Dynamic Zone Visibility: New in Tableau 2022.3

0:00Hey, it's Tim here. It's not very often

0:01that we get features that take us back to

0:03old work excited.

0:05Today I'm going to show you what Dynamic

0:07Zone Visibility allows you to do in 2022.3.

0:11Now this

0:11is a super exciting feature. It allows you

0:13to do what I'm showing you on screen right

0:15now. This is

0:16going to be awesome and I'm going to tell

0:18you this now, we probably haven't

0:19discovered all the things

0:21that are possible with this feature. Let's

0:23get stuck in. So to start with, I'm going

0:26to show you

0:26a very very basic setup of how this works.

0:29And what I'm going to do is I'm just going

0:31to call

0:31out to the documentation for this feature

0:33straight away. If you head to the link in

0:35the description,

0:36I've linked to this. And the key thing to

0:38understand is this feature only works on

0:40certain

0:41field types. So the first one is a boolean

0:43field type, the other one is a single value

0:45, and another

0:46one is independent of the vis. Essentially

0:48a field or parameter must meet these

0:50requirements. Now

0:52I've spent a lot of time trying to

0:53understand these requirements and I had to

0:56reach out to

0:56a broad church of people on Twitter and

0:58also internally in the information lab. A

1:00big thanks

1:01to Craig who finally explained to me where

1:03this was going to work and essentially we

1:06got there.

1:06But this is a really important requirement

1:09because you won't see the features show up

1:10unless you meet these setup requirements.

1:13So here I am in a basic dashboard. If you

1:16're wondering

1:16where I've got this dashboard so you can

1:18follow along, you can just go ahead and

1:19open the first

1:20dashboard here in Superstore. Later on in

1:22this video, I'll show you another example

1:24which is

1:24of sort of purposely built to show off a

1:27much better setup for this. So let's go

1:29back to the

1:30main dashboard here. And what I'm going to

1:32do is I'm going to just build a parameter,

1:34we're going to use that parameter to hide

1:36this map. So the first thing to do is just

1:38to build

1:39the parameter, let's go in here straight

1:41away to the map itself. And when we go in,

1:43the first thing

1:44we're going to do immediately is just build

1:46a parameter. And when the parameter comes

1:49up,

1:49we'll just select Boolean in this

1:51particular case, we'll call this show map.

1:53And obviously,

1:55the default current value is true. And

1:58everything else can pretty much stay as is.

2:00So I'll click OK.

2:01And when I create that show map value, and

2:03I go back to my overview, and I click on

2:06the map,

2:06you have to make sure you've clicked the

2:07map, you can see it's clicked when I get

2:09this sort of dark

2:10gray border around the map, then I go to

2:12the layout tab here on the top. And you'll

2:14see there's a new

2:15option here saying control visibility using

2:18value. Now that I've added that parameter

2:20that meets the

2:21requirement that I talked about at the

2:23beginning, when I tick this box and go to

2:24this drop down,

2:25you will see that parameter show up. So you

2:28can see here the show map option is there.

2:31And then

2:31the next thing I'm going to do is bring the

2:33parameter in, I'm going to bring that

2:35probably

2:35going to maybe make it floating so it doesn

2:37't get in the way oops, doesn't get in the

2:38way of my,

2:39oh, it's going to get in the way of my

2:41thing. So let me instead move it up here.

2:43And let's make

2:45this floating by doing that. And I'll just

2:47bring it right here to the map, just above

2:49the map. So

2:50you can see this working. So now when I set

2:52this to false, the map disappears, set it

2:55to true,

2:55the map shows up. So immediately, this is a

2:58much better way of showing and hiding

2:59sheets,

3:00we've had to do sort of various hacks in

3:02the past to get this to work. And this is

3:04basically the

3:05basic mechanic for this feature. It's

3:07driven by a parameter. And it can also be

3:10driven by a field,

3:11I'll come to the field in a second. But in

3:13essence, it's a very, very simple setup.

