Converting Measures to Dimensions

Quick reference

• 00:04 In this video I want to talk about converting measures to dimensions and
• 00:08 vice versa.
• 00:09 So we've got over here are dimensions which are basically textual things,
• 00:13 category names and column names, things like that.
• 00:17 And down here we have measures which are generally numeric values,
• 00:20 numbers and things.
• 00:21 And you'll notice we've got an owner zip code down here,
• 00:24 which if you think about it, is numeric, zip codes tend to be numbers, but
• 00:28 they're not really mathematical.
• 00:30 You're not living at 27 plus 48 equals something, zip code.
• 00:35 Zip code is really a name really.
• 00:37 So maybe this shouldn't be a measure.
• 00:39 So how could we convert it to a dimension?
• 00:42 So I'm going to come over here and let's duplicate this, let's make a copy.
• 00:45 So clicking on the little caret and let's click duplicate and
• 00:48 you can see owners zip, we've got a copy right here.
• 00:51 And one interesting thing if we head over to our data source,
• 00:54 we'll see we've got an owner's zip copy.
• 00:57 We've still got the owners zip right here.
• 00:59 We've also got a copy.
• 01:00 So this has actually changed our data in our data screen here, so
• 01:04 just sort of keep that in mind.
• 01:06 It's not that important, but kind of interesting.
• 01:08 So now we've got this copy of our owners zip code.
• 01:10 How do we convert this into a dimension?
• 01:12 Well, super easy.
• 01:13 We just click on the little caret, come down here and convert to dimension.
• 01:17 And when we do, boom, it pops right up here into our dimensions,
• 01:20 we can see it's now blue.
• 01:22 It still has the little number sign next to it.
• 01:24 Tableau is sort of like: I think these are numbers,
• 01:28 it's not quite fooled, but at least now this is a dimension.
• 01:33 And now we can use this as we would any other dimension and that's cool.
• 01:36 So what happens if we've got something up here for instance,
• 01:40 this owner zip that we want to convert back to a measure?
• 01:43 Same thing, we just click on this, come down here and convert to measure, boom,
• 01:46 it pops it right back down.
• 01:48 No big deal.
• 01:49 So, Tableau makes it really easy to sort of switch around between measures and
• 01:52 dimensions.
• 01:53 Like I said, Tableau makes its best guess whenever you import data,
• 01:57 and it sees this zip code field and it says to itself, okay, these are numbers.
• 02:02 This must be a measure.
• 02:04 But we know that it's not really a measure because we're not counting zip codes
• 02:09 numerically they're descriptive.
• 02:11 We live at a certain zip code.
• 02:13 We might as well call that a name.
• 02:15 It's not a number.
• 02:16 So we like that.
• 02:17 And there are many, many other instances where you may have something as a measure
• 02:21 that you want to put as a dimension for any number of reasons and
• 02:24 that's a super quick and easy way to do it.
• 02:27 And again, remember, whenever we make a copy or make a change like that,
• 02:30 it will reflect in the data source over here.
• 02:32 So I can come back over here to my sheet, and I can grab this owners of copy and
• 02:36 I can click on a caret and
• 02:37 let's just get rid of this we don't really need it anymore.
• 02:40 We don't actually need to convert this to a dimension in this video.
• 02:43 We're going to be playing with the zip codes later on and
• 02:45 we'll mess with it then.
• 02:46 But now we can just get rid of it and go back to our regular owners zip.
• 02:49 And you'll notice in our data source over here,
• 02:52 that other column that copy is now gone again.
• 02:54 And we've only just got the regular zip code measure listed.
• 02:58 So pretty cool and pretty easy.
• 02:59 So that's pretty much all I have for the sort of introductory videos explaining
• 03:03 the look in the field and the layout of Tableau.
• 03:05 In the next video, we're going to jump in and start creating visualizations.
• 03:09 About to get a lot more interesting and that'll be coming up in the next video.

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