
You can download a zip file with everything covered in this tutorial from this link. In the zip archive, you will find the Tableau Workbook that we will produce in this tutorial or you can follow the instruction and make it by yourself.
In this story, I will use Tableau Desktop 2018.3 (trial) for macOS systems.
Prepare the working environment
First of all, we have to prepare a custom palette shape, it could sound difficult but it is very easy, the only thing we have to do is to copy the "West Europe flags" folder into one of the following, depending on if you are using a Mac or a Windows system.
Mac
/Users//Documents/My Tableau Repository
Windows
C:UsersDocumentsMy Tableau Repository
Flags PNG files are provided from the Flagpedia web site.
Dataset
We will use the file World Health 2020 dataset produced by the World Health Organization (WHO) and, in particular, the "alcoholSubstanceAbuse.csv" file. The CSV file is included in the zip archive described above but you can find the whole dataset by clicking on this link to the relative Kaggle page.
Let’s go
As we are data analysts and not magicians, there is no reason to keep secrets over our workaround to include images inside columns of a Tableau table. The workaround basically consists of making two tables with the same context and overlap them, using transparent backgrounds. The best (and probably the only) way to include custom images into a Tableau table, is to create a custom shape palette and to use it inside the Marks area, this allows users to customize tables by adding dimensions related images directly inside the table, but does not allow to have full control over the positions of the images, as you could only decide to include them into the Marks area.
The following instruction will accompany you to all the steps in making a working example of this workaround.

As usual, we have to connect the Tableau Desktop workbook to our data source. In the "Data Source" tab, we insert a data source filter on the Location field, so we will work only with the Country of West Europe, and in particular:
- Austria
- France
- Germany
- Ireland
- Italy
- Portugal
- Spain
- Switzerland
- United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

Now it’s time to move to "Sheet 1" and follow the steps described below:
- Rename "Sheet 1" to "Legend";
- In the Marks menu select "Shape" from the dropdown list;
- Drag the "Location" pill from the Dimensions list and drop it on the "Shape" icon in the Marks menu;
- Click on the "Shape" icon;
- Hit the "Reload Shapes" button, this should load our brand new custom shape palette with the flags of the Countries;
- Select "Flags West Europe" from the drop-down palette;
- Map every item (Country) with its flag and then click OK;

- Create a new Worksheet and rename it "Table data";
- In the Analysis menu uncheck "Aggregate Measures";
- Drag and drop "Location" and "Dim1" pills in the Rows area;
- Drag and drop the "First Tooltip" pill in the Marks area;
- Drag and drop "Period" in the Filters area;
- In the General tab, check "Use all";
- In the Rows area, right-click on "Location" and select "Show Filter";
- Click the down arrow on the "Location" filter controller on the right bar and set it to "Single value (list)";
- Click again, go to "Customize" and uncheck "Show All Value";
- In the Filters area, right-click on the "Period" pill and hit "Show filter";
- Click the down arrow on the "Period" filter controller on the right bar and set it to "Single value (list)";
- Click again, go to "Customize" and uncheck "Show All Value";
- Right on the "Location" pill in the Rows area and select "Filter";
- Go to the "Top" tab and select top 5 by field "First Tooltip";
- Right on the "Location" pill in the Rows area and select "Sort";
- Sort by "First Tooltip" filed ascending;
- Create a calculated field named "Flag icon" and set it to blank;

- Drag the "Flag icon" pill and drop it in the Rows area between "Location" and "Dim1";
- Set the row height to (more or less) double of the actual height;

- Go to the "Format Shading" menu and set "None" to Default, Worksheet;

- Duplicate the worksheet "Table data" and rename it to "Table flags";
- Go to "Table flags" worksheet;
- In the Marks area select "Shape" from the dropdown list;
- Drag the "Location" pill and drop it on the Shape icon;
- Delete "First Tooltip" pill from the Marks area;
- Right-click on the "Location" label and select "Format…";
- Set white color on the Default, Font window;
- Right-click on "Portugal" (on any other Country) and select "Format…";
- Do the same on the "Dim1" values;
- Go to the "Borders" tab in the Format menu and put "None" to Column Divider and Rows Divider;

- Create a new dashboard and rename it "alcohol substance abuse";
- Drag "Table data" and "Table flags" and drop them into the dashboard;
- Set the tables to floating and remove any legends or filter controllers;
- Click on the down arrow in the "Table data" area and select Filters, "Period";
- Click on the down arrow in the "Period" filter controller and select "Single Value (list)";
- Click on the down arrow in the "Period" filter controller and uncheck Customize, "Show All Value";
- Click on the down arrow in the "Period" filter controller and check to Apply to Worksheets, "All Using This Data Source";
- Do the same for the "Dim1" filter;
- Click on the down arrow in the "Table flags" area and select Floating Order, "Send to Back";
- Click on the down arrow in the "Table flags" area and uncheck "Title";
- Click on the down arrow in the "Table data" area and select Floating Order, "Bring to Front";
- Click on the down arrow in the "Table data" area and uncheck "Title";
- In the layout tab set the same values for x, y, w, and z for "Table data" and "Table flags" as well;
- Select "Table data" and, set "None" to the background in the layout panel;
- Adjust manually the column width to make appear the icon under the "Flag icon" label;


Conclusions
At the end of this long list of steps, you probably have developed your own Tableau Workbook with the Country flags in the second column. If you encountered any problems you can download the zip file with the finished Tableau workbook. If you found any fasted solution feel free to share it in the comments area right down below and, of course, free to get in touch with me following my reference described below.