10.2 Filter, Highlight & URL Actions

10.2 Filter, Highlight & URL Actions

Dashboard actions connect an interaction on a source sheet to a response in a target. Define the source, trigger, target, field mapping, and clearing behavior explicitly. Then test a single mark, multiple marks, and an empty selection.

Triggers

Hover runs when the pointer moves over a mark. It is useful for lightweight highlighting but can make a busy dashboard unstable when it launches filters or URLs repeatedly. Select runs when a viewer selects one or more marks and is the common choice for coordinated filtering. Menu adds a named command to the mark's tooltip or context menu and is useful when the action should be deliberate.

A mobile design has no persistent mouse hover, so important behavior should remain accessible through selection or visible controls.

Filter actions

A filter action passes selected values from source marks to target sheets. All Fields uses shared fields represented by the source mark. Selected Fields lets the author map only the required source and target fields and can support different data sources with compatible values.

Use Selected Fields when a source mark contains detail that should not constrain the target. For example, pass Region but not Customer ID from a detailed source chart to a regional summary. Verify data types and member formats across different sources.

Clearing the selection offers three behaviors:

• Show all values removes the action filter and restores the target population.
• Leave the filter retains the last action-filter values.
• Exclude all values leaves the target with no displayed marks until another selection is made.

Exclude all values supports guided summary-to-detail dashboards. It does not guarantee that the workbook makes zero queries: query planning, caches, other fields, and other sheets still affect execution. Measure actual performance.

The Use as Filter funnel is a shortcut for creating a filter action from a dashboard worksheet. Review the generated target sheets and fields instead of assuming the defaults match the business requirement.

Highlight actions

A highlight action emphasizes matching marks and dims the others, preserving their visual context. This is appropriate when viewers must see where a selected group lies within the full distribution. A filter action removes nonmatching marks and may change axes and totals.

Configure source and target sheets and select the field used for matching. Highlight behavior can also interact with reference or trend lines that are configured to show recalculated lines, so avoid promises about a universally query-free client operation. The functional distinction is preserved context versus removed marks.

URL actions

A URL action opens a web page, file, mail link, or other supported external resource. Give the action a descriptive name because Menu actions display that name. Use the Insert menu to add field and filter values rather than manually guessing token syntax. A referenced field must be used in the source view.

Current target choices include New Tab if No Web Page Object Exists, New Browser Tab, and a selected Web Page Object when the dashboard contains one. For published workbooks, use a fully qualified URL. Tableau documents supported prefixes including http, https, ftp, mailto, news, gopher, tsc, tsl, sms, and tel, with context-specific restrictions; do not state that only three schemes exist. Administrators, browsers, and destination sites can impose additional security rules.

Encode data values when spaces, ampersands, or other characters must be safe in a URL. Do not place secrets in query strings. If one mark represents multiple distinct values for an inserted field, define a grain that yields one meaningful target value or use a menu workflow that handles the ambiguity.

Source detail and mappings

An action can only pass information available from the source marks. Place an identifier on Detail if it must be passed without changing color, size, or label. Adding it can increase the mark-level detail, so verify that the view does not unexpectedly create thousands of marks. ATTR may be appropriate when each mark should have exactly one identifier; an asterisk then exposes an ambiguous target.

For cross-source filter actions, use Selected Fields to map semantically equivalent fields. Matching names are insufficient when one source stores CA and another stores California. Normalize values or supply a mapping rather than assuming Tableau can infer equivalence.

Action selection guide

Verification checklist

1. Identify every source and target sheet.
2. Choose Hover, Select, or Menu based on the interaction and devices.
3. Map Selected Fields when All Fields would pass unwanted detail.
4. Set and test all three clearing states.
5. Verify single-select and multi-select behavior.
6. Test URL encoding, nulls, ambiguous marks, and blocked destinations.
7. Confirm that filters preserve security rules and that performance is measured with representative data.

Actions are part of the analytical logic. A target that renders is not necessarily correct if it received the wrong fields or clearing state.