Tableau: Pareto Chart (20,80) — Top Products, Customers, …

By the definition: A Pareto chart, is a type of chart that contains both bars and a line graph, where individual values are represented in descending order by bars, and the cumulative total is represented by the line.

For what Pareto chart is really popular is its rule “twenty eighty (20,80)" — in the most businesses top 20% of customers give 80% of the revenue.

Let’s check is it also true for our famous Sample Superstore data source :) This way I also want to say thank you Milos Oroz for the Pareto Chart suggestion.

With connecting to Tableau Sample Superstore, choosing Profit and Product names, and then sorting descending by SUM(Profit), we should get something like this:

Duplicate the Sum(Profit) with holding down CTRL key left click and drag it the side, do the Quick Table Calculation and Running Total, right click on the same measure and Edit Table Calculation → Add Secondary calculation → Percent of Total:

Now we come to the step where we want to change Product Name from Text into a Calculation.

Right click on Product Name, select Measure and then Count(Distinct).

Right click on it again and choose Quick Table Calculation → Running Total.

Edit it with adding the Secondary Calculation → Percent of Total.

Your Sheet will look something like this (on the left side):

Drag a new Product Name field and drop it onto the Details on the All Marks Card. Right click and Sort it descending by the Sum of Profit.

Right click on the Columns measure CNTD(Product Names) → Edit Table Calculations → pick the Product Name as a Specific DImension. This same thing do also for your first Sum(Profit) in Rows shelf !

With putting out negative values of Profit, you will get this view:

Right click on Profit axis → Dual axis. On the Marks card change the Sum(Profit) to Area and % of Total Running Sum of Profit to the Line:

Hovering the mouse over the existing dots, we can easily see the ratios between two corresponding measures. Our example shows that 20.02% of our top Product Names gives us 78.65% of Profit :)

For visual effects you can also add some Reference lines.

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About The Author

Leon Agatic is a Tableau Enthusiast. You can connect with him on Medium, Twitter, LinkedIn and Reddit.

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