All tagged Tableau Filters
Comparing one time period to another is a common use case in Tableau. In our experience, one of the best ways to do that is to overlay one on top of the other. The question is, how do you do that dynamically for both a current and comparison period?
Check out this video for one of our favorite homegrown solutions where you create a custom date field and a custom value label which allows you to overlay two time periods for comparison!
FIXED LODs are wonderful because they allow us to aggregate our measures at a chosen Dimension level, regardless of the level of detail of the worksheet. However, they aren't affected by Dimension Filters, because they're calculated before Dimension Filters are processed.
There are various scenarios where we need to work around that. We'll use Context Filters to help us where we need our LODs to be filtered, and we'll take a look at an example where you might not want your LOD to be filtered by your Dimension Filters.
Creating custom date filters in Tableau takes some creativity and ingenuity. They can be especially tricky when they are used to control both aggregated and non-aggregated measures. Tableau is particular about how aggregated formulas are written.
If you want to create a custom date filter in Tableau that controls both aggregated and non-aggregated measures but you're struggling to write the formulas without errors, check out this video for some helpful tips!
One of my favorite and most-often used date filters in Tableau is a range of dates with dynamic start and end dates.
For example, you choose a range of dates (last 7 days, last 14 days, last 30 days, etc.) and then create dynamic start and end date filters that meet that criteria. This is a great way to provide a pre-selected filter range for your users but still give them ultimate control over the exact date range they want to see.
Do you want to build a customizable, dynamic date range filter in Tableau?
For example, imagine you want the filter to default to the last 14 days ending with today's date, but you'd like your user to be able to adjust the end date and number of days in that filter.
That combination of functionality is not available out-of-the-box in Tableau, but with some creativity, parameters and calculations, it's possible!
How do you add a Quarter and Year list filter in Tableau? By default, Tableau lets us add a Quarter Number filter (e.g. Q1), but getting a Quarter and Year filter list isn't a standard option! As a result, we need to workaround this a bit with three possible options.
Which one works best for you depends on your use-case, but all three will be helpful to know in your Tableau work.
One of the primary purposes of a dashboard title is to provide context for users. It should give them a sense of what they are looking at, and what they are looking for.
My favorite way to add value to a dashboard title is to have it reflect filter selections. For example instead of saying "How is our hospital system performing?" it could say "How is Trinity Northern performing?" when the dashboard is filtered to a single hospital.
Filtering on a date range in Tableau is pretty straightforward, right? But how about if you want to filter on that date range AND you want a comparison date range filtered at the same time? That's trickier.
For example, you set a filter from January 1st to March 15th 2024 and you want a comparison period of January 1st to March 15th 2023 to automatically be set, how do you do that?
If you want to reference data that isn't visible in your Tableau worksheet, you're going to need a trick to 'hide' that data rather than filter it out of the worksheet entirely. 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.
I was recently working on a project for a client that had a lot of dimension filters - anywhere from 5-10 on each dashboard. This allowed us to drilldown to the level of information we needed!
But a problem arose when we wanted to reset the filters and select new values. How could we do that? Did we really need to reset each filter individually? That’s so inefficient!
Users love filtering and sorting options in Tableau dashboards, right?
Odds are, you know you can use a parameter to change the top number of values displaying in a worksheet. However, did you know you can also use a parameter to change whether it's the Top 10 or Bottom 10 values displaying? Did you know that same parameter can control whether the sort order is ascending or descending? It's true!
How often do you build a Tableau dashboard and feel like it has too many filters? This happens to me all the time! You don't know what to do with them, right? Make two rows of filters? Ugh. Make a massive column? That's a lot of screen real estate. Add show/hide buttons so users can toggle a layout container on and off the page? That doesn't seem ideal either. What if someone doesn't realize they can show filters?
Every application seems to have it's own syntax for IF logic statements, right? SQL, Excel and Tableau IF statements all look a little different.
Check this video out for a deep dive into the world of logical operators, simple and advanced IF statements in Tableau!
Do you want to keep all data associated with a value which has multiple records in a data set? Maybe it's how many students attended multiple schools, how many patients visited a hospital multiple times or how many customers made multiple purchases.
When you have a worksheet with many values, one of the best ways to present it to your user is to filter on the most relevant values. Those will often be the highest or lowest values. Tableau has a built in dimension filter which allows you to pick the top (or bottom) number of values you would like to display (e.g. Top 10).
You know what Tableau doesn't have out of the box? The ability to select the top *percent* of values to filter on. Don't sweat it though, because we've got you covered! With a parameter, calculation and filter application, we can filter on a top percent of values and give end users the options to change the top percent of values being displayed.
