Aggregating from multiple columns in Tableau

Question

I have a table that looks like: 

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

Tableau’s inbuilt pivot method can be as below, without reshaping in the source .

• Click on CTRL and  Select all 3 dimensions you want to merge, and click on 'pivot'.

• As are result, you will get your new reshaped data as below, delete other columns :

• Finally, build your view.

• I hope this answers everything. 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.