How to Make a Donut Chart in Tableau

Creating a donut chart in Tableau isn’t as straightforward as clicking a single button, but it’s surprisingly easy once you know the clever trick involved. This guide will walk you through the entire process, step-by-step, transforming a basic pie chart into a more functional and visually appealing donut chart that can highlight a key total in the center.

What Exactly is a Donut Chart?

Think of a donut chart as a pie chart with the center cut out. It shows the proportions of a whole, just like a pie chart, where each slice represents a different category and its size corresponds to its percentage of the total. The key difference - and its main advantage - is the empty space in the middle. This space is perfect for displaying a crucial piece of information, such as the grand total of the values being charted, a key performance indicator (KPI), or a title for the chart.

Pie charts can sometimes draw criticism for being difficult to interpret accurately, as it's hard for the human eye to compare the size of different angles. While donut charts share this weakness, they de-emphasize the angles slightly and draw the viewer's attention to the arc length of each slice, which can be marginally easier to compare. More importantly, they provide that valuable central real estate to add context that a standard pie chart lacks.

Below is an example of what we'll be building: a chart showing sales by product category, with the total sales value displayed proudly in the center.

The Core Concept: A Tale of Two Pies

Since Tableau doesn't have a "donut chart" option in its Show Me menu, we have to build one ourselves. The entire technique relies on a simple but powerful workaround: creating two separate charts on top of each other using Tableau's Dual Axis feature.

Here’s the plan:

1. Create the outer ring: This will be a standard pie chart that shows the breakdown of your data by category.
2. Create the inner hole: This will be a simple circle chart placed on top of the pie chart. We’ll color it white (or the same color as our dashboard background) to create the illusion of a hole.
3. Combine them: We'll use the Dual Axis feature to layer the circle on top of the pie, effectively "punching out" the middle and forming the donut shape.

It sounds more complicated than it is. Let's get started.

How to Make a Donut Chart in Tableau: Step-by-Step

For this tutorial, we will use the "Sample - Superstore" dataset that comes packaged with every copy of Tableau Desktop. It’s a great practice dataset with a mix of dimensions and measures to work with.

Step 1: Create a Placeholder Field

The first step is to create an axis that we can build our charts on. We can do this with a minimalist calculated field or an ad-hoc calculation directly in the workspace.

In the Rows shelf, double-click on the empty space and type MIN(0) and hit Enter. This creates a placeholder aggregate calculation that gives us a vertical axis at the zero mark.

Now, hold down the Control key (or Command on a Mac) and drag the green pill AGG(MIN(0)) to its right to duplicate it. You should now have two identical green pills on the Rows shelf, and your view will update to show two charts, each with an axis at 0.

Tableau's Marks card area has now split into three sections: All, AGG(MIN(0)), and AGG(MIN(0)) (2). This allows us to control the visual properties of each chart independently.

Step 2: Build the Outer Ring (The Pie Chart)

Let's build the main pie chart that will become the colored outer part of our donut.

• Navigate to the Marks card for the first AGG(MIN(0)).
• Change the chart type from Automatic (the default) to Pie using the dropdown menu.
• Drag your chosen dimension onto the Color tile. For our example, we'll drag Category from the Data pane onto Color.
• Drag your measure onto the Angle tile. We'll use Sales. Drag Sales onto Angle.

You should now see a fully formed pie chart in the top half of your view. To make it larger, click the Size tile and drag the slider to the right.

Step 3: Create the Inner Circle (The Hole)

Now, let's create the 'hole' for our donut in the second chart space.

• Navigate to the Marks card for the second AGG(MIN(0)).
• The default mark is a shape, which is fine, but for simplicity, change the chart type to Circle. This just ensures we have a clean circle to work with.
• Click the Color tile and select white (or whatever your dashboard's background color is). The circle marker in the bottom view will now turn white.
• You'll notice there are no other fields on this Marks card. This is intentional. The bottom chart is just a simple, un-aggregated white circle.

What we have now are the two essential components: a pie chart and a white circle, ready to be layered.

