Ok…” but it’s not floating my boat…”
You’re not alone. The truth is, most dashboards fail – not because they’re ugly, but because they’re built in isolation, rushed under pressure, or designed to impress rather than inform.
This edition of Tableau Bites is your antidote to that.
No fluff. No theory. Just eight sharp reminders (and a few gentle jabs) to challenge how you use Tableau – and what you expect from it.
✅ 1. If You’re Still Building Dashboards Alone, You’re Doing It the Hard Way
Most Tableau users are stuck in a loop: build → tweak → doubt → repeat.
But great dashboards aren’t solo projects – they’re collaborative tools.
Ask your key users this: “What specific actions should this help you take?”
If you don’t know, then your user will just see it as a “nice to have” and will soon forget to open it up.
✅ 2. A Great LOOKING Dashboard Is Still a Bad Dashboard If It Doesn’t Drive Action
Design matters, yes. But clarity matters more.
Quick test: Can someone answer “What should I do next?” in under 10 seconds?
If not, it’s decoration – not insight. Make sure you are guiding your user based upon the insights you are revealing.
✅ 3. Stop Searching for ‘The Best Chart’ – Start Asking Better Questions
“What chart should I use?” is the wrong question.
Ask: “What action needs to be taken?”
That’ll tell you what to show – and help you discover how to show it.
Lets be clear, Bar charts, Line charts and Tables (and maybe maps…) are really all you need for 80% of the time.
The hard part is working out what to add, and what to take away from them.
✅ 4. Your Users Will Only Ever Be as Good as the Dashboards You Show Them
Low-quality dashboards teach users to distrust or lose enthusiasm for the the tool (and probably scurry back to Excel).
The better your dashboards, the more informed they can be about their future requirements. It’s a win-win. And an investment that saves your future self and colleagues so much time in the future.
You’re not just building tools. You’re shaping how people think.
✅ 5. Templates Aren’t Cheating. They’re Strategic Shortcuts. Productivity Hacks, if you will
If you’re not using templates, you’re reinventing the wheel.
Templates reduce guesswork and speed up iteration.
Steal structure. Then improve it. Template at the dashboard, sheet and calculated field levels.
✅ 6. Build to Learn, Not to Impress
Perfect dashboards rarely ship.
Useful ones do.
A Minimum Viable Product (”MVP”) dashboard gets feedback. And feedback makes everything better. So get the feedback quicker, by shipping an earlier version.
Stop hitting the snooze button instead of the Publish button…
✅ 7. The Most Powerful Filter in Tableau? Time.
How much of yours is being chewed up by fiddling, fixing, Googling?
Every hour wasted rebuilding the same chart or debugging a quick fix… is an hour not spent solving real problems. Get troubleshooting support to cut out the time-sink that is Google.
✅ 8. If You Knew What to Fix, You’d Have Fixed It by Now
Most dashboard issues come from blind spots, not laziness.
You’ve done what you know how to do.
The gap is knowing what you’re missing.
And that’s where the right support makes all the difference. Get your work peer reviewed often and early.
📍Want help closing that gap?
The Tableau Insights Collective (TIC) is a support community for people who’ve decided they’re done going in circles.
It gives you:
- A structured framework (Turbocharged Build → Fast-Track Learning → Quality Confidence)
- Live coaching, templates, feedback, and peer review and support
- The confidence to ship dashboards people actually use
There’s no pressure, no upsells, no fluff. Just honest help.
👉 More details and jump on the waitlist for the next round here.
See you in the next edition,
Steve
P.S. If this landed at just the right time, drop me an email and tell me which of the eight truths hit hardest. I read every one.
