How to Arrange Sheets in Tableau Dashboard

Building a great Tableau dashboard is more than just creating insightful charts, it’s about how you arrange them to tell a clear and compelling story. An organized layout guides your audience’s attention, making complex data easier to understand. This guide will walk you through everything you need to know about arranging sheets, from basic drag-and-drop to mastering layout containers for a polished, professional look.

Understanding the Tableau Dashboard Workspace

Before you start adding sheets, get familiar with your environment. The Tableau dashboard interface is made up of two main areas: the Dashboard pane on the left and the main canvas area on the right.

The Dashboard pane is your control center. It includes:

• Size: This section controls the overall dimensions of your dashboard. You can choose a fixed size (like for a specific screen resolution or a PowerPoint slide), have it automatically resize to fit the viewer's screen, or set a range. Starters often find it easiest to begin with a fixed size like "Desktop Browser" to maintain control over the final look.
• Sheets: Here you'll see a list of all the worksheets you've already created in your workbook. This is your palette of visualizations to choose from.
• Objects: This section contains other elements you can add to your dashboard, like text boxes, images, navigation buttons, and the all-important layout containers (Horizontal and Vertical).

The canvas on the right is your blank slate where you'll drag and drop sheets and objects to build your dashboard.

Adding Sheets to Your Dashboard

The most basic way to build your dashboard is by dragging sheets directly from the Dashboard pane onto the canvas. It's a simple, intuitive process:

1. Navigate to the dashboard you want to build.
2. In the Dashboard pane on the left, locate the sheet you want to add.
3. Click and hold the sheet's title.
4. Drag the sheet onto the canvas area.

As you drag the sheet over the canvas, Tableau will show you a gray, shaded area. This preview indicates exactly where the sheet will be placed when you let go. The position and size of this gray area will change depending on where your cursor is, whether you hover over the top, bottom, or sides of the canvas or an existing sheet.

Let's say you drag your first sheet, "Sales by Region." It will likely fill the entire canvas. If you then drag a second sheet, "Profit Breakdown," and hover over the right half of the existing sheet, the gray preview will show you that the new sheet will take up the right half of the dashboard, automatically resizing the first sheet to fit on the left. This grid-based default behavior is known as a Tiled layout.

Tiled vs. Floating: Choosing Your Layout Strategy

In Tableau, every object you place on a dashboard is either tiled or floating. Understanding the difference is fundamental to creating the layout you want.

What Are Tiled Objects?

Tiled is the default setting. Think of it like laying tiles on a floor - every sheet fits perfectly into a grid without any overlap. When you add or resize one tiled object, all the other tiled objects around it automatically adjust their size to fill the available space. This creates a highly structured and organized layout.

• Pros: Simple to manage, creates a neat grid structure, and ensures no objects are accidentally hidden behind others. Excellent for standard business dashboards and reports where clarity and order are priorities.
• Cons: Can feel restrictive. It's difficult to create designs with layered or overlapping elements, and you have less precise control over the exact pixel position of each sheet.

What Are Floating Objects?

A floating object works more like placing sticky notes on a whiteboard. You can place sheets and objects anywhere on the canvas, controlling their precise location (x/y coordinates) and size (width/height). Most importantly, floating objects can overlap one another.

• Pros: Offers complete creative freedom. You can layer visualizations, add transparent call-out boxes over charts, or position small KPI indicators exactly where you want them. Essential for creating highly customized, visually rich dashboards.
• Cons: A floating layout can quickly become chaotic if you're not careful. Items won't automatically resize, which can lead to overlapping problems on different screen sizes unless you plan carefully for responsiveness.

How to Switch Between Tiled and Floating

You can easily switch between adding tiled or floating objects. Before you drag a sheet onto the canvas, you can toggle the "Tiled" / "Floating" option at the bottom of the Dashboard pane. Alternatively, for a quick one-off, you can hold down the Shift key on your keyboard while dragging a sheet onto the dashboard - this will temporarily toggle to the opposite mode.

Many experienced designers use a hybrid approach: they establish a main structure using tiled containers and then add floating elements like logos, text boxes, or titles on top for fine-tuned placement.

Mastering Layout Containers

While basic drag-and-drop works for simple dashboards, layout containers are the secret to creating truly professional, organized, and scalable designs. A layout container is essentially an invisible box that you put other objects (like sheets and text boxes) into. They force everything inside them to be arranged in a specific way, either side-by-side or stacked.

Why Use Layout Containers?

