How to Make Rounded Gauges in Tableau

Improve engagement and design with rounded bars or gauges

Ryan shares a hack using calculated fields and a dual-axis combination chart that makes bars and gauges appear rounded. Rounded gauges make it easier to communicate the direction a gauge is “filling” up.

Hi, this is Ryan with Playfair Data TV. And in this video, I’m going to be sharing one of my favorite tricks, which is to round bars and gauges in Tableau. Just gives it a nice little design polish. And it requires a little bit of a hack so you don’t see this very often. And I think it just really enhances these traditional bars and gauges.

To get started over here in Tableau Desktop, we need three fields. One is the field that is drawing the bar. And then the other two are calculated fields. One creates the start of the gauge. And the second creates the end of the gauge. These rounded gauges tend to work best when we’re going from 0 to 1. So anything that goes from 0 to 100 percent, this will be a really effective chart type and little trick for you.

To create that first calculated field, I’m going to just click this down arrow in the top right corner of the Dimensions area and click Create Calculated Field. And this is the start of my gauge. And because we’re going from 0 to 1 or 0 to 100 percent, if you convert it to a percenta