Creating Filters with Actions on Dashboards

The advantage of a filter action is that it can filter across multiple relational data sources at the same time. Multi-dimensional data sources (cubes) may require additional steps.

These instructions assume that you have already created the dashboard.

Step 1

Drop a dimension on the Rows shelf as well as on the Text shelf on the Marks card. In this example, the filter is on Product Sub-Category.

Step 2

Right-click the dimension and clear the selection of Show Header to hide the dimension header. Hiding the header gets rid of the ABC placeholder on the dashboard.

Step 3

Select options on the Format menu and format the text to encourage users to interact with it.

Step 4

Right-click the blank area of the worksheet and select Title.

Step 5

Double-click the Title bar to open the Edit Title dialog box so you can give the worksheet an actionable title. For example, the title shown below is "Click a Sub-Category."

Step 1

Select Edit > New Dashboard.

Step 2

Drag the control sheet you just created from the Dashboard pane to the work area. Make sure to position it so people see it and know they should click there first. The upper left corner generally works well in English-speaking countries.

Step 3

Select the control worksheet in the dashboard so that it is highlighted. Open the View menu in the upper right corner of the selected view and select Use as Filter.

Now any selection on your control sheet modifies other views in the dashboard. Try it out in the view below by selecting a sub-category in the control sheet.

This type of filter action affects the underlying worksheets in Tableau Desktop. When the dashboard is published to Tableau Server or Tableau Public, the action applies only to the dashboard; the other worksheets are not changed.