3:16Now,

3:17the other thing to bear in mind here is

3:18that of course, these parameters can be

3:20affected by

3:21parameter actions. So you could create a

3:24scenario where something fires a parameter

3:26action that

3:27changes the visibility of the sheet,

3:29because it's changing the parameter here,

3:31that's controlling the

3:32visibility. So that is that is literally

3:34the feature in a nutshell, that is the

3:36simplest

3:36setup you can do. If that's all you want to

3:38do, basically show or hide various shots,

3:41you can use

3:41this capability straight away. The other

3:43thing, the very subtle thing, and I haven't

3:45really touched

3:46on this yet is if I hide this, when it when

3:48it gets rid of that particular thing, it

3:51actually

3:51doesn't exist on the dashboard anymore. So

3:53unlike before, where you show and hide

3:55sheets,

3:56you'd remain with one or two pixels on the

3:58left and the right at the bottom, this

3:59completely gets

4:00rid of it from the visualization. So you

4:02don't end up with this sort of weird

4:04spacing issue that you

4:05might get if you're trying to lay up a

4:06bunch of things to sort of collapse inside

4:08of the same

4:09setup. So I find this really, really good.

4:11I think it's a great capability, you can of

4:13course work

4:14with this parameter to have something else

4:16show up when it says false. So when the map

4:18is hidden,

4:18you could for example, show a line chart or

4:20something else. But here, the collapsing

4:22containers are just essentially filling the

4:25space naturally. Now, I will pre warn you,

4:28if you really want to use some of the best

4:30capabilities of this feature, you're gonna

4:32have

4:33to get good at containers. And I hate to

4:34say that because you shouldn't have to be

4:36good at containers

4:37to make this feature work. But it turns out

4:40that this zone capability doesn't just

4:42control sheets,

4:43it also controls whole sections of the

4:46visualization. Let's bring this back in.

4:49And

4:49this time, I'm going to select this map.

4:51And I'm going to remove this so that it

4:52doesn't change

4:53anymore. Okay, so let's just go back to

4:55true. And let's see that the false doesn't

4:57change anything.

4:58Okay, so now what I'm going to do is I'm

5:00going to double click the map like this.

5:02And what that does

5:03is select everything in the blue container

5:05you can see on screen, which includes the

5:08two charts on the

5:08right hand side. And you'll see here that I

5:11have this visibility option here as well.

