I Need Help Recreating This Chart

[u/Brilliant-Sea-8486]

Hi everyone, I need help recreating this chart (But at a weekly interval instead of monthly). What this chart is trying to show is the number of new NCs opened each period and closed each period but also a running tally of total open NCs at the time of each interval.

Here is essentially how the data is structured:

NC Name	Create Date	Closed Date	Status
1234	7/20/26	8/3/26	Closed
1235	8/25/26	8/29/26	Closed
1236	8/31/26		Open

There are really like 2/3 statuses each that make up open and closed but for simplicity's sake I just made it open / closed.

Right now what im trying to do is I create a snapshot in Tableau Prep each week to record what the NC status is at each interval period and trying to manipulate it that way but im still not able to get it right.

Would appreciate any and all help with this, thanks!

[u/Richardswgoh]

I've made almost this exact same chart (down to the fact that it was an NCR chart as well...)

The snapshot method is tricky -- because your horizontal axis is just "month" -- and not necessarily month of creation or month of closure and there are surely NCRs that are created in one month and closed in a different month. Snapshots are also hard to add features in later.

Here's my approach: Method 1 -- Unions Create a view of your data that's like: -NCR # -created_date as status_date -'created' as status_type

And then union that to another version that's like: -NCR # -closed_date as status_date -'closed'' as status_type

(And maybe add another version for cancelled/voided)

From here, you can do a distinct count of NCR# by month, and use the status type to split into open/closed.

The difficulty here is that if you let your users filter down to a mfg area with no ncrs open or closed in a given month, that can make your charting a bit unpredictable.

Which brings up method 2-- JOINS

Have one table with just dates -- every date in whatever range.

Then pre aggregate your counts to the number open on any given day, and join back to your dates table.

Then do a second aggregation and join back to the closed date -- and now you have a data set that can share the common date axis, and have a column for open and another for closed.

This method also allows you to join that date table back to your ncr data on "between opened date and closed date" and that can give you a virtual snapshot of how many cars were open on any given day.

Either method can work depending on your other requirements, but the important thing is getting to a version of the data where there is just one column for date -- which then becomes your horizontal axis.

[u/Brilliant-Sea-8486 → u/Richardswgoh]

Thanks for the help! I had tried your join method before and I was having issues but I got the open / close working now. Now the only thing that im still having trouble with is the running tally of total Open NCs at each of the "Scaffold Date". Do you have a best practice in being able to incorporate that as well? That was initially why I turned to the snapshot method as it seemed that last piece would be most easily captured through snapshot.

[u/Richardswgoh → u/Brilliant-Sea-8486]

The open volume is another situation where you need to make different date axes play nice with each other. Since the # open at any given time can change throughout the month, your "monthly" view is really just from a single point in time each month.

My suggestion would be the "virtual snapshot" method I described about -- where you take a date list and join it to your ncrs on created < scaffold_date and closed > scaffold_date -- this fans out your ncr data by creating a new row of data for each ncr for each date it was in open status. That's then something you can aggregate to the distinct count of ncrs open on a date -- and then join that date back to your other table where you're bringing in the # opened and # closed.

Though I'd definitely say, in tableau, this is much better done with two charts than one. The open volume visual I created that I really liked was that virtual snapshot of open ncrs on every single day, color coded by how long that NCR had been open. It helped visualize not only how the volume fluctuated over the course of a month, but also whether or not the team was just closing all the new NCRs and leaving the old, difficult ones to rot.

[u/Southbeach008]

Side by side bar and a line chart is not posssible in Tableau sadly.

[u/jjlbateman → u/Southbeach008]

It is but with great difficulty and workarounds

[u/Southbeach008 → u/jjlbateman]

Yeh with workarounds everything is possible in Tableau... 🤣🤣

But yeh it's not straightforward.

[u/UnrequitedFollower → u/Southbeach008]

What’s the limiter? They built in dual axis but nothing past that?

[u/Brilliant-Sea-8486 → u/Southbeach008]

Im fine with all 3 being lines if thats the only way to do it. My main issue is with getting the data right.

[u/Southbeach008 → u/Brilliant-Sea-8486]

Did you used claude/gpt for this. I guess they will be better to help it as you can upload sample data and all.

Claude can write or make visual as well. Just explain it in detailed way and upload your twbx in claude.

[u/Brilliant-Sea-8486 → u/Southbeach008]

My company uses Co pilot and iv been trying that, but it kept giving me numbers that were slightly off for the Opened / Closed and really off for the running open tally

[u/calculung → u/Brilliant-Sea-8486]

It's your job to feed Tableau the right data, isn't it? If it's showing wrong numbers, you're feeding it wrong numbers.

[u/Southbeach008 → u/calculung]

The data is fairly straightforward. Co pilot is creating wrong calculations or not as required i guess.

[u/Southbeach008 → u/Brilliant-Sea-8486]

Can you use claude via personal account or something?

I have no idea about how is co pilot but keep trying in claude and it will work.

[u/FieryFiya]

Haven’t tried this, but here’s how I would approach this. No additional joining or data manipulation.

Essentially it is 2 charts —
1. Line graph + 2. Side by side bar chart.

Then I would overlay the line graph on top of the bar chart. Change background to ‘none’ on the line graph so the background is transparent. Then make sure your axis’s are aligned together

Only caveat is you won’t be able to hover on the bar chart because the line graph is laying on top of it. But I would show labels and provide a legend so hovering isnt needed.

[u/Expert_Breakfast_847]

this might be pretty close to what you're trying to make in Tableau (side-by-side bar chart with running sum): https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/rebecca.rohr/viz/Side-by-SideBarChart_wRunningSum/Side-By-SideBarChartwithRunningSum

might need some slight modifications to it to get it work, but possibly this will help.