By: Eric Parker
Eric Parker lives in Seattle and has been teaching Tableau and Alteryx since 2014. 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. You can follow him on LinkedIn or sign up for a Tableau Office Hour to work with him directly!
Did you know you can hide data with filters in Tableau? It's a handy trick for referencing data you don't want displayed visibly. For example, if you want to calculate year over year growth but only display the latest year, you can't filter the prior year out of your worksheet or Tableau will not be able to reference the prior year values.
Hiding data with a filter in Tableau is an expert trick you should know about. One of the best ways to 'hide' data with a filter is to use a Table Calculation filter. Table Calculations filters are one of the last steps processed in Tableau's order of operations. They are even processed after your standard table calculations (e.g. Percent of Total, Rank, Percent Difference) are computed.
LOOKUP, FIRST and LAST are powerful table calculation functions you can use to 'hide' your data with a filter. Check out this video to learn how!
Need help with Tableau? Sign up for an office hour to work with Eric! You can also check out our upcoming classes for a Tableau deep dive!
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