Hi everyone!
As promised last week, here’s a new extension: Waterfall!
A waterfall chart shows how an initial value moves through a sequence of positive and negative steps before landing on a final total.
It's one of the most requested business charts, and now you can build it natively in Tableau in just a few clicks.
How it works
There are two ways to build it, depending on your data:
By Dimension: drop a Measure on Value and a Dimension on Detail.
By Measure: drop several Measures on Value, and get one bar per measure.
Optionally, add a Measure on Start Total and/or End Total to anchor your bridge.
Then click Format Extension to configure everything: add sub-totals, change colors, tweak the layout, and more.
In the Format Extension window, you'll find options to configure:
Totals: choose Delta or Absolute input mode, with a configurable start bar (off, static value, or first row of data) and an automatic end/total bar
Start & End totals: drive the opening and closing bars from filter-reactive measures, with a Variance bar when steps don't reconcile, plus custom start, end, and variance labels
Subtotals: add them manually after any step, or auto-generate them by hierarchy; each one is renamable and toggleable
Bars format: padding, corner radius, opacity, and stroke width/color controls
Connectors: show or hide the step connectors, with width, color, and dashed styling
Color: color by type (increase, decrease, total, subtotal, variance) or assign a custom color per bar name
Target: display as a line, bar, or both, with color, line width, dashed style, and an optional label
Labels: show the step change or cumulative value, formatted as value, percent, or both (inline or stacked), with full font and alignment controls
Get Extension
If you have the Viz Extension pack, Waterfall is included with your license at no additional cost. Just enter your license key and grab the new .trex!
If you don't have a license, you can test it for free on Tableau Desktop.
For Tableau Public, we work with Tableau on a monthly release so they can test, verify, and host our code as Trusted Extensions. Waterfall will land on the Tableau Exchange for Tableau Public in the coming weeks.
Give it a try and let us know what you'd like us to improve.
We are always happy to read your feedback!
