Sales and profit by sub-categories – bar chart

The first question we'll answer is: what are the product sub-categories that generate the most sales and profits? Let's find out how to do that:

1. Double-click on Sales in the Data Source. You should now see one bar. If you put the mouse over the bar, you should read Sales: 2,297,201. As a measure is always aggregated, here you can see the sum of all the sales.
2. On the Data Source, double-click on Sub-Category. The sub-categories now split the bar. A quick look can tell you that Chairs and Phones are the best-selling products:
   

3. On the toolbar, click on the Swap icon: .This way it's easier to read the sub-categories. We can do even better by clicking on the descending Sort icon  to show this:

Now the sub-categories are sorted, and it's effortless to answer questions such as What are the top three sub-categories?, What are the bottom three sub-categories?, and How do tables perform compared to bookcases?

4. Sales often come with Profits. In Tableau, it's straightforward to use pre-attentive attributes (Color, Size, Shape, and so on) to add secondary information. Here, simply drag and drop Profit in Color:

Tableau automatically uses a diverging color palette: orange for negative values and blue for positive. Now we can also see that Tables, Bookcases, and Supplies lose the company money.

5. Double-click on Sheet 1, at the very bottom, next to the Data Source tab, and rename the Worksheet Sales and Profit by Sub-Category. It's crucial to give a name to each of your Worksheets in Tableau. 

A few clicks and one drag and drop later, you just created your first visualization in Tableau, congratulations! Ready for the next one?