What is a tooltip in Tableau?
The Tableau tooltip is a valuable feature that displays additional details about a specific data point when you hover over a mark or data point in the view. Tooltip is a convenient tool in Tableau that offers the option to filter marks, i.e., exclude or keep only when you choose one or more marks and hover over them. Tooltips also show the marks with the same values, allowing you to create groups and sets and visualize the underlying datasets. It provides options to users to include additional relevant information without cluttering the critical information in the view. Tableau provides options to users wherein they can either enable or disable the tooltip features in view as per the requirements.
A Tableau tooltip looks like the one highlighted below. As you can see, it displays additional information such as Org Designation, Sex, Running total of sales variance, and Sales variance when you hover over the view.
Table of contents
Key Takeaways
- The Tableau tooltip displays additional details about a specific data point when you hover over a mark or data point in the view.
- They also show the marks with the same values, allowing you to create groups and sets and visualize the underlying datasets.
- Tableau provides options to users wherein they can either enable or disable the tooltip features in view.
- Tableau tooltip chart comes with a host of features such as chart visualization, customized formatting options, inclusion of calculated fields, conditional formatting, and much more.
- You can create a Tooltip in Tableau using the Tooltip feature in Mark’s card.
- You can control the display of the Tableau tooltip by specifying the option, i.e., responsive or on hover.
Features
Now, let’s look at some of the key features of a Tableau tooltip.
- Visual customization: Allows you to customize the contents to include specific information such as worksheets, data sources, workbooks, page details (count, line, number), titles, and data fields
- Formatting options: Enable you to enhance visual appearance through changes to font, text, color, alignments, and other options
- Data calculations: Allows to include calculated fields or measures to be included
- Tooltip display: Provides options for responsive display, i.e., display Tooltip instantly or on hover
- Multiple data fields: Choice of adding multiple data fields to the Tooltip
- Option to apply conditional formatting: The conditional formatting option makes the information dynamic in nature and responsive to data changes
- Viz in the Tooltip to display a visualization within a tooltip
Note: While there is no support for the Tableau tooltip filter to restrict the dataset, you still can apply quick filters such as Keep only or exclude the data points when you hover over the chart.
In the next section, we will go through the step-by-step process of how to create a tooltip in Tableau.
How to create a tooltip in Tableau?
To create a tooltip in Tableau, follow the instructions outlined below:
Step 1: Import your dataset into Tableau using the File Navigator. You can view the data by navigating to the Data Source tab.
Step 2: Navigate to a new worksheet in Tableau.
Step 3: Create a Tableau chart by dragging the Measures to the Columns shelf and Dimensions (Category and Sub-category) to the Rows shelf.
Step 4: Drag the Region dimension to the Color in the Marks card.
Step 5: Hover over the Tableau tooltip chart. The Tableau tooltip chart will display the additional information captured as part of the tooltip section in Tableau.
Note: Currently, the Tableau tooltip image is not supported to be directly embedded into the tooltip. However, you may use a few workaround tips, such as creating a calculated field to store the image and using the field in your chart to display the image for your visualization.
Let’s now look at different examples involving the Tableau tooltip in detail through a step-by-step guide.
Examples
In this section, we will go through different examples demonstrating the Tableau tooltips.
Example #1 – Insert Extra Fields in Tooltip
In this example, we will create a Tableau tooltip and insert an extra field in the tooltip using the Diamonds Sale Data dataset. The Diamonds Sale Data dataset shows the prices and other attributes of almost 54,000 diamonds.
To create a Tableau chart along with a tooltip, follow the instructions below:
Step 1: Open the Tableau desktop on your machine and navigate to the Data Source tab. Use the File Navigator to import the Diamonds Sale Data dataset into the Tableau. Once the data is imported, you can view it in the Data Source tab.
Step 2: Drag Price (Measure) and Clarity (Dimension) from the Data pane to the Columns and Rows shelf, respectively.
Step 3: Click on the Swap Rows and Columns icon to swap the fields.
Step 4: Drag the Cut field from the Data pane to Color in Marks card. Tableau will color-code the chart based on the data values in the Cut field. You can view the different values in the toolbar.
Step 5: Drag the Price field (Measure) to the Label in the Marks card. Tableau will add the price values to the view.
Step 6: Drag Carat (Measure) to the Tooltip.
Step 7: Hover over the Tableau tooltip chart. You will notice the additional field Carat values displayed in the view.
Example #2 – Add Calculated Fields in Tooltip
In this example, we will demonstrate adding a calculated field in the Tableau chart using the Energy Consumption 2023 dataset. The Energy Consumption 2023 dataset contains Annual energy consumption across all City-operated facilities.
To demo adding a calculated field in the Tableau tooltip, we have provided step-by-step instructions below:
Step 1: Use File Navigator to import the Energy Consumption 2023 dataset into Tableau. Successfully imported data can be viewed in the Data Source tab.
