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Tableau | Data visualisation | Productivity

Data pane search operators

A neat little 2020.3 hack: type m: in the search pane and Tableau instantly narrows your fields down to just the measures.

Tim Ngwena •12 August 2020 •1 min read •2 min watch •974

In Tableau 2020.3 you can add search operators to the data pane search to filter by field type
Typing m: returns only measures, helping cut down the field list quickly
The filter icon reveals operators C, D, M and F for calculations, dimensions, searches (measures) and comments
If you've already typed a term, you can still hit the filter icon and Tableau prepends the operator to your existing search

0:00Hey, it's Tim here. And in 2020.3, Tableau

0:05have added some great quality of life

0:07improvements

0:08to the search pane inside of the data pane.

0:10That's a bit of a tongue twister, but you

0:11'll

0:11see what I mean. If I head over to desktop

0:14here, you'll see here on the very top left

0:16hand side, I'm just highlighting it now,

0:18you can see there's a search pane. And if I

0:20just

0:20start typing the term profit into that, you

0:23'll see that it essentially returns all the

0:25fields

0:26that have the term profit within them. The

0:28new feature in 2020.3 is I can actually add

0:32a search operator to this search query here

0:34. In this case, I'm going to type in m colon

0:37,

0:37and you can see that it just returns the

0:40measures. So it helps cut the different

0:42fields down

0:43by field type. So if I go ahead and click

0:45this filter icon, you can actually see

0:47those

0:48search parameters here as well. So C, D, M,

0:51and F, each correlating to calculations,

0:54dimensions,

0:55searches, and comments. Now, the other

0:58thing to bear in mind is if I just type in

1:00a term

1:00and I forget to type it in in advance, okay

1:03, and I hit the space there, so I only got

1:05three

1:05items. But if I remove that space and I go

1:07back to having my five items, I can still

1:09hit this filter icon, hit an M, and Tableau

1:12will prepend that search operator to the

1:15particular

1:16search. So you can still do it even after

1:18you've typed something. So it's actually a

1:20really nice sort of hack to basically

1:22search for something, head to the filter

1:24pane, hit

1:24the thing you want, and then you've

1:26narrowed the list down really, really

1:28quickly. If you've

1:29enjoyed this video, you know what to do,

1:31hit the like button. If you haven't, there

1:33's a

1:33button for you there as well. But I'd

1:35rather you tell me what kind of content you

1:36'd like

1:37to see in the comments below, and I'll try

1:39and get to that very, very soon. Thanks for

1:41watching, and I'll catch you in the next

1:43video, hopefully about 2020.3, or check out

1:46many

1:46of the other videos on my channel that

1:48touch on lots and lots of topics in the

1:50Tableau

Release Notes: Use filters in the data pane to refine your search and find the right field you need for analysis. Search and filter based on field name, type or comments.This video is part of a larger playlist on Tableau 2020.3. Be sure to check out other videos in the playlist and subscribe for more content.https://tableautim.com -------Join my Discord Server. https://discord.gg/shBuxXr it’s a little sparse at the moment but hang in there.