Tableau Action Filter

What is the Tableau action filter?

Tableau Action filter is a feature in Tableau that enables you to interact with data visualization across multiple workbooks. When you apply an action filter in Tableau on a sheet, information is sent from the selected mark in a sheet (Source sheet) to a different sheet (Target sheet) displaying related visualizations. Tableau action filter allows you to send field values from a source mark to apply a dynamic filter on the target sheet thereby enabling users to expand the data granularity. For example, you can create a visual displaying the product sales across different categories. When users click on a specific category, you can create an action filter to display further subcategories for the selected category of the product making it more intuitive and interactive.

Below is a typical Tableau action filter. When you select a geographic market in the Sales and Profitability visualization, you will see the Product Sales and Profit for that market.

How to use an action filter in Tableau?

To use an action filter in Tableau, follow the instructions outlined below: 

Source the Data

Step 1: Import your data source into Tableau Public using the File Navigator.

Create Data Visualization

Step 2: Drag Segment to the Columns shelf and Gross Sales to the Rows shelf. Similarly, drag Segment to the Color and Gross Sales to the Label on the Marks card.

Tableau will create a bar chart visualization in the view as shown below.

Step 3: In a new worksheet, drag Segment and Product to the Columns shelf and Gross Sales to the Rows shelf. Drag the Product field to the Color on the Marks card. It will create data visualization in the view.

Step 4: On the worksheet, navigate to Worksheet – Actions. It will open an Action dialog box. In this dialog box, click on Add Action – Filter.

Step 5: In the Add Filter Action screen, specify the action choices.

Provide a name to the action. Specify how you want to run the action. Tableau provides four different choices, i.e.,

• Hover – This option will run when you mouse over the view.
• Select – This option will run when you select or click on the view. You can select multiple marks using this option.
• Menu – This is triggered when you right-click on the marks in the view and then click an option in the tooltip menu.
• Single-select only – This is similar to Select but allows only a single mark selection in the view.

Specify the Source sheet where you want to trigger the action. Similarly, define the Target sheet where you want to see the filter action.

You can also define the actions when you clear the selections. Tableau provides three possible actions:

• Keep filtered values – This will ensure the filtered values continue to be applied to the target sheets.
• Show all values – Changes applied to the filter to display all the values.
• Exclude all values – Changes applied to the filter to exclude all the values.

You can also specify whether you want to filter all fields or Selected fields.

Click a drop-down menu in the Source Field column in case of Selected fields and then select a field. After that, select a target data source and field.

Click on OK to save changes.

Step 6: Click on OK on the Actions screen.

Step 7: Click on the red bar for Government Segment in the Source sheet.

You will notice that the Tableau view shows a drill-down of the selected segment across different products in the Target sheet.

In the next section, we will look at different examples demonstrating different Tableau Actions.

Examples

In this section, we will demonstrate different examples that can be referred to using the Tableau Action filter.

Example #1 – Tableau Filter Action

In this example, we have demonstrated how to apply the Tableau action filter to another worksheet using the Global Store Sales dataset. The Global Store Sales dataset contains sales details across stores in different geographies around the world such as Segment, Country, Product, and sales metrics capturing the Quantity, Revenue, Expenses, Unit Price, etc.

To apply the Tableau action filter to another worksheet, follow the instructions outlined below:

Step 1: Connect to the Global Store Sales dataset from the Tableau interface. 

Step 2: Create a data visualization by dragging Region to the Columns shelf and Revenue to the Rows shelf. Drag Region to the Color and Revenue to the Label on the Marks card. Tableau will create a bar chart in the view as shown below.

Step 3: Create another visualization in a new worksheet by dragging the fields to the Rows shelf and Columns shelf. Add color coding and labels to the view.

Step 4: Navigate to Worksheet – Actions.

Step 5: In the Actions dialog box that opens, click on Add Action.

Step 6: Choose the Filter option from the context menu.

Step 7: In the Add Filter Action, specify the choices as shown below.

Step 8: Click on OK to save changes on the Actions screen.

Step 9: Click on the marks in the source sheet.

You will notice that for the selected central region, Tableau will apply the Tableau action filter to another worksheet, Sales—Region/Segment, which displays the product segment distribution for the selected region.

Step 10: Select multiple marks in the source sheet.

Tableau will display the segment distribution for the selected values in the Target sheet.

Similarly, you can apply the Tableau action filter to another dashboard by following the steps above.

Example #2 – Tableau Highlight Action

In this example, we will demonstrate using Tableau Highlight Action. We have used the Amazon Books dataset, which contains different types of genres, individual books, and information like their titles, authors, prices, etc.

To use Tableau highlight action, follow the instructions outlined below:

Step 1: Import the Amazon Books dataset into the Tableau interface using File – Open functionality.

Step 2: Create a data visualization by dragging the Author to the Rows shelf and No of People rated to the Columns shelf. Similarly, drag the fields to the Marks card for color coding and labels.

Step 3: In a new worksheet, create another data visualization by dragging the Author and Sub Genre to the Rows shelf and the No of People rated to the Columns shelf. Drag the fields to the marks card for visual customizations.

Step 4: Select Worksheet – Actions.

Step 5: In the Actions dialog box, click on Add Action – Highlight.

Step 6: In the Add Highlight Action screen, specify the Source and Target sheets. Select the run action option and Target highlighting choice. Click OK to save the changes.

Step 7: Click on OK in the Actions screen. You will see the created highlighted action on this screen.

Step 8: Now, in the source worksheet click on a mark in the Tableau view. In this case, we have selected the Author J K Rowling in the view.

Step 9: Navigate to the Target sheet. You will notice that data specific to Author J K Rowling and related Subgenre data points are highlighted in the view.

Example #3 – Tableau URL Action

In this example, we will demonstrate how to create and use a Tableau URL action using Europe Sales Records data. Europe Sales Records data contains sales details across different countries in the European region, such as Item Type, Sales Channel, Order details, etc.

To create and use Tableau URL action, follow the instructions outlined below:

Step 1: Import the Europe Sales Records data into Tableau public.

Step 2: Create a data visualization by dragging the geographical coordinates to the Rows and Columns shelf.

Step 3: Drag the fields to the Color, Label, and Details on the Marks card.

Step 4: Choose Worksheet – Actions on the screen.

It will open an Actions screen in Tableau.

Step 5: Click on Add Action – Go to URL.

Step 6: In the Add URL Action, specify the choices as per the below screen.

Specify the URL Target as New Browser Tab.

Step 7: Click on the Insert option against the URL section and from the drop-down, select Country.

Step 8: Click on OK to save the changes.

Step 9: Click on OK on the Actions screen.

Step 10: Click on a Country mark in the view.

Tableau will trigger the URL to provide additional information for each of the countries. 

Important Things to Note

• There are no limits to the number of action filters that can be applied to a dashboard in Tableau.
• The fields available in the Target Field drop-down should have the same data type as the Source Field in the Add/Edit Filter Action dialog box.
• When connected to a relational data source, Tableau allows you to add sheet links across the data sources regardless of whether the field names match.
• Ensure that the source sheet and destination sheet match in the case of multidimensional data sources, as well as the source and target fields.
• Tableau action filter works in a single-directional way, i.e., you can trigger them from the source sheet only and not vice versa.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

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