This is a little tip that started out with a “Tableau doesn’t do that” and then an “Ooh…it does…that’s so cool!” Here’s the problem: In a single measure table, I want the name of the measure column as a header. In this worksheet using the Coffee Chain data I want “Sales” to be on top of the Sales column:

Now there are a bunch of ways to work around this…if you really want to read a comprehensive list check out the gory details, but there’s a way that tops them all that I learned thanks to Alberto Bertollino. in the aforementioned thread. From the view above (that took two clicks to build), do one (ONE!) more click & drag operation to drop Measure Values over the column and voila!:

Alternatively, if you like double-clicking, that works too!

As Steve Jobs used to say, “Boom.”

Over the last four years this tip would have saved me at least a couple of hours of doing things like creating tables with all discretes and then resizing columns and twiddling with formatting. Multiply that times thousands of Tableau users and we’re talking person-years.

Got another time-saving tip? Share it in the comments below!