How to aggregate multiple column in Tableau

Question

What I have?

id     aff1    aff2    aff3    value
1       a        x      b        5
2       b        c      x        4
3       a        b      g        1

I would like to aggregate the aff columns to calculate the sum of "value" for each aff. For example, the above gives:

aff    sum
a       6
b       10
c       4
g       1
x       9

Ideally, I'd like to do this directly in tableau without remaking the table by unfolding it along all the aff columns.

Answer 1

You can use Tableau’s inbuilt pivot method as below, without reshaping the source.

1. CTRL Select all 3 dimensions you want to merge and click on the pivot.

1. You will get your new reshaped data as below, delete other columns :

1. Finally build your view.

I hope this answers your query. Rest other options for the above results include JOIN at DB level or creating multiple calculated fields for each attribute value which are not scalable.