Configure Tableau Data Story Settings: Narrative
Important changes for Tableau Data Stories
Tableau Data Stories will be retired in Tableau Desktop, Tableau Cloud, and Tableau Server in January of 2025 (2025.1). With advances in natural language technologies, we're developing an improved interface that will make it easier to ask questions of your data and stay on top of changes. For more information, see How Tableau Pulse powered by Tableau AI is Reimagining the Data Experience(Link opens in a new window).
You can customize the narrative settings of your Tableau Data Story. Specifically, you can specify the verbosity and level of analytical detail in your story, and you can add terms that are unique to your data. These settings help you write a story that uses the right language and speaks to the right level of detail for your dashboard.
Set verbosity
Verbosity specifies the length and analytical detail written in your story. If you choose high, then your story has longer insights with more analytic analysis. If you choose low, then your story is more concise with fewer details.
If you allow viewers to change verbosity, then viewers of published dashboards can change the level of verbosity in the Data Story object. This is helpful when your dashboard is used by a broader audience with viewers who want varying levels of detail from your story.
Set drilldowns
A drilldown includes two dimensions, and drilldowns describe figures associated with each dimension of your dashboard.
Let's say you have a dashboard that has monthly sales by product category. Your story is configured to write about both the Time and Category dimensions. In this case, this story includes an insight for each Category that describes its performance in and across the Time dimension.
By setting the maximum number of drilldowns, you can control how many insights are included in your story. Drilldown insights are also ranked based on the meaning assigned to the measure characteristics. As the number of drilldowns is reduced, the lowest performing measures (measures that are assigned a Bad meaning) are eliminated.
Add dimension terms
By adding terms, you can define the way each of your measures and dimensions are labeled and referenced in your story.
- Add a Tableau Data Story to a Dashboard.
- From your dashboard, click the Settings icon at the top-left corner of your Data Story object.
- In the Data Story dialog box, click the Narrative tab.
- Expand the dimension to see how it will be written about in both singular and plural form.
- Click Add Term to add another variation for your story to use to describe your dimension.
- Click Save.
Your story uses (at random) the terms you’ve added when writing about a dimension.
Manage measure labels
Similarly to dimensions, you can manage labels used for measures in your story.
- From the Narrative tab, expand the measure to see its label.
- Enter the new label that you want used for your measure.
- Click Save.