Efficient Filter Layout for Tableau Dashboards

By: Eric Parker

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Eric lives in Seattle and has been teaching Tableau and Alteryx for 5 years. He's helped thousands of students solve their most pressing problems. If you have a question, feel free to reach out to him directly via email.

Figuring out what to do with filters in a Tableau dashboard can be a headache. You don’t want them to take up too much screen real estate but want them to look nice and be intuitive. Getting them all to be the same size can be a hassle. Here are some tricks I use to help everything come together.

Most end-users are going to be familiar with the filtering layout found in Excel. Use that to your advantage.

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I try to mimic the look and feel of Excel filters in Tableau. Imagine this is the dashboard you are working on:

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The filters on the right aren’t that intuitive yet. Turning them all into single value or multiple values dropdowns will help save a lot of screen real estate.

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I then like to display them all as a single row running along the top of the dashboard:

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Trying to get them to be the same width can be a pain. That’s where layout containers are useful. One of their great strengths is they give you the ability to space objects evenly.

You can drag a horizontal layout container below the filters in the dashboard. Your visual cue that a layout container is now there is the dark blue outline you see on that object.

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We then want to drag the filters into the container. This step takes a lot of precision. Notice the difference.

Filter is going into the container (dark blue border is showing):

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Filter is not going into the container (no dark blue border is showing):

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If you are having a lot of trouble with this step, it becomes easier to place an object in a layout container if you make the container bigger.

We’ll then drop all the filter in the container. If you aren’t sure if the object made it into a layout container, you can double-click on the gray handle at the top of the layout container and Tableau will automatically select the layout container that object is in.

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The last step is to select the dropdown on the layout container and select “Distribute Evenly”. Then all the objects will be equally distributed.

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Now you’ve got a sharp looking dashboard with intuitively placed filters:

 

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Need help with your own layouts and dashboarding? Sign up for an office hour for one-on-one coaching and mentorship.

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