Hello,
Our company uses a reporting calendar which starts on different dates each year (although always on a Monday); also, although most years have 52 weeks / 364 days, there are occasionally 53 weeks / 371 days in a year.
In our database, we have two date-related tables, the first one maps each calendar date to a reporting period (day, week, month, quarter, year):
The second one maps each calendar date to the corresponding reporting period's start and end date, including the dates for the year-on-year comparisons:
Combining both tables into one shouldn't be a problem, but once done, I am not sure how to configure the custom calendar in Pulse so that data can be displayed correctly.
The above date logic has already been incorporated into a view for the sales data, however in the Tableau dashboards, I have created custom calculations with parameters in order to show the sales - the problem is this just sets values outside of the reporting period to zero, meaning when I do the same in Pulse, the graph will start from the 1st of January, but the first of January until the start of the reporting year will just be a line with zero data, and then the last 3 or so months of the reporting year will get missed (since they are in the next calendar year).
The main questions are:
1. Does Tableau Pulse support a reporting calendar of varying lengths? When CY is 52 weeks, and LY was 53 weeks, the YoY comparison would be CY 1-52 vs LY 2-53; when CY is 53 weeks, and LY was 52 weeks, the YoY comparison would be CY 1-53 vs LY 1-52 + CY 1 (so week 1 gets double counted). So, it's not always just a simple comparison of Week 1 with Week 1 of prior year.
2. Does Tableau Pulse support reporting calendars which start on different dates each year, e.g. 2026-03-30 vs 2025-03-31?
If yes to both, how do I configure it so Tableau Pulse knows which date ranges to use? The key is that there is always a 364 day difference between CY and LY comparisons.
#Tableau Pulse
@Alex Rogers Pulse can take a custom calendar, including a 53-week one. It will not do that shifting week-1-versus-week-2 comparison by itself.
The calendar has to live in the data source, with the calendar fields in the same table, related to the sales data if they sit apart. Each date needs a day of year, week of year, month of year, and quarter of year. Those numbers start at 1 and step by 1, with no gaps. A week is 7 days. If week 53 is short, week 1 of the next year has to finish that 7-day week. Pulse checks this when you set the calendar on the metric, and it shows the first error it hits.
Fiscal year start on the data source is the simpler case. A Monday that moves every year, plus a mix of 52 and 53 week years, is the custom calendar table, not Fiscal Year Start.
Comparing current weeks 1-52 with last year's weeks 2-53, or double-counting week 1 when the lengths flip, is not a built-in Pulse comparison. Pulse compares periods on the calendar you gave it. If the comparison date is not the same week number last year, put that comparison date on the row. Zeroing out-of-period days is why the line still starts in January.