Dimensions & Measures in Tableau

Datahark April 26, 2020

There are two types of Variables in Tableau - Every variable is categorized in tableau automatically either under dimension or Measures

Let's understand the difference between Dimension and Measure in detail -

Dimensions -

Any Variable with qualitative/Categorical information will be treated as dimension by default in Tableau.
It produce the header when we add this variable to Row Column shelve in Worksheet.

The Actual Definition of dimension is - A dimension is a field that can be considered an independent variable.

To understand it simply any Value Containing any text, date, Geographical location, Boolean value etc are considered as Dimension.



Measures -

Any Variable with numeric/quantitative information will be treated as Measures by default in Tableau.
It produce the axes when we add these variables to the rows or columns shelves in worksheet.

The Actual Definition of Measures is - A measure is a field that is a dependent variable; i.e. its value is a function of one or more dimensions.

For Example -

when we calculate the sum of Sales for every Department. In that case -
Department - Dimension
Sales - Measure

Here are Few more examples of Dimensions and Measures

Dimensions  -

ID
Category
City
State
Country
Postal code
Name
Date

Measures-

Sales
Profit
Marks
Discount
Quantity

Identifying Dimensions & Measures

When we move on to Worksheet in tableau then there is one Data pane which have two different Pane(sections) in it so that we can easily identify the Dimensions and Measures in Tableau.
  



Converting Measures to Dimensions

Tableau by default detect and categorized all the variables with numeric value as Measures, sometime our requirement is to convert those variable as Dimension, we can also do that

Right click on any Measure Variable and Click on Convert to Dimension, see below screenshot.



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