Tableau Key Terms 101

7 min readAug 21, 2023

For anyone new to Tableau it can be very overwhelming at times when many terms get thrown at them during a training session.
e.g: Drag “x” pill into “y” shelf and change the Mark type to “z”!!!

Luckily most of the terms in Tableau are quite intuitive and it becomes much easier when we try to relate it to real world terms.
The purpose of this article is to give a brief and quick visual summary of relating key Tableau terms to the equivalent real world terms.

Given below are some of the key terms used in Tableau:
1. Pills
2. Marks
3. Shelves
4. Cards
5. Legends
6. Controls
7. Worksheets
8. Dashboards
9. Stories
10. Titles
11. Captions

Pills:

This is one term that took me some time to get a hold on when I started out in Tableau. But once I understood the reference it was quite intuitive, similar to most of the features in Tableau.

Pills are something that we normally use for referring to medicine capsules. Funny that this is the reference behind using the term pills in Tableau.

In the Tableau world a pill can be considered as a piece or portion of data i.e. either a Dimension or Measure that we can display in the visualization.

Marks:

Generally in non-Tableau terms, a Mark is a trace or an indication of something.

In the Tableau world, a Mark is a visual representation of one or more rows in a data source.
Mark types can be a bar, line, square, and so on. Typically we can control the type, color and size of marks.
A Mark refers to each data point in the view.

As we keep adding fields (depending on requirement if it is a Dimension or Measure) to the Viz the number of marks will increase making the view more granular and less aggregated.

Shelves:

In non-Tableau terms a Shelf refers to a flat, horizontal plane used for items that are displayed or stored in a home, business, store, or elsewhere.

In the Tableau world, we can drag the Pills to Shelves. Hence Shelves can be used to house or store the Pills!!!
A shelf is a location in the view area where we can drop pills (data pieces) so that Tableau can interact on them.
The action that is carried out by Tableau on the pill depends on which shelf we drag it into.

Given below are the various Shelves that are present in the View Area of Tableau:

Rows Shelf
Columns Shelf
Pages Shelf
Filters Shelf
Measure Values Shelf

Cards:

One of the meanings of a Card in the non-Tableau world is a small, rectangular piece of card or plastic, often with your signature, photograph,
or other information proving who you are, that allows you to do something.

In the Tableau world, Cards are utilized for specific purposes based on the visualization.

Given below are the Cards that are present in the View Area of Tableau:
Marks card
Summary card

The Marks card is a key element for visual analysis in Tableau.
As we drag fields to different properties in the Marks card, we can add context and detail to the marks in the view.
The Marks card are used set the mark type, and to encode the data with color, size, label/text, detail, tooltip, shape, path, angle.

The Summary card provides a quick view of statistical information about a selection or the entire data source.
By default, the Summary Card shows Sum, Average, Minimum, Maximum, and Median values for the data in the view
We can use the drop-down menu in the Summary Card to show additional statistics e.g: Standard Deviation, Skewness etc.

Legends:

One of the meanings of a Legend in the non-Tableau world is the wording on a map or diagram explaining the symbols used.

In the Tableau world, Legends are utilized for showing the various data characteristics e.g: Color, Shape, Size for encoding the data in a better manner.

Given below are the Legends that are present in the View Area of Tableau based on the use case:
Color legend
Size legend
Shape legend
Map legend

Controls:

One of the meanings of Controls in the non-Tableau world is the a means of limiting or regulating something. e.g: remote control for TV etc.

In the Tableau world, Controls are utilized for showing the various options to modify or control various fields that are present in the respective area
e.g: Page Shelf, Filter Shelf etc.

Given below are the Controls that are present in the View Area of Tableau based on the use case:
Parameter control
Filter control
Page control

Parameter control: The parameter control is a worksheet card that lets us modify the parameter value.

Filter control: This provides many different options that let us control the appearance and interaction of the filter

Page control: Provides options for navigating through pages when there is a field on the Pages shelf

Worksheets:

In general a worksheet is a sheet of paper on which work schedules, working time, special instructions, etc., are recorded.
Best example is a sheet in a MS-Excel Spreadsheet.

In the Tableau world, a worksheet contains a single view/ visualization along with shelves, cards, legends, and the Data and Analytics panes in its side bar.

Dashboards:

In general a Dashboard is the panel facing the driver of a vehicle or the pilot of an aircraft, containing instruments and controls.
They are a single place to locate all the controls.

In Tableau terms a dashboard is a collection of views from multiple worksheets.
A Tableau Dashboard will be the single location to access multiple visualizations at the same time.

Stories:

In general a story is a narrative, either true or fictitious, in prose or verse, designed to interest, amuse, or instruct the hearer or reader.

In Tableau terms a story is a sequence of worksheets or dashboards that work together to convey information is a typical presentation style narrative. A Tableau story consists of multiple story points.

Titles:

One of the meanings of Title in the non-Tableau world is the name given to something (as a book, song, or job) to identify or describe it.

In the Tableau world Titles are the names that we give our worksheet, dashboard, or story.

We can show titles on any worksheet, dashboard, or story.
For worksheets and stories, a title is displayed by default, but we can remove it.
For dashboards, we can add a title.
By default, the title is the name of the worksheet.
But we can edit the title by inserting dynamic values such as Parameters, Page Number, Sheet name, Data Source Name etc.

To show a Title in a worksheet, select it on the Show/Hide Cards toolbar menu or select Worksheet > Show Title.

Captions:

One of the meanings of Caption in the non-Tableau world is a title or brief explanation accompanying an illustration, cartoon, or poster.

In the Tableau world Captions are the Text that describes the data in the view.

All views can have a caption that is either automatically generated or manually created/edited.
The caption is displayed on the Caption card.

To show a caption in a worksheet, select it on the Show/Hide Cards toolbar menu or select Worksheet > Show Caption.

To edit the caption, double-click the Caption area in the view.
In the Edit Caption dialog box, we can use change the font, size, color, and alignment and style.
Click the Insert menu to add automatic text such as page number, sheet name, and field and parameter values.