• Grouping: They allow you to group related visualizations together. This helps you move, resize, and apply formatting to an entire block of content at once.
• Spacing Control: They give you powerful tools to control how space is distributed among the items they contain.
• Structure: They create a logical and robust structure, making your dashboard much easier to manage as it grows in complexity.

Horizontal Containers

A horizontal container arranges all the items you place inside it in a left-to-right sequence. It’s perfect for placing things side by side.

Example: You have three single-number KPI cards for "Total Sales," "Total Profit," and "Total Orders." By placing a horizontal container on your dashboard first and then dragging each of these three sheets inside it, you ensure they stay neatly aligned in a row.

Vertical Containers

A vertical container, predictably, arranges items in a top-to-bottom stack. It's ideal for logically stacking related elements.

Example: You want a section header, a set of filters, and the main chart that those filters apply to. You can place a vertical container, then drag in a text object for the header, then your filter cards, and finally the worksheet itself. They will remain perfectly stacked in a column.

How to Use Containers Step-by-Step:

1. From the Objects section of the Dashboard pane, drag either a Horizontal or Vertical container onto your dashboard.
2. Next, drag the sheets you want to group directly into that container. Pay close attention to the visual cues. You'll see a light blue border around the container when you are hovering over it, and the gray shaded area will show you precisely where the new sheet will fit inside.
3. Once you have multiple items in a container, select the container itself (by clicking the dropdown arrow on any item inside it and choosing "Select Container"). You can now use the "Distribute Evenly" option to have Tableau automatically resize all the items within the container to take up equal space. This is a huge time-saver for creating balanced layouts.

Fine-Tuning Your Arrangement with Spacing and Padding

A key difference between an amateur and a professional-looking dashboard is whitespace. Cluttered dashboards are hard to read. Tableau's Layout pane gives you precise control over the spacing around and within your sheets.

To access these options, select an object on your dashboard and go to the Layout tab (next to the Dashboard tab in the left pane).

Inner vs. Outer Padding

The "Padding" settings can be a bit confusing at first but are simple once you understand the concept:

• Outer Padding: This adds space outside the border of your selected object. Think of it as creating a buffer or margin separating the object from its neighbors. Adding a 10px outer padding to all sides of your sheets ensures they don't touch each other. This is social distancing for your charts.
• Inner Padding: This adds space inside the border of the object, pushing the content away from the edges. Think of it as creating breathing room for the visualization within its own container.

You can apply padding to all four sides equally or click the padlock icon to set different values for the top, bottom, left, and right.

Best Practices for a Coherent Dashboard Layout

Arranging your sheets is an art, but following a few design principles can make your job much easier.

1. Start with a Sketch

Before you even open Tableau, grab a pen and paper (or your favorite wireframing tool) and sketch a rough layout. Where should the filters go? Where will you place the most important KPI? Deciding on a structure first saves immense time compared to rearranging things endlessly in Tableau.

2. Create a Visual Hierarchy

In most Western cultures, people read from top-left to bottom-right. Place your most critical information - like high-level summaries or key KPIs - in the top-left corner of your dashboard. Supporting details and more granular charts can go below or to the right.

3. Group Related Information

Use proximity and layout containers to group metrics that are contextually related. For example, all of your sales-related charts should be in one section, while your marketing-related charts are in another. This makes the dashboard easier for your audience to process logically.

4. Use the Item Hierarchy View

Sometimes, arranging objects can get complex, especially with layered floating containers. The Item hierarchy view within the Layout pane is your lifesaver. It shows a tree-like structure of every container and object on your dashboard, allowing you to select items that may be hidden or hard to click on directly.

5. Design for Different Devices

Your beautiful wide-screen desktop dashboard may not work well on a phone. From the Dashboard pane, you can click "Add Phone Layout" to create a specific layout tailored for mobile viewing. Tableau will even make a good first attempt at rearranging your sheets for you, which you can then customize further to create a great mobile experience.

Final Thoughts

The key to arranging sheets effectively in Tableau lies in understanding your building blocks - tiled vs. floating layouts, horizontal and vertical containers - and using them intentionally. By planning your layout, creating logical groupings, and paying attention to spacing, you can transform a collection of charts into a professional dashboard that tells a clear, cohesive data story.

While mastering layouts in tools like Tableau is a powerful skill, it often comes with a significant time investment just to get started. We built Graphed because we believe getting insights shouldn't require weeks of training. Graphed connects to your data sources like Google Analytics, Shopify, and Salesforce in seconds, letting you build powerful, real-time dashboards just by asking questions in plain English - no dragging, dropping, or container-wrangling required.