How to Make a Sunburst Chart in Tableau

A sunburst chart is a powerful way to visualize hierarchical data, showing how a central total is broken down into its subsequent parts. While Tableau doesn't offer a one-click sunburst chart option, you can absolutely build a beautiful and functional one from scratch. This tutorial will walk you through the entire process, step-by-step, using a dual-axis technique with layered pie charts.

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What Exactly is a Sunburst Chart?

Think of a sunburst chart, also known as a radial treemap, as a multi-level pie chart. It's designed to show the relationships within hierarchical data sets.

• The circle in the very center represents the top level of your hierarchy (the 'root'), such as "Total Company Sales."
• Each ring moving outwards from the center represents the next level down in the hierarchy. For example, the first ring might show a breakdown of total sales by product category.
• The next ring out would break down each category slice into its corresponding sub-categories.

The arc length, or size of each slice, quickly shows its proportional value to its parent slice. It’s perfect for answering questions like, "Which product lines contribute most to our top category?" or "How is our marketing budget allocated across different regions and sub-regions?"

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Preparing Your Data for Tableau

The most important prerequisite for a sunburst chart is having clearly structured hierarchical data. A sunburst chart requires fields that have a distinct parent-child relationship. For our example, we'll use a portion of the classic "Sample - Superstore" dataset that comes with Tableau.

Our hierarchy will be three levels deep:

1. Category (The highest level)
2. Sub-Category (Each sub-category belongs to one category)
3. Region (The lowest level we'll visualize)

The measure we will use to size the chart's slices is Sales.

If you're using your own data, just make sure it's organized in a similar way, where you have distinct columns for each level of the hierarchy you want to display.

How to Build a Sunburst Chart in Tableau: Step-by-Step

We will build this chart from the inside out, starting with the highest level of our hierarchy (Category) and adding a new layer for each subsequent level. This method relies on creating multiple pie charts on a dual axis.

Step 1: Create the Inner Ring (Category Level)

First, we'll build the central pie chart that represents our highest level: Category sales.

1. Open Tableau and connect to the "Sample - Superstore" data source.
2. Create a new calculated field. You can do this by right-clicking anywhere in the Data pane and selecting "Create Calculated Field." Name it Zero and give it the formula:

MIN(0)

This simple calculation creates a constant axis, giving us a fixed point around which to build our pie charts.

1. Drag the new Zero calculated field onto the Columns shelf twice.
2. On the Marks card, you will now see three tabs: "All," "MIN(0)," and "MIN(0) (2)". Click on the middle tab, the first "MIN(0)".
3. Change the mark type from "Automatic" to "Pie".
4. Drag the Category dimension onto the Color swatch on the Marks card.
5. Drag the Sales measure onto the Angle swatch on the Marks card.
6. Click the "Size" swatch and drag the slider to the right to enlarge your pie chart until it is easily visible. You should now have your first pie chart, showing the sales breakdown by Category.

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Step 2: Create the Second Ring (Sub-Category Level)

Next, we will use the second Zero pill on the Columns shelf to create our Sub-Category pie chart, which will sit behind the first one.

1. Go to the third tab on the Marks card, labeled "MIN(0) (2)".
2. Change the mark type from "Automatic" to "Pie", just as you did before.
3. Since Sub-Category is a child of Category, we need to add both to the view. Drag Category and then Sub-Category onto the Detail swatch on the Marks card. The order matters here! Placing Category first helps Tableau sort the data correctly.
4. Drag Sub-Category onto the Color swatch. Tableau will now assign a different color for each Sub-Category.
5. Drag the Sales measure onto the Angle swatch.
6. Click the "Size" swatch and enlarge this pie chart so it's noticeably bigger than the first one. This is crucial for creating the layered ring effect.

Step 3: Combine the Rings with a Dual Axis

This is where the magic happens. We'll overlay our two pie charts to create the first two levels of our sunburst.

1. Right-click the second MIN(0) pill on the Columns shelf and select "Dual Axis". Your pie charts will now be on top of each other.
2. To ensure they are perfectly centered, right-click on one of the axes in the view (for instance, the top axis) and select "Synchronize Axis".

You should now have a two-level sunburst chart! The inner ring shows the Category, and the outer ring shows the Sub-Category breakdown.

Step 4: Add a Third Ring (Region Level)

Adding more layers follows the exact same pattern: add another placeholder, build a chart, and combine it with a dual axis. Let’s add the Region.

1. Drag the Zero calculation from the Data pane onto the Columns shelf next to your current pills.
2. You’ll now have a third pie chart view. Right-click the newly-created Zero pill and select "Dual Axis", which merges it onto the same chart. Notice Tableau creates yet another set of Marks cards for this new pill.
3. Find the new Marks card for this axis (it might be labeled MIN(0) (3)).
4. Change its mark type to "Pie".
5. Now, drag all three hierarchy levels onto the Detail swatch in order: Category, Sub-Category, and Region.
6. Drag the Region onto the Color swatch.
7. Drag Sales onto the Angle swatch.
8. Finally, click the "Size" swatch for this mark and increase it until this new ring is the largest of the three, sitting on the outside.

Because the axes are already synchronized, your third layer should appear perfectly aligned.

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Step 5: Formatting and Final Touches

The structure is complete, but now we need to clean it up to make it presentable and easy to read.

• Hide Headers: Right-click on the Zero axes at the top and bottom of the chart and uncheck "Show Header." This removes the unnecessary "0.0" labels.
• Add Labels: To show the total sales in the middle of the chart, you might want a blank center. You can do this by dropping another dual-axis chart in the middle formatted as a circle with a label. Alternatively, drag Sales to the Label on the Marks card for the innermost pie chart. Then, right-click the Sum(Sales) pill on the label card in the Marks shelf and select "Add Table Calculation". Change it to percent of total. This provides helpful context.
• Refine Colors: The automatic color palette can get chaotic with many dimensions. Take time to customize the colors so that sub-categories and regions clearly relate back to their parent category. For example, all sub-categories belonging to "Furniture" could be various shades of blue.
• Adjust Tooltips: Hover over each slice and check the tooltips. Clean them up by going to each Marks card, clicking on "Tooltip", and editing the text to clearly show the hierarchical level and the corresponding sales figure. For the outer ring, your tooltip might read something like:

Final Thoughts

You’ve successfully built a multi-layered sunburst chart using dual axes in Tableau, transforming a complex hierarchical dataset into an immediate and intuitive visualization. This technique of layering charts requires a few careful steps, but it unlocks a visual type that can reveal deep insights about the structure of your data.

While mastering charts in-depth within powerful BI tools is incredibly valuable, there are times you need answers faster without complex BI tools. Instead of spending hours creating calculations and configuring multiple axes just to see a breakdown, we built Graphed to do the heavy lifting for you. We give teams an AI-powered data analyst that connects to your tools and allows you to build dashboards using simple English, turning a 30-minute process in Tableau into a 30-second conversation and enabling anyone to make data-driven decisions.