Displays with Three Series

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This page builds on the example that shows how to build Nightingale Coxcomb charts that show two series. To review those instructions, click here.

To build on those instructions, note that for two series, you created a duplicate set of points in Excel that were below the single layer set of points. The second, duplicate, set was coded with a number "2" in the Level and Series columns. To create a three level, coxcomb chart, add a third set of points below the second set, and code it as number "3" in the Level and Series columns.

You can obtain comma-delimited data at these two links.

1. Click here for a file with the original Nightingale coding for three levels.

2. Click here for a file with the original Nightingale coding for three levels, and rescaled so that the monthly values are represented by the area of each pie slice rather than the radius.

If you put the three-level data in the same Excel workbook as your two-level data, (but in a separate sheet) you can use the same Tableau Public project to connect to the three-level data simply by replacing the source sheet.

The three-level chart that I created, using the same set up as the two-level chart, is shown below.

If we are going to create a chart, in Excel, that has three series, we start by putting the labels on the left, and the three series, aligned with the labels, to the right. Below is an image of what this looks like.

When the data are to be imported into Tableau, the data must be reorganized so that months are repeated in three groups, all series are under Series1, in sequential order as shown, and column C is coded to indicate the level, 1, 2, or 3, in that order.

The Excel images, above, may be graphed as lines using the Tableau Public setup at this link. However, that is not the goal. The goal is to create a Nightingale coxcomb chart. That discussion is continued below.

When creating the three-level coxcomb plot, start as you would with a one level chart and create the spreadsheet that is described elswhere in this site. Then make a second series exactly like the first, but with different values and different calculated values for x and y. Place one under the other. Do not add another set of header labels: the labels tht are in row 1 of the sheet segments shown above. Add a column called "Level" and enter numbers 1 or 2 to represent the two levels of the data. If you want to make three levels, add the third one below the second, and so on.

Now to create the three-level coxcomb plot, add the third series below the second. Remember, you are using the full set of variables that are described in the example spreadsheet at this address and the example data that are avaiable at the example data sets.

The complete set of two-level data for the Nightingale coxcomb plot may be found from a link on this page.

Now save the two levels of data into a single sheet, positioned with labels at the top and the top left postion in cell A1. In my example data, I call the sheet "Nightingale_orig_order_3_La 3." You may see that if you inspect one of the examples in Tableau Public.

Now open Tableau Public and connect to the spreadsheet.

Now set up the three level sheet as shown in the settings image shown below. This example is showing the source sheet as tab "Data2" in file "temp_2020_10_....." Y values are shown as columns, X values are as rows, "SUM(Level) is set to color, "Path1" is coded as a path, "Value1" is coded as detail, and 'MonthN" is coded as detail. The original image color settings were changed to blue for Level 1 and red for Level 2. It should work, but is not guaranteed to work. What I can say for sure is it worked for me.

You may need adjust the color settings.

if it all works correctly, your output should look something like this.