Tally – Animated numbers for Tableau

Tally makes a number count. Drop one measure on it and the value animates up from zero when the dashboard loads. Change anything – flick a filter, switch a parameter, move the date range – and it re-counts from the old value to the new one, pulling the eye straight to the number that matters.

Partly gimmick. Genuinely useful as a focus point. The demo below is the real extension, not a screenshot – try it.

What you can control

• Number formatting for real KPIs. Decimals, thousands separators in your own locale, percentages, a prefix and a suffix, and abbreviation – so 12,480,000 becomes a tidy 12.48M.
• The look. Font, size, alignment and more, grouped into Number, Appearance and Animation instead of one long list.
• The animation. Speed and easing, from a snappy tick to a slow, dramatic climb.
• Copy settings to another instance. Build one, then match Sales, Quantity and Profit without doing the work three times.

Everything previews in real time, so you dial it in by eye rather than by guessing.

Getting it onto a sheet

Tally is a viz extension, so it lives on the Marks card, not on the dashboard:

1. On a new worksheet, set the Marks type to Viz Extension.
2. Choose Add Extension, then Access Local Viz Extensions, and open the .trex file.
3. Drop one numeric measure onto it.
4. Open Format Extension and make it yours.

https://extensions.byantichaos.com/Tally/tally.trex

Free, and private

Tally is free. It runs entirely in your browser: it reads the value Tableau hands it and turns that into the animation. Your numbers never leave the browser, and nothing from your data or workbook is sent to me or anyone else. There is a lightweight beacon so I can see the extension is actually being used – no numbers, just a sign of life – and an opt-out toggle sits right in the settings.

Two caveats: Tally does not run on Tableau Public, and on Tableau Server or Cloud an administrator has to allowlist it first. That takes about a minute and there are step-by-step instructions here you can send them.

Tally began life as CountTo. Same idea, a lot more polish – the full story is on the blog. If you are already using CountTo, nothing breaks.