Step 2: In a new worksheet, right-click on the Data pane and select the Create Calculated Field option from the context menu.
Step 3: Specify the logic for the calculated field. Here, we have created a calculated field to compute the Total Energy Consumption.
The newly created calculated field will be visible in the Data pane.
Step 4: Drag the Electricity Usage and Building Type from the Data pane to the Columns and Rows shelf in the view. Tableau will create a chart in the view as shown below.
Step 5: Drag the Department to the Color in Marks card. You can see the color-coded chart in the view.
If you hover over the Tableau tooltip chart, you will notice Building Type, Department, and Electricity usage displayed in the tooltip.
Step 6: Drag Total Energy Consumption to Tooltip in Marks card.
Step 7: Hover over the Tableau tooltip chart. You will now see the Total Energy Consumption i.e. the calculated field created visible in the tooltip.
Example #3 – Add Hyperlinks in Tooltip
This example is focused on demonstrating the addition of hyperlinks in the tooltip. We have demonstrated this scenario using the Disney World Activities dataset. The Disney World Activities contains the names of all the parks and the activities in each one.
To add hyperlinks in the tooltip, the following steps can be applied:
Step 1: Connect to the Disney World Activities dataset and import it into Tableau using File Navigator.
Step 2: Drag the Activity Name, Activity Type, Park Name, and URL fields to the Rows shelf.
Step 3: Navigate to the Worksheet tab and select Actions from the context menu.
Step 4: In the Actions window, choose This sheet. Click on Add Action and select Go to URL from the context menu.
Step 5: In the Add URL Action window, choose the Select option under the Run action section. Select the New Browser Tab under URL Target.
Step 6: Click on Insert and choose the URL option from the context menu.
You will see the URL value populated in the URL section.
Step 7: Click on OK.
You will see the newly created hyperlink in the Actions screen.
Step 8: Click on the Abc value. You will notice a hyperlink displayed in the tooltip.
Example #4 – Conditional formatting in tooltip
In this example, we will apply conditional formatting in the tooltip using the Real Estate Property Transactions Dataset. The Real Estate Property Transactions contains information about real estate property transactions, including trends in property prices, property types, and tax rates across different localities and years.
To apply conditional formatting in tooltips, follow the below step-by-step guide:
Step 1: Import the Real Estate Property Transactions dataset into Tableau.
Step 2: Drag Locality, Face, Residential, and Property fields to the Rows shelf.
Step 3: Drag the Locality field to the Filters shelf. Apply the filter conditions and click on OK.
Tableau will display the filtered dataset in the view as shown below.
Step 4: Right-click on the Data pane and choose Create Calculated Field from the context menu.
Step 5: Specify the logic to calculate the field and click on OK.
The calculated field is now visible in the Data pane.
Step 6: Drag the calculated field to the Color in the Marks card.
Step 7: Drag the Carpet Area (Measure) to the Size in the Marks card.
Step 8: Select Bar from the Marks Type drop-down menu.
Tableau will display bars in the view as shown below.
Step 9: Right-click on the Carpet Area and choose Measure (Sum) – Minimum.
Step 10: Right-click on the Data pane and select Create Calculated Field. We have created two calculated fields, i.e., Property Type – Single and Property Type – Two.
Step 11: Drag the newly created calculated fields to the Tooltip.
Step 12: Hover over the Tableau tooltip chart. Now you can see that for the Two Family Property, ▲ icon is displayed.
Important Things to Note
- Tooltips must be concise and free from any cluttering to provide a clear and specific set of information to the end users.
- Where possible, ensure that the tooltips are interactive and easy to use for the users.
- Ensure the size of the tooltips is aligned with the device screen sizes for enhanced user experience.
- If you experience Tableau tooltip not showing all fields, then it’s due to space restrictions and missing tooltip configuration. Consider prioritizing the list of fields and configuring them into the Tooltip by dragging those fields into the Tooltip on the Marks card.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Yes, you can control when tooltips are displayed in Tableau. Tableau provides 2 different options to control the behavior of the tooltip that include:
• Responsive – Show tooltips instantly
• On Hover – Show tooltips on hover
Use either of the above options to specify the tooltip behavior for your Tableau visuals.
No, you can’t disable tooltips in Tableau for certain data points or fields. However, you can disable the entire tooltips on your visual in the view by unchecking the Show tooltips check box. The other option is to keep the Tooltips contents blank for your visual.
There is no built-in support for localization in tooltips for different languages in Tableau. However, you can manually specify the language for your audience in the tooltip as per your visual requirements.
Yes, there are a few limitations to what you can include in tooltips. These include:
• Limited inclusion of dashboard elements within a tooltip
• Only a very specific calculated field can be included in the tooltip due to space limitations. Ensure that the fields you want to display are dragged into the Tableau Tooltip on the Marks card.
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