I’m a Qlikview consultant who is starting to use Tableau. In many cases Tableau is the better option, but I was surprised that Tableau has no functionality that does the same as Cyclic groups in Qlikview.
This functionality is useful when you have multiple dimensions and there is not enough space to display a graph for each dimension. In Qlikview it’s possible to make a Cyclic group. You can give the end user the choice which dimension he wants to show.
Top 10 by Product Name
When the user clicks this button 
the dimension changes from ‘Product Name’ to ‘Customer Name’. See the screenshot below.
Qlikview
Create a Cyclic Group in Qlikview:
- In Qlikview you can make a Cyclic Group by choosing “Setting -> Document properties” in the main menu
- Choose the tab Groups and click ‘New’
- Give the group a Name
- Click ‘Cyclic Group’
- Add the field to Used Fields and click ‘Ok’.
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After making the group you can use the Cyclic dimension in the dimensions tab of your chart. See the screen below.
Tableau
The best way of doing this in Tableau is by creating a parameter and a calculated field.
1. Create a parameter by clicking right on the dimensions pane in the main screen and select ‘Create Parameter’. After that you can build the parameter in the window that appears.
2. Create a Calculated field by clicking right on the dimensions pane and select ‘Create Calculated field’. Build the calculation in the window that appears. See below.
3. Show Parameter Control by clicking right on the parameter and select ‘Show Parameter Control’.
4. Build the visualization. Drag the calculated field ‘CalcCustomerProduct ‘ from step 2 to Rows and drag ‘Sales’ to Columns.
5. The final result after deploying looks like this.
Conclusion
Personally I think the Cyclic dimension in Qlikview is a great functionality. With creating a calculated field and parameter you can do the same in Tableau, but it’s takes a few more steps.
As both Tableau and Qlikview are complex products I might have overlooked some features that would make this easier in either Tableau or Qlikview. As I am still learning I would appreciate it if you leave a comment with your suggestions or best practices for either products. I hope to document more of what I’ve learned starting working with Tableau over the coming months in future posts.
I used the Superstore dataset to make this example. You can download the dataset here (http://community.tableau.com/docs/DOC-1236).
Tableau versus Qlikview 