5:14So I can now

5:14control these whole section of the

5:16visualization with this capability. So now

5:19my show map parameter

5:21controls whether the whole visualization

5:23shows up or not. And so this is really

5:25powerful because

5:26you're not just changing sheet, you can

5:28essentially change whole sections of the

5:30entire

5:30dashboard. Let's try one more thing. Let me

5:32just show you this because what I didn't

5:34include last

5:35time was the filter. So let's go double

5:37click that one more time. So the whole

5:39bottom section of the

5:40whole entire visualization will go in

5:42selected, I know I'm laboring the point

5:44here, but it's really

5:45sort of important to drum home here, you

5:47can just wholesale hide whole sections of

5:50your dashboard

5:51with this capability. And that's just the

5:53basic setup. It's already miles better than

5:55it was

5:55before. And it's going to get rid of a ton

5:57of hacks. If you know me and hacks, I hate

5:59hacks,

6:00I don't like them. Check out my video on

6:02that as well. But nonetheless, that is sort

6:04of that is

6:05like tier one of this feature. Now, when

6:07you start to get more capable with this

6:09feature, what you're

6:10going to want to do is think about how it

6:11works with containers, think about how it

6:13works with

6:14parameter actions. And then more

6:15importantly, think about how you can piece

6:17that together

6:18to make an experience. I think I have to

6:20recommend that people now really start to

6:22think carefully

6:23about people's user journeys. Because when

6:25you start to do that, you might actually be

6:27able to

6:28build multiple experiences within a single

6:30dashboard depending on the user, and have

6:33those

6:34work based off interactions through

6:36parameter actions, or even specific URLs

6:39that enable and

6:40disable certain parts of the dashboard by

6:42just changing the parameters in the URL,

6:44that's going

6:45to be another pretty nice use case. So I've

6:47shown you one way of doing this, let's go

6:49to not something

6:50I made earlier, but something I prepared

6:52earlier, because in order to show you this

6:54whole thing,

6:54I need to walk through a couple of steps

6:56with you. So let's go over to this other

6:58dashboard,

6:59you can see here, I have a very basic

7:01visualization. And if you look at the

7:03bottom,

7:03you see that I have a bunch of different

7:05sheets, okay. And I just have one dashboard

7:08. And if I go

7:08to my dynamic zone visibility dashboard,

7:11you can see that everything more or less

7:13fits on the

7:14dashboard. Now what I've done here is I've

7:15set this much, much wider than it should be

7:17. So let's

7:18go ahead and just compress this right down

7:20so that it fits on screen. So there you go,

7:22you can now see

7:23everything on the dashboard. Now, in order

7:25to set this up, it's not a great dashboard,

7:27I completely

7:28sort of say that up front, in order to set

7:30this up. And the best way I could find of

7:33working with

7:34this height show zone capability is not to

7:37essentially build a dashboard and hide and

7:41show

7:41the zones to build it because essentially

7:43what was happening is I was getting

7:44selection issues.

7:45So I couldn't quite select the zones easily

7:47. So what I've done is I've put everything

7:49on the

7:49dashboard, then what I'm going to do is I'm

7:51going to start dynamically hiding them

7:53based on certain

7:54parameters. Now, in order to do that, I've

7:56written a slightly different calculation.

7:59So I'll go back

7:59to my main sheet here. And you'll see that

8:02I've got these three calculations. Now they

8:05actually

8:05result in Booleans as well. And what I've

8:07done is I've also created another parameter

8:09called category.

8:11And the category parameter, if I show you

8:13this, let's just start with a parameter is

8:15the simple

8:15parameter with a string. And then you've

8:18got a bunch of values, which is a list. And

8:21it's

8:21basically loading it from the category

8:23field in my data set. Now, I've ticked when

8:26workbook opens

8:27loaded from the category. In many ways,

8:29what you should really do is use fix

8:31because what you don't

8:32want the user to do is select something

8:34that hasn't yet been designed. So I'll load

8:36the values

8:37from that field, but then I'll leave it as

8:39fixed. So if a new category shows up, I

8:41need to go in and

8:42add it to the dashboard to make it work. So

8:44that's step one, set up your parameter.

8:46Step two, we set

8:48up three calculations, one for each

8:50category, it's pretty straightforward.

8:52parameter category equals

8:54furniture. And you have to make sure you

8:57don't sort of get any typos in these sort

9:00of fields and

9:00make sure they're actually correct.

9:02Otherwise, the parameter won't fire. And

9:03you can see these are

9:04just three parameters. Sorry, three

9:06calculations, checking the parameter. And

9:09now you've done that

9:10you've essentially created the three fields

9:13that Tableau can then use to control each

9:16of the

9:16sections of the dashboard. So now, if I

9:19just go to my dynamic zone visibility

9:21dashboard, what I can do

9:23is I can select each section like this. So

9:25I've double and I'm actually triple clicked

9:28here,

9:28because I've got two items in here. So I've

9:30triple clicked to get the blue icon for

9:31this zone,

9:32I've gone to layout, I've gone to control

9:35visibility. And this pink one is office

9:37supplies.

9:38Notice how I've tried to do a bit of color

9:39matching to make obvious. So office

9:41supplies only,

9:42okay, that's set up. So now that's good.

9:45The office supplies is currently where the

9:47parameter

9:47is set up. So this is already working,

9:49because you can see that this has not

9:51disappeared. But as soon

9:52as I go to the next one, let's go ahead and

9:54triple click this, I go to control

9:56visibility, this one's

9:57going to be furniture, you'll see

9:59immediately disappears. But you can see

10:02that it's still

10:03selected on my dashboard, maybe this is a

10:05bug, maybe this shouldn't happen. But what

10:07I found it

10:07hard to do is how do you select the thing

10:09that doesn't currently exist, it's

10:10essentially taking

10:11up the same space, things are collapsing

10:13around it, but you can't really select it.

10:15So in my sort

10:17of experience, it was easy to build

10:19everything, then add interactivity at the

10:21final step. And then

10:22for the final one, let's go to technology,

10:24we need to double click this because this

10:26one has legends

10:27and filters in it as well. Let's just add

10:30that in. And in fact, what I what I will do

10:32is remove this

10:33because that shouldn't be there. And let's

10:36go back in and do that again, select that,

10:38go to control

10:39visibility, and then select technology only

10:41. So now you can see it's still selected.

