Video |

Tableau | Data visualisation | Tool strategy

Custom view tab in Tableau Server & Online

Tableau 2020.4 finally gives you a proper interface to manage custom views right next to the workbook.

Tim Ngwena •15 December 2020 •1 min read •3 min watch •10K

Part ofTableau Server

Watch on YouTube

Create a custom view by filtering a dashboard, clicking 'View Original' at the top, naming it, and choosing options like making it your default or visible to others
Only users granted permission can create custom views, so you won't see the 'View Original' option without the right access
The new custom views tab sits right next to the workbook and shows usage insight such as view counts and when a view was last accessed
From the new interface you can change the owner of a custom view, delete it, and notify users when a change will affect their view
This is largely a quality of life improvement aimed at server, site and project admins managing how audiences customise dashboards

0:00Hey, Tim here. And in this video, I'm going

0:01to be showing you the new capability on

0:03Tableau

0:03Online and Tableau Server, where you can

0:06now manage custom views in a nice new

0:08interface.

0:08Let me show you how that works. First, I'm

0:10going to go to Superstore workbook here,

0:12the sample

0:13work that's uploaded to most Tableau

0:15servers. If you have access to it, go check

0:17it out.

0:17I'm going to go ahead to the overview. And

0:19essentially on this view, I'm basically

0:21looking

0:21for any filter that I can use. On the right

0:23hand side, you can see that I do have a

0:25filter for

0:25region. So I'm going to go ahead and hit

0:27central. And what I'm going to do is I'm

0:29going to create a

0:29custom view. Now, if you haven't done this

0:31before, watch how I do it. Now I go up here

0:34to the very

0:34top and you can see that it says view

0:36original. That essentially means this was

0:38the originally

0:38published view for this particular

0:40dashboard. If I click on it, I get this

0:42option to make a new

0:44one so I can essentially write. What are we

0:46here? So central. Okay. Call this central.

0:49I can make it

0:50my default. Maybe I'm only interested in

0:52central. Make that my default, make it

0:54visible to others,

0:55and then hit save. Now, if you can't see

0:58this ability to see the view original, that

1:00's because

1:01it's not been enabled for you. So only

1:02certain people who are given permission to

1:04can actually

1:05create these custom views. So you won't see

1:07this option if you don't have that access.

1:09But now when

1:10I click on it, you see, I can see the

1:11original view created by the author, but I

1:13also have a

1:14publicly visible central view that other

1:17people can use. But when I load this, if I

1:19go out of

1:20this, go to Superstore and I go into the

1:22overview again, notice that it loads this

1:24by default every

1:26single time because it knows that's what I

1:28'd like to see. Now, if I go back to Super

1:30store here,

1:31you can see that I now have one custom view

1:33here. This is the new bit of the interface.

1:36So if I go

1:36to custom views here, you can see that I

1:38can now see this. And it's had two views

1:40because of course

1:41I viewed it once when I created it. And

1:43again, after having created it and it was

1:45last access

1:4639 seconds ago. So you get some sort of

1:48insight as to how often these views are

1:50being used.

1:51Previously, what you had to do is you had

1:53to create a sort of a custom admin view

1:54that only

1:55showed you sort of the metadata about the

1:57view. But now you've got this here right

1:59next to the

1:59workbook. And you can do a couple of things

2:01with these. You can actually go ahead and

2:02make some

2:03actions, for example, change who the owner

2:05is of that custom view. Maybe someone's

2:07left and you

2:07want to give it over to someone else so

2:09that they can manage how that custom view

2:11is set up. Well,

2:12you can do that as well, which is a really,

2:14really nice quality of life improvement.

2:16You can also hit

2:16this tick box. And again, it gives you the

2:19same actions just here to change the owner

2:21and delete

2:21the view. Another thing you can do is you

2:23can actually notify the users. So now

2:25because you

2:25know who the owners are, you can actually

2:27reach out to them and let them know, hey,

2:29your view is

2:29going to be impacted by this particular

2:31change we're doing to this data set or to

2:33this workbook.

2:34So this is a really good quality of life

2:36improvement, again, to be able to manage

2:38this.

2:38This is more for server admins and site

2:40admins and people who manage projects on

2:42Tableau Server.

2:43If you're looking after particular projects

2:44or you're a project admin, you also might

2:46like this

2:46because you can see how people are custom

2:48izing views. I always think these custom

2:50views are a

2:51great way of actually listening to the

2:52audience and changing your dashboards to

2:54better suit their

2:55needs or giving them the option to do that

2:57themselves. So nice little quality of life

3:00improvement available in 2020.4. As ever,

3:02if you've enjoyed this video, you know what

3:04to do,

3:05hit a like, subscribe, do the usual thing.

3:07If you haven't enjoyed it, hit the dislike

3:09button twice,

3:09and I'll catch you in the next video.

Rollup

Tableau 2020.4 adds a dedicated custom views tab next to the workbook, giving you a proper interface to create, monitor and manage the filtered views people save of a dashboard, rather than digging through metadata admin views.

Scenario: a published dashboard with a filter (e.g. by region) that different users want to view by default. Requires permission to create custom views, which not everyone has by default.

The Breakdown

Filter the dashboard first 0:09

Apply whatever filter reflects the slice of data you personally want to see by default - this is the state that gets captured when you save a custom view.
Save it via 'View Original' 0:41

With the filter applied, click the 'View Original' label at the top of the dashboard, name the new view, and choose whether to make it your default and/or visible to others before saving. If you don't see this option, you haven't been granted permission to create custom views.
The view now loads automatically 1:20

Once set as default, reopening the dashboard loads your saved filtered state automatically each time, without you needing to reapply the filter.
Check the new custom views tab 1:31

A tab next to the workbook lists all custom views for it, showing usage insight such as total view count and when it was last accessed - useful for seeing how much a view is actually being used.
Reassign ownership 2:01

From this interface you can change who owns a given custom view, handy when the original creator has left and someone else needs to manage it.
Delete unused views 2:21

Tick a view and use the same action menu to delete it, keeping the list clean of stale or abandoned custom views.

Worth Knowing

The 'View Original' option to create a custom view only appears if you've been given permission - its absence isn't a bug, it's a permissions setting.
Previously this required building a separate custom admin view just to see metadata about views; now that insight sits natively next to the workbook.

Use It When

Reach for this when you're a server, site or project admin trying to see how audiences are customising a dashboard, or when you need to manage, reassign or clean up the custom views people have created against it.

How this Rollup was made provenance & method

A Rollup is drafted by AI from the video's transcript, then reviewed and edited by Tim. Everything used to produce this one is listed below — the model, the exact prompt, and the source video — so the process is transparent and reproducible.

Transcription: On-device — NVIDIA Parakeet v3 for recent videos, OpenAI Whisper large-v3 for earlier ones. The transcript never leaves the machine or gets published.
Drafting: Claude Sonnet 5 in the cloud, from that transcript.
Prompt: The exact Rollup prompt (v2) — the full system prompt, unedited.
Source video: Watch on YouTube
Drafted: 5 July 2026 at 09:38
Reviewed & edited: 5 July 2026 at 09:41 · by Tim Ngwena

Model + prompt + video is everything you'd need to recreate a Rollup like this yourself. The one thing we don't share is the transcript.

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