Here is a little trick from my friend, Prasann Prem (He actually posted this on LinkedIn yesterday).

Did you know there are Hidden Functions in Tableau that can make your life easier? Who knew! 

Here are 5 hidden functions for you to use (Yes, there are more that I will add as future Tableau Tips and Tricks).

GREATEST() – Finds the value of the biggest value from multiple expressions—no more hassle of using nested MAX statements to get the result.

COALESCE() – Finds the first non-null expression from multiple expressions.

Example: COALESCE(NULL, NULL, “T-Shirt”, “Anime”) = T-Shirt3. 

NULLIF() – Returns null if two statements are equal else returns the first expression.

Example: NULLIF(“Anime”, “Anime”) = NULL
Example: NULLIF(“Anime”, “Goku”) = Anime4. 

RANDOM() – Returns a random seeded number between 0 and 1.

Prasann noted that his favorite use case has been creating a jitter plot using random().

OVERLAY() – Overlays one string on top of another at a specified position.

Example: OVERLAY(“Prasann”,”Prem”, 3, 6) = PrPrem

Prasann noted that this post was inspired by Yovel Deutel‘s viz on Hidden Functions. Here is the link to Yovel’s Tableau Workbook in Tableau Public. 

Credit: Prasann Prem