10:43And everything

10:44is good. So we've got this dashboard that

10:47setting, basically set up to switch between

10:51different

10:51users. And so let's go ahead and, in

10:53essence, go back to the dashboard, make

10:56this a little more

10:57narrow. So this is actually now the design,

10:59I was actually going for a nice sort of

11:01cute small

11:02dashboard. Let's just collapse the height a

11:03little bit, actually, we'll keep that. We

11:06'll keep that as

11:07is that that's sort of okay for me,

11:08actually, I'll, I can do a few other things

11:10. But if we don't

11:11have sort of mess around with this too much

11:13, let me move this across, we're actually

11:14going to get

11:15rid of this parameter soon. But just want

11:17to show you, okay, this is the setup. So

11:19now watch what

11:20happens as I switch between these sections.

11:22So here I am going to furniture, going to

11:25office supplies,

11:26then go into technology, and they're each

11:28themed and the charts, expand and fill as

11:31they should do.

11:31And now that you know, everything is set up

11:33, I can actually more accurately sort of

11:35control the

11:36spacing in each particular zone. And I can

11:38go in here and I think this has been set to

11:41fixed with

11:41will actually get it to not do that. And we

11:44'll do this as well not to do. I would set a

11:47it's set to

11:48a fixed height there. But if I keep going

11:51again, I should eventually find the fixed

11:53width item here.

11:54And now this is sort of fully collapsing.

11:56So you can say in a game needs to really be

11:58on point to

11:59get this to work elegantly. And what I'll

12:01do is I'll hide the title here. So you can

12:03't even see

12:03that it's technology. So technology, office

12:06supplies, and furniture. Okay, this is all

12:09great.

12:09Now, the final touch, which I haven't done

12:12yet, I'm going to try it first while I'm

12:14recording this

12:15video is to set up a parameter action

12:17driven by this top chart, because of course

12:20, these values

12:21match the parameter exactly. So as I click

12:24different items, I should switch between

12:26different

12:26charts. And when I deselect the item, it

12:29should clear all the different things. I'm

12:32not sure that

12:32final step will work the way I expect. But

12:34let's go ahead and do this. So I'll go up

12:36to the dashboard

12:37options. We'll go to where is it actions.

12:40And then what we want to do is set up a

12:42parameter action.

12:43Now my main sheet is the one at the top. So

12:46I'll say look, let's add a parameter and we

12:48're going to

12:49change the parameter here. And what we're

12:52going to do is take this from let's go to

12:55there's a little trick here, if you've ever

12:57wondered how to multi select everything,

12:59you take the first one, scroll down, hold

13:02shift and deselect. Okay. And now that you

13:04've done that,

13:05what you can do is you can just select one

13:06of these, let's say we're taking it from

13:08the main

13:09sheet, the target parameter is going to be

13:11this one, and essentially is going to be

13:14passing the

13:15field category in this particular case,

13:17okay. And when you clear the selection,

13:20yeah, you can,

13:22you can change what it sets the value to

13:23now, in this particular case, I don't think

13:26I have

13:26like a value that shows nothing. So what

13:29you should do is have a fourth item, which

13:32says none,

13:33and then that would basically cancel

13:34everything out. So what we'll do is just

13:36keep this to current

13:37value, I'm not going to sort of bother with

13:39that. And we'll just leave that as is. So

13:41we'll call

13:41this parameter action. Okay. So now what

13:45this parameter sheet is doing is it's

13:48actually sending

13:49instruction to the visible parameter that

13:52we've got. And that is controlling each of

13:54the different

13:54calculations we've got. And it's basically

13:56triggering. So let's go ahead and click OK.

13:58And now when I click on each one, you can

14:02see the chart is changing. So how cool is

14:05that you can

14:06switch and switch off whole sections of the

14:09whole dashboard, just by clicking on a

14:12particular item?

