What are the Rows, Columns, and Marks shelves used for?

These three shelves are where the actual structure of a Tableau view is defined — everything else is refinement on top of what you place here.

• Rows shelf: fields placed here define what appears down the vertical axis (or as separate rows in a table).
• Columns shelf: fields placed here define what appears across the horizontal axis (or as separate columns).
• Marks card: controls how each data point is drawn — its mark type (bar, line, circle, map, etc.), color, size, label, detail, and tooltip content.

Columns: [Order Date] (continuous, by month)
Rows:    SUM([Sales])
Marks:   Color = [Region], Mark type = Line

The combination of what's on Rows/Columns (which sets up the axes/grid) and what's configured on the Marks card (which sets up the visual encoding) is really the entire "language" of building a Tableau chart — almost every visualization type is just a different arrangement of these three areas.

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