Whenever we create a dashboard which can be used by different users from across different countries, there’s always a need, the dashboard should available in the specific language of that country.
In this blog, we will talk about how to implement Multi-language support in Tableau Dashboards. We will be adding multilingual titles for the different charts in the dashboard.
First, we need to create a language conversion table listing the chart titles. I am using Excel to create a table.
Language conversion Table:
In this excel table, we need Chart titles as columns and Languages as rows, and one extra custom column named as Join key, which will have the same values matching from our fact table, or the same custom column need to be created in our data table with same values(with 1 same static value for each row).
This will help us in Blending the Language Table with our data table.
(The columns names are the Chart names from the dashboard with a postfix ‘Title’)
Adding the Data Sources and Language Table in Tableau and defining blend relationship:
- Open Tableau and add the fact/data table as the primary data source, here I am using a sample sales data set in excel format
- Now add a new data source connection which will be the Language table excel file
- Click on the database dropdown icon (change data source) on the data canvas
- Click on the “New Data Source” option and choose the file type(Excel file in this scenario)
- Once the data file is selected you can see both the data sources in the dropdown and choose anyone to see the table details.
Blend Relationship between the two data sources:
Blending in Tableau:
It is a process of combining data from different data sources which can be used for analysis in different views. Blending can be helpful if the data in the sources have a different level of details or granularity
Primary Data Source: Data source which has any field or fields brought in the sheet first becomes the primary data source. The primary data source will have a blue tick visible in the data pane
Secondary Data Source: The other data sources which would require blending in order to bring in the fields to the sheet along with the Primary data source fields. The secondary data source will have an Orange tick.
To Blend, the two data sources, the following are the steps
- Go to a new sheet and click on the Data Menu.
- Select the “Edit Blend Relationships” option from the menu. Once you click on the option, a popup window (Blend Relationship) will appear with all data sources. If the columns in the two tables have the same name and data, the blend relations are defined automatically. In this scenario, we have a custom column Join Key with a static value “98” added in both the tables which is recognized by tableau.
- Alternatively, we can define the blend relationships manually by choosing the custom option. Select the custom option and click on add option, another new pop up window opens listing fields from both the data sources. You can now select the fields from both the tables to define the relationship and click ok
- Once the blending relationship is defined, a link button is visible beside the defined field in the Secondary data source in the data pane. Click on it to enable/disable data blending on the sheet.
Adding Titles to the Charts.
To add the titles to the chart first you need to create a Language selection parameter. Steps for parameter creation
- Click on the dropdown button in the upper right corner of the data pane and select the create parameter.
- Give a name to the parameter.
- Select the data type as a string and select allowable values as “List”.
- Now we can add the names of the languages manually by typing in or select fixed values from the data table by clicking the “Add values from” button and selecting the respective data source and the field.
- Now add the title fields from the language data source to the details card in the sheet.
- Right-click and Edit the title. Select the existing title and click in the insert button on the top right corner, the title field added to the details card will be visible there Select the field and click ok.
- Drag the Language field from the secondary data source (Language Table) to the Filters pane.
- Select the “use all” option in the general tab and navigate to conditions tab, select the “By Formula” option and add the given statement.
[Language]= [Select Language]
{Here in the statement we are specifying the sheet should be filtered according to the language which is given as an input in the parameter by the user.}
- Click ok and save the filter and apply it to all the sheets which require multilingual titles.
- Right-click on the parameter and select show parameter, A parameter box will appear on the top right corner of the sheet. You can select any language from the dropdown and the sheet title will change respectively.
- Create a dashboard and add the language parameter to the dashboard using the analysis menu.
- Select any Language and the dashboard chart titles change accordingly.
More with Multi-Language Support:
With this approach, it will make the dashboard more user friendly in terms of access and understanding. The language issues which is faced most frequently in case of dashboards being published on a global level can be dealt with ease by implementing this approach. Furthermore, we can set up our backend data sources to support language conversion for the data itself (If Feasibility allows), this would make the dashboards much better.