14:13I think that's incredible. I think that's

14:15such a powerful capability. And honestly, I

14:18think it's

14:18it's it's just one of these things that

14:20just goes, yes, this has just changed the

14:23game of what is

14:24possible with tablet. And I have to say,

14:25again, this doesn't happen that often,

14:27especially with

14:28work you've already done, you can actually

14:30think of maybe examples in the past, where

14:32you've wanted

14:32to do sort of weird things, and it just

14:34doesn't work as beautifully as you thought

14:36it would. And

14:37now you can do that nice and easily using

14:39parameter actions. And in fact, in this

14:41particular

14:41case, I can now get rid of that selector,

14:44because who needs an interface when I can

14:46just rely on the

14:47interaction. That's pretty much it for my

14:48example. Now, of course, there's so many

14:50other use cases

14:51you can use here. If I go to my browser,

14:53what I've done is I've seen other sort of

14:56ideas come up. So

14:57if I go first to Twitter, let's go to Sam

15:00Parsons, he's actually been able to use

15:02this to do some

15:03zooming. So if we go look at his example,

15:05and we just go to his public profile, I'll

15:07put a link to

15:08this in the description, what he's doing is

15:10when you click on a specific zone, and I've

15:13downloaded

15:13this or found out how to do it, I'm the

15:16kind of nerd who likes to understand how

15:17this could be

15:18possible. And so when you click on zoom, it

15:21actually zooms the whole chart in and out,

15:23which

15:23is I think it's just super useful, right.

15:25And of course, it also really nicely works

15:28with the side

15:29panel, because of course, this feature

15:31controls the zone. And notice that it even

15:33hides the button

15:34there, and then you put it back out,

15:36collapse it back in the button comes back.

15:38And then you can

15:39even do things like collapse whole sections

15:42of the container, or add and change the way

15:45different

15:45things are working. So there's so many nice

15:47little bits of interactivity here. It's

15:49just unbelievable.

15:52I can't believe sort of the art of the

15:54possible I I'm a little bit frustrated that

15:56we have to

15:57cajole containers as much as we're going to

15:59have to to make this work really, really

16:00well.

16:01But you know, I'll take it, I'll take it

16:03anything to make this experience better. So

16:05that's Sam

16:06Parsons, I'll put a link to the example he

16:08's got on Tableau public in the description.

16:12The next

16:12one is from Kevin. And he's basically just

16:14highlighted the point that I was talking

16:15about,

16:16you know, thinking back of old solutions,

16:18and finding new ways of making them work.

16:20So here,

16:21he's gone back and adapted a dynamic sort

16:23of show and hide setup with parameters and

16:26filters.

16:26And yeah, he's been able to make it a lot

16:29easier and a lot simpler. And the other

16:31thing is that

16:31this should be more performant, because you

16:33're not having to create these nasty

16:35calculations in the

16:35background to do all this work. And the

16:38very last one is from Luke. And so Luke has

16:40an interesting

16:41one. I'll be honest, I haven't figured out

16:43how this works yet. And but in essence, you

16:45can see

16:45he's clicking on individual customers, and

16:47it's loading up a chart specific to that

16:49customer each

16:50time. And so I think this is really cool,

16:52because you almost have these exploding

16:54visualizations,

16:55you cannot almost change and break the mold

16:58of how things are working. So check these

17:00out,

17:00I'll link to this in the description as

17:02well. So you can check out all three of

17:03these fantastic

17:04resources. And by by no means this is it, I

17:07'm certain there are people out there who

17:09are already

17:09planning their iron viz competition entries

17:12, and have just realized how to start again,

17:16because this has just come out of nowhere

17:17and change the odds of the possible. So

17:20if that's you, I feel sorry for you. But

17:21nonetheless, that's pretty much it. Okay,

17:23we're going to stop here. That's pretty

17:24much the end of the video. Let me know what

17:26you've done

17:26with this capability in the description

17:28below. Once again, I am making other videos

17:31on 22.3.

17:32It's a little slower than normal, because

17:33we only got our hands on it two days ago,

17:35the pre release wasn't as good. So we

17:37couldn't see some of this stuff in advance.

17:39So yeah,

17:40check out the other videos in this playlist

17:42for this video. And yeah, if you're not

17:44subscribed,

17:45subscribe, let me know what you think of

18:00the video in the comments. And I'll catch

18:00you in the next

17:48video. Hey, it's Tim here. It's not very

17:56often that features start again.

18:00Transcribed by https://otter.ai

18:05[ Silence ]