Daria Savvateeva

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Business Value

Why a Sales Calendar?

Traditional line charts and bar graphs can make it difficult to spot day-of-week patterns or specific date anomalies. A calendar view provides:

Instant Pattern Recognition: Quickly identify which days of the week consistently perform well or poorly
Seasonal Insights: Spot trends across weeks and months at a glance
Anomaly Detection: Easily identify unusual spikes or drops on specific dates
Executive Communication: Intuitive format that stakeholders immediately understand
Planning Support: Align marketing campaigns, promotions, and resource allocation with historical patterns

Use Cases

Retail: Identify peak shopping days and plan inventory accordingly
Sales Teams: Set realistic daily targets based on historical performance
Marketing: Schedule campaigns around high-performance days
Operations: Plan staffing levels based on expected sales volume
Finance: Forecast revenue with day-level granularity

Key Features

Full Year View: All 12 months displayed simultaneously
Color-Coded Performance: Sales values represented by color intensity
Hover Details: Tooltip shows exact sales value and monthly trend
Interactive Filtering: Filter by year to compare different periods
Weekday Labels: Clear S-M-T-W-T-F-S headers for each month
Trend Analysis: Hover over month name to see sales trend line

How It Works

This calendar is built using Tableau’s spatial functions (MAKEPOINT) to position each date as a circle in a grid layout. The technique involves:

Creating a coordinate system using week numbers and weekdays
Positioning each date as a point in 2D space
Organizing into quarters to display 3 months per row
Color-coding by sales value for visual analysis
Adding interactive tooltips with trend sparklines

Technical Highlights

Uses MAKEPOINT() function to create spatial coordinates
Custom calculated fields for week offset and weekday positioning
Fixed-level-of-detail (LOD) calculations for first week per month
Multiple mark layers for dates, weekday labels, and month labels
Integrated trend visualization in tooltips

📖 Step-by-Step Build Guide

Prerequisites

Tableau Desktop or Tableau Public
Dataset with: Date field and Sales/Revenue metric

Sample data structure:

Date        | Sales
------------|--------
2017-01-01  | 2500
2017-01-02  | 3200
...         | ...

Data Preparation

Before starting, ensure your data has:

A Date field (any date format)
A Sales or revenue metric (numeric)
Ideally one year or more of daily data

Step 1: Create Base Date Calculations

1.1 Month Name

DATENAME('month', [Date])

1.2 Month Grouping

Put Month Name on Rows
Select January, April, July, October together
Right-click → Create Group (clip icon)
Right-click new group → Edit Alias → Name it “1”
Repeat for other month groups:
- Group 2: February, May, August, November
- Group 3: March, June, September, December

1.3 Quarter Date

Put Month Name (group) on Columns
Put Date on Rows → Select discrete Quarter

1.4 Weekday

Put Date on Columns → Select WEEKDAY (discrete)

Step 2: Create Week Positioning Calculations

2.1 First Week per Month (LOD Calculation)

{FIXED DATETRUNC('month', [Date]): MIN(DATEPART('week', [Date]))}

Move this calculation to Dimensions
Drag to Rows

2.2 Week Offset

-(DATEPART('week', [Date]) - [First Week per Month])

Note: Negative sign flips the calendar right-side up

Move to Dimensions
Drag to Rows

2.3 Clean Up Rows

Remove WEEK(Date) from Rows
Remove First Week per Month from Rows

Step 3: Create Weekday Positioning

3.1 Weekday

DATEPART('weekday', [Date])

For non-US locales (if Monday is first day of week):

IF DATEPART('weekday', [Date]) = 1 
THEN 7 
ELSE DATEPART('weekday', [Date]) - 1 
END

Move to Dimensions
Drag to Columns

Step 4: Build the Calendar Grid

4.1 Create Main Calendar Sheet

Create new worksheet
Add YEAR(Date) to Filters → Select desired year

4.2 Day Point Calculation

MAKEPOINT([Week Offset], [Weekday #])

This treats Week Offset as latitude and Weekday # as longitude

4.3 Arrange Layout

Double-click Day Point calculation
Put Month Name (group) on Columns
Put discrete QUARTER(Date) on Rows

Step 5: Add Date Labels

Put Date on Label → Select discrete DAY
Change mark type to Circle
Increase circle size using Size shelf

Step 6: Add Color by Sales

Drag Sales to Color
Click Color → Remove Halo
Click Color → Add dark Border to circles

Step 7: Format Labels

Click Label → Align text to center
Adjust font size as needed

Step 8: Add Weekday Labels

8.1 Create Weekday Label Calculation

MAKEPOINT(1, [Weekday #])

Drag to Marks card (creates new layer)

8.2 Configure Weekday Layer

Change mark type to Text
Put Date on Text → Select WEEKDAY (discrete)
Right-click WEEKDAY(Date) → Format → Pane → First Letter only
Remove Halo background

Step 9: Add Month Labels

9.1 Create Month Label Calculation

MAKEPOINT(2, 4)

2 = above weekday labels, 4 = centered

Drag to Marks card (creates new layer)

9.2 Configure Month Layer

Change mark type to Text
Put Month Name on Text
Remove Halo background

10.1 Create Trend Sheet

Create new worksheet
Put continuous Date on Columns
Put Sales on Rows

10.2 Link to Calendar

Go back to Calendar sheet
Add Sales to Detail
Add Date (Month/Year option) to Detail

10.3 Configure Tooltips

For Month Label layer:

Month: <Month Name>
Total Sales: <SUM(Sales)>

Hover to see trend
[Insert Sheet: Trend Sheet]

For Day Point layer:

Date: <DAY(Date)> <DATENAME('month', Date)>
Sales: <Sales>

Monthly trend:
[Insert Sheet: Trend Sheet]

Step 11: Final Formatting

11.1 Hide Headers

Right-click Month Name (group) on Columns → Uncheck “Show Header”
Right-click QUARTER(Date) on Rows → Uncheck “Show Header”

11.2 Remove Borders

Format → Borders
Row Divider: None
Column Divider: None

11.3 Clean Map Background

Map → Map Layers
Adjust opacity or disable background map
Washout map elements

Customization Ideas

Change Color Scheme: Use diverging colors for above/below target
Add Target Lines: Show daily target values
Multiple Metrics: Create separate calendars for units sold, profit, etc.
Comparative View: Side-by-side calendars for year-over-year comparison
Annotations: Add notes for promotions, events, or anomalies

Tips & Tricks

Common Issues

Issue: Calendar is upside down
Solution: Add negative sign to Week Offset calculation

Issue: Week starts on wrong day
Solution: Adjust Weekday # calculation for your locale

Issue: Months not aligned
Solution: Check Month Name grouping - should be 3 groups of 4 months

Issue: Circles overlapping
Solution: Ensure Week Offset and Weekday # are in Dimensions, not Measures

Acknowledgments

Inspiration from various Tableau calendar visualizations in the community
Technique adapted from Tableau spatial analysis methods

Sales Calendar