$65.0M vs $35.2M
2026 goal total in the regional copy vs the source it copies
Case Study
A Sales Goal Counted Twice: $65.0M in the Regional Copy, $35.2M in the Source
How an audit of an event-fabrication company's Tableau sales reporting found a regional copy of the data source inflating the goal by 85%, and how we rebuilt 24 dashboard sheets on a single source of truth.
An event design, print and fabrication company runs several brands on one Tableau Cloud site. Executives review sales, quotes, goals and upcoming jobs by region, team and period. The sales matched across two sources to within $339, but the goal side did not hold up, and one executive dashboard showed no 2026 data at all. We audited through Tableau's data service first, then fixed the structure instead of patching individual views.
Event Design & Fabrication · US·Tableau CloudTableau PrepData AuditWorkbook RebuildExecutive Reporting
E
Event Fabrication Co.Tableau Cloud
Single primary source · 10-test audit
2026 goal (source)
$35.2M
one goal per period
Regional copy goal
$65.0M
▼ +85%, retired
monthly goal repeated per split
Sales reconciled
$339
gap on $55.7M
Sheets on primary
24
▲ from 2 sources
one data source
Exec dashboards
9
restyled to mockups
Attainment by Region
region-level goalsRegion A · Exhibits104% of goal
Region B · Print92% of goal
Region C · Fabrication87% of goal
Region D · Events71% of goal
At or above goal Within 15% Behind
Goal Reconciliation
auditRegional copy
$65.0M
company goal on every region
Source
$35.2M
counted once, de-duplicated
Audit Results
before → afterRegional filter missing77 → 0
Wrong primary source21 → 0
Summary as primary24 → 0
Upcoming Jobs
by monthJanFebMarAprMayJun
Empty 2026 Dashboard
root causePrep flow runs0 → Daily
ScheduleAdded
Duplicate-named flowTraced
At a glance
Results That Speak for Themselves
$339
gap between two sales sources on $55.7M of sales
24
sheets moved to a single primary data source, with a 10-test audit
9
executive dashboards restyled to the client's mockups
From challenge to outcome
The Problem & Our Approach
Totals That Tie Out Can Still Hide a Goal That Does Not
Executives were reading regional sales against goals, and the goal side did not hold up. The sales matched to within $339. The goal in the regional copy was off by $29.8M.
- Two sources, one story. A sales summary source and an upcoming-jobs source fed overlapping views. It was unclear which was primary and whether they agreed.
- A goal that only lived in one place. Goals existed only in the sales summary source, and no region-level goal existed on the site. A regional copy of each view used the company-wide monthly goal for every regional split.
- Silent empty dashboards. An executive dashboard showed no 2026 data at all, with no error and no recent change to point at.
Audit First, Then Fix the Structure
We audited through Tableau's data service first, then fixed the structure instead of patching individual views. Every fix is a script, so the next workbook gets audited the same way.
- Source audit: compared the two sales sources ($339 apart on $55.7M) and traced the goal copy that put the full monthly goal on every regional split (65.0M vs 35.2M true).
- Regional dashboard: built a regional workbook from scratch with a de-duplicated goal calculation and the region as a context filter.
- Primary-source conversion: rebuilt 24 sheets on the upcoming-jobs source as primary, added matching calculations, and a current-year filter on 13 sheets.
- Audit script: a repeatable 10-test audit that checks the primary source, context filters and measure definitions.
- Executive restyle: nine dashboards restyled to the client's mockups by scripting the workbook XML.
- Root-cause fix: traced the empty 2026 dashboard to a duplicate-named Prep flow with no schedule and zero runs, ran it and added a daily schedule.
What We Achieved
The inflated goal traced to its cause: a regional copy of the source repeating the full monthly goal on every split.
24 sheets on one primary source, with 77 regional-filter failures and 21 wrong-primary-source sheets cleared to zero.
A repeatable 10-test audit script for every future workbook.
Nine executive dashboards restyled to the client's mockups.
The empty 2026 dashboard traced to an unscheduled flow, run and put on a daily schedule.
Audit Results, Before and After
| Check | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Sheets failing the "regional filter applied" test | 77 | 0 |
| Sheets with the wrong primary source | 21 | 0 |
| Sheets with the summary source as primary | 24 | 0 |
| Runs of the Prep flow feeding the empty dashboard | 0 | Daily schedule |
What Changed After Delivery
- The goal is counted once. The rebuilt regional workbook takes each person-month goal once, so the company-wide goal is no longer copied onto every split. The regional team's own goal row was still empty in the client's source at last check, which we flagged to the client.
- Reports can be re-audited. The audit script turns a one-off review into a repeatable check.
- Empty dashboards get a cause, not a patch. The upstream flow was fixed instead of editing the workbook.
The Pattern, Not the Industry
The sales number was right and the goal was wrong, and nobody saw it because a green total looks like a clean report. This pattern shows up wherever targets are stored in one place and sliced in another.
- Reconcile the target as hard as the actual.
- Pick one primary source per view and make the audit enforce it.
- Fix empty dashboards at the flow, not the sheet.
- Script the review so it runs on every workbook, not just the one someone doubts.
- If you have never audited your goals against your actuals, one of them is wrong.
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