Generating m*n (and more) Combinations using Tableau

Problem Statement

Generate all possible m*n (and more) combinations of codes for Product Range, Items, Cover Variations, Fabric options.

Situation

Let’s say you have multiple lists of codes. The lists look something like this:

4 Lists, one each for Range, Item, Cover, Fabric

You want to generate all possible combinations of items in each of these lists. A few examples of these combinations are:

• SONG2STCCCBRO

• SONG2STOCCBRO

• SONG2STWCCBRO

• SONG2STXXCBRO

Challenges

Ideally, I would do this using either MS Access or Power Query in MS Excel. But both these applications work in a Windows-based PC. And if you use a MacBook, you can’t use either of these applications. Besides, not everybody can jump right away to a programming language like Python or R to find a solution to a problem like this.

Solution

You never know what you could do with an amazing tool like Tableau. Import the lists in Tableau and join the lists by adding join calculations.

The following 1-minute video describes this entire process.

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