0:00Hey, it's Tim here. In today's video I want
0:01to show you a really simple trick you can
0:02do with parameter actions.
0:04Essentially I want to use a parameter to
0:06change the date in which the chart starts
0:08in, then I want
0:09a simple way to reset the chart once I've
0:12changed that date. This is essentially a
0:14technique you can
0:15use in lots of different instances, but I
0:17just want to show you the mechanics of how
0:19it works.
0:19So you can see here I've got the chart and
0:21if I go to this particular date and I
0:23select September,
0:24you can see that the range for the chart
0:26changes based on that date that I clicked.
0:28So now the date starts on September 2017.
0:31If I go here to September 2018 it does
0:34exactly the same
0:34thing and now the range is much smaller.
0:37Now if I want to reset the date I've got no
0:39way of doing
0:39that. Now if I publish it on Tableau server
0:41or Tableau Online I can of course use the
0:44revert
0:44button to get back to the start, but I'd
0:46like to give a clear way on the dashboard
0:47for someone to
0:49reset this. Essentially what I've got up
0:51here is a button that allows me to reset
0:53the sheet and it
0:53goes back to the original time range. So
0:55how does this work? Let's sort of tear this
0:58down a little
0:58bit and start from scratch. I'm going to go
1:00to a new sheet, we're going to just start
1:02building this
1:02out. Okay so what I'm going to do is I'm
1:04going to start by dragging Order Date into
1:06Columns
1:07and Cells into Rows just to get us a line
1:09chart and ready to go. And then what I'm
1:11going to do
1:12is I'm going to turn this into a continuous
1:14month, essentially using the continuous
1:17variant of the
1:18month which is green in this case, that's
1:20why this has changed to green. And what you
1:22can now do is
1:23we can start to sort of think about the
1:24mechanics of how this parameter action is
1:26going to work.
1:26Now essentially what I want to do is when I
1:29click on this particular date I want this
1:32sheet to send
1:33an instruction to a parameter and then what
1:36I need that parameter to do is essentially
1:40filter my
1:40visualization. So if you think about it I'm
1:42essentially using a parameter action to
1:45filter
1:45this sheet and in order for that to work I
1:48need to have something in the Filters pane
1:50in order for
1:51this to work. So I need to have something
1:53already in my Filters pane listening out
1:54for my parameter.
1:55So let's go ahead and sort of build the
1:57scaffolding for that. I'm going to call it
1:59something else,
2:00you can see I've already got an example
2:01here but we'll just go and build a brand
2:03new one.
2:03So the first thing we'll do is we create a
2:05parameter, not a calculation, a parameter,
2:08and once we've created a parameter we can
2:11give it a name. So we can call it
2:13a Date Param, okay. And we want to make
2:16sure that we pick a date item here. Don't
2:18choose
2:19date and time, it has to be a date and it
2:20doesn't really matter what value you've got
2:22there but what
2:23you might want to do is set it to a value
2:25that makes sense. In this case the smallest
2:28date item
2:28here is actually on the 1st of January 2017
2:33. So what I might do is set it to the March
2:372017. So
2:38I can just type into this date field here
2:40just by doing that and typing 2017 and I
2:45can just go click
2:46on October and select March and that takes
2:48me right to the date and I'll just select
2:50the 1st of
2:51March 2017 as a date and select okay. So
2:54our parameter is set up. If I actually
2:56right click
2:57and show this parameter you can see that it
2:59's over here on the right hand side with
3:01that specific date
3:02and I can easily change it. Now for the
3:04next bit what we need to do is to put this
3:05in the filter
3:06somewhere so it's filtering this
3:08visualization and we can kind of test it
3:09with this slider here
3:10once we change the date. So let's go ahead
3:13and create a calculation and I'll make this
3:15larger
3:15so you can see. So for this one all we need
3:17to do is make sure that we are only
3:19bringing back dates
3:20that are greater than or equal to the
3:23parameter. So it's pretty easy all we need
3:25to do is say
3:26we can actually do this instead of trying
3:30to type out the date part we can actually
3:33just go
3:33and specifically hold control or drag and
3:35bring this in and this will actually give
3:37us the date
3:38part as a calculation in this case rather
3:40than what we see at the top. And all we
3:42want to do is
3:43we want to basically check whether that
3:45date is greater than or equal to the date
3:48parameter. So
3:48we can just say date param and you can see
3:51that it's purple because parameters are
3:52typically
3:53purple in calculation windows. So in in
3:55sort of plain English we're checking
3:57whether the
4:00date in the chart is greater than the
4:07parameter. I've got an old habit here where
4:11I use the
4:12forward slash I've just gotten used to it I
4:14just type it all the time. You can do a
4:16forward slash
4:17star before someone tells me you can do
4:19that and type your comments in there as
4:21well that is also
4:22fine and works completely well. Okay so let
4:25's just clear that and we've basically given
4:27the logic
4:28here I'll call this my date filter. I'll
4:30call this version two because I've already
4:33got one in the
4:33calculation in the window. So click apply
4:36and click okay and now when I drag this
4:38into filters
4:38you'll see that we get a boolean response.
