Selective Formatting of Numbers in Tableau

This is how you can conditionally display a different no. of decimal places in the same datatable

Jan 12, 2022

2 min read

Tableau Software is a surprisingly versatile tool. Not only does it provide a wide spectrum of data visualisation options but it is also a powerful reporting aid.

A rather interesting use-case I have recently encountered at work involves selectively formatting numbers present in a single datatable in Tableau.

For example, the following table contains dummy values for the Vaccination Rates of 3 randomly selected countries:

While Tableau enables the user to Format these numbers from the side panel, in order to selectively display values with a custom no. of decimal place (#.#, #.## etc.) or as custom text (E.g. for values less than 65, it shall be displayed as "≤65" instead) within the same table, the following formulas in the respective calculated fields may be considered for such instances instead.

Calculated Field: [Position of Decimal (.)]

FIND( STR([Vaccination Rates]), '.' )

Calculated Fields for Displaying a custom no. of decimal places

i) [Display=1 Decimal Place]

LEFT(
    STR([Vaccination Rates]),
    [Position Of Decimal (.)]+1
)

Note: The bolded number above represents no. of decimal places desired (a.k.a. the no. of digits to display after the "." symbol)

ii) [Display=2 Decimal Places]

LEFT(
    STR([Vaccination Rates]),
    [Position Of Decimal (.)]+2
)

Note: The bolded number above represents no. of decimal places desired (a.k.a. the no. of digits to display after the "." symbol)

Final Display of Numbers

Main Assumptions:

2 Decimal Places are displayed for values ≥75
Only 1 Decimal Place is displayed for values > 65 but less than 75
Values ≤65 are summarised as ‘≤65%’

IF [Vaccination Rates] &gt;= 75 THEN [Display=2 Decimal Places]+'%'
ELSEIF [Vaccination Rates] &gt; 65 THEN [Display=1 Decimal Place]+'%'
ELSE '≤65%' END

Altogether…

And there you have it! Many thanks for persisting to the end of this article! ❤ Hope you have found this guide useful and feel free to follow me on Medium if you would like more GIS, Data Analytics (Tableau-inclusive) & Web application-related content. Would really appreciate it – 😀

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