Step 4: Combine the Charts with a Dual Axis

This is where the magic happens. We'll overlay the white circle on top of the pie chart.

• In the Rows shelf, right-click the second green pill (the one on the right).
• Select Dual Axis from the menu.

Tableau will merge the two charts, placing one on top of the other. At first, it might just look like a pie chart with a small circle in the middle. Now, we just need to adjust the sizing.

• Go back to the Marks card for the first chart (the pie) and adjust its Size slider. Make it larger, this widens the donut's ring.
• Next, go to the Marks card for the second chart (the circle) and adjust its Size slider. Make this one slightly smaller than the pie.

As you play with these two size sliders, you'll see the donut take shape. Adjust them until the thickness of the ring looks right to you. You've officially created a donut chart! Now it’s time for some final touches to make it publication-ready.

Step 5: Format and Add Labels for Readability

A chart without labels isn't very helpful. Our final steps involve cleaning up the chart and adding the necessary information.

1. Show Values on the Slices:

• Go to the Marks card for the first chart (the pie).
• Drag Category onto the Label tile. This adds the category names to each slice.
• Drag Sales onto the Label tile as well.
• To show this as a percentage, right-click the SUM(Sales) pill on the Label tile, select "Quick Table Calculation", and then choose Percent of Total. This is often more intuitive for part-to-whole relationships.

2. Display a Grand Total in the Center:

• This is the biggest benefit of the donut chart. Go to the Marks card for the second chart (the inner circle).
• Drag Sales onto its Label tile.
• The total sum of sales will now appear neatly in the hole. You can click on the SUM(Sales) Label pill to format the number (e.g., add a dollar sign, remove decimal places).

3. Clean Up the Axes and Lines:

• Right-click on the Y-axis header (the "MIN(0)") on the left side of the chart and uncheck Show Header. You don't need these axes.
• Clean up any unnecessary grid lines or zero lines. You can do this by right-clicking anywhere on the chart, selecting Format, and then going to the Lines tab (paint bucket icon) to turn off Zero Lines and Axis Rulers.

When to Use a Donut Chart Strategically

While fairly easy to create in Tableau, donut charts should be used thoughtfully. They excel in specific situations and fall short in others.

Excellent for:

• Showing Proportions of a Whole for a Few Categories: They work best when you have between two and five categories. Any more than that, and the slices become too small and cluttered to be useful.
• Highlighting a Total KPI: If the most important information for your audience is the grand total, a donut chart is superior to a pie chart because it places that number front and center. Example: displaying marketing budget spend by channel (Facebook, Google, Email) with the total budget in the middle.
• Dashboard Component: A donut chart can serve as a simple, high-level summary gauge on a dashboard. It grabs attention and provides a quick look at proportional data before the user dives into more detailed charts.

Avoid Using Them for:

• Too Many Categories: If you have more than five or six slices, the chart becomes a visual mess. It's difficult to compare slices, and labels will overlap. A simple bar chart is almost always better in this scenario because it's easier to compare lengths than angles.
• Precise Comparisons: If your audience needs to make precise comparisons between categories, use a bar chart. It is much easier for our brains to judge the difference in height or length of bars than the angles or arcs in a donut chart.
• Showing Changes Over Time: Donut charts represent a single point in time. If you need to show how proportions have changed month over month or year over year, a line chart or a stacked area chart is a much more effective choice.

Final Thoughts

Creating a donut chart in Tableau is a great exercise in understanding how the tool's fundamental features, like dual-axis charts, can be used creatively to build visualizations that aren't available out-of-the-box. By simply layering a white circle on top of a standard pie chart, you get a clean, modern donut chart that effectively displays proportions while highlighting a key total.

We built Graphed to help teams get to these kinds of insights much faster. Instead of remembering the multi-step dual-axis process, you can get the same results by simply asking a question in plain English. With Graphed , you connect your data sources once, and then you can create visualizations just by describing them - for instance, "Show me a donut chart of sales broken down by product category." Our AI handles building the chart instantly, pulling from your live data, so you can focus on the analysis, not the setup.