4:41Essentially if the dates are greater than
4:43or
4:43equal to the parameter then it's going to
4:45return true and if not it's going to return
4:47false. So
4:48what we want to do is keep all the values
4:50that are true essentially everything bigger
4:52than the
4:52day in our parameter. So now let's hit
4:55apply and click okay and now you can see
4:57that this is
4:58working the date here is first of March
5:002017 and just so we can make sure this is
5:03working nicely
5:04let's go to June of 2017 and you should see
5:06the chart changes there nicely the June
5:09value is 34,000
5:11and if I just go back to March or April
5:14even or do and we go back to the June value
5:17it's still 34,000.
5:18So everything is working nicely now for the
5:21final step. Okay so for the final step what
5:23we're going
5:23to do is build a dashboard because what I
5:25want to do is make sure I've got everything
5:26that I need
5:27in view. So I'll go ahead and bring in
5:29sheet three this is the one I was actually
5:31working on
5:32and you'll notice here when I dragged it in
5:34I've actually set it to floating so let's
5:37close this
5:38again and switch over to my tile set up
5:40here on the bottom left go back in drag in
5:43sheet three
5:43and everything is pretty much good to go.
5:46Now I have got my date parameter here but I
5:48'm going to
5:48leave that there just so you can see this
5:50working essentially and what I want to do
5:53is essentially
5:54set up this action to change that parameter
5:56and that is essentially a parameter action.
5:59So I'll go
5:59over to the dashboard at the top go to
6:02actions I can also hit ctrl shift d add an
6:05action and you
6:06can see I have here a few options for
6:08actions I'm going to choose the parameter
6:11action and you can
6:12see here that I've got this very simple
6:14option and I'm essentially coming from
6:16sheet three which is
6:17the one I've just created it's going to be
6:19using a selection so it's going to run on
6:21selection
6:21and then what I need to do is change a
6:23parameter and the parameter is going to be
6:25the date parameter
6:27and the field I'm going to be targeting is
6:29the month of order date which is actually
6:31what's in
6:32our visualization here you can just see
6:34just outside of this option and that's
6:36pretty much it
6:37everything else is is pretty nice now what
6:41we can do is we can say that when you clear
6:43the selection
6:43you go back to a certain date that's one
6:45way of doing it but I don't want to use
6:46that that can
6:48kind of lead to a very confusing dynamic
6:50when the user tries to use it so let's hit
6:52okay and let's
6:53try out this parameter so I'm going to try
6:55and click on November 2018 and we should
6:58see two
6:58things the chart should almost have half
7:01the date range available on our axis and
7:04this day here
7:05should change so let's go ahead and click
7:06that and you can see that it's done that
7:08really really nice
7:09thing so we've done the sort of first final
7:11first step and we're pretty much ready to
7:14go see if I
7:14click keep clicking on these it just goes
7:16back but now we have a problem because you
7:18can see here that
7:19I've almost clicked my way out of this
7:21chart and the only option I have is to
7:22revert the visualization
7:24or manually change the parameter we don't
7:25want to manually change the parameter I'd
7:27love to give
7:28someone a button that automatically brings
7:31back the whole extent of the data so in
7:33order to do
7:34this there's a little bit of sort of
7:35thinking you have to do here what you want
7:37to do is essentially
7:38bring back the whole date range and the
7:40whole date range is is going to have to be
7:43a calculation that
7:44dynamically finds the whole entire range
7:46now you can do this one of two ways and the
7:48way I'm going
7:49to do it is use an LOD because essentially
7:51that brings back the date in the whole
7:53entire data set
7:54so I'll go ahead and create calculation and
7:57an LOD is a level of detail calculations if
8:00you haven't
8:00seen that go check out my video on that I
8:02explain how they work in lots of detail but
8:04nonetheless
8:05let's make this larger and we can just go
8:08in and type what we're going to do we don't
8:10even actually
8:11need to do any fixation or anything all we
8:14need to do is for the entire data set bring
8:16back the
8:17smallest date so you can actually do an LOD
8:20where you don't declare any sort of
8:22calculation this is
8:24like I don't know what to call this I can't
8:25remember I can never remember the term for
8:27this
8:27but essentially it's an LOD where you don't
8:29define anything and so you can just say min
8:32actually once you use auto complete and
8:35then just get order date so what this is
8:38going to do
8:39it's going to look at the entire data set
8:41and the entire data set that's actually
8:44accessible and
8:44this LOD runs after a context filter so if
8:48you've got this set up you know using
8:51context filters
8:52those are still going to work but it runs
8:54before dimensional filters so if you've got
8:56a filter here
8:56in your dates and you want it to work it's
8:58still going to bring back the whole range
9:00of the data
9:00sets it's kind of handy because if you've
9:02got a date filter working as well it's
9:04still going to
9:05bring back everything before the date
9:08filter is processed so here we'll just say
9:11smallest date
9:12and now we have the smallest date we can
9:14actually bring it into the view and we're
9:17going to hit
9:17apply and click ok and now what we want to
9:19do is bring it into a new sheet the reason
9:21we want to
9:21bring into a new sheet is because this
9:23sheet is going to act as a button we still
9:25don't have like
9:26amazing tight control of buttons yet I'd
9:28love to be able to use navigation buttons
9:31to do things
9:31with the data set but that's not a feature
9:33just yet I hope it will be in the future I
9:35hope someone's
9:36working on that but nonetheless if I grab
9:38the smallest date here and I just put it on
9:40text you
9:40can see that it's 2017 and then if I go to
9:43the end of actual actual day itself you can
9:46see that
9:46it says the 3rd of January 2017 is the
9:49first date available in the data set so
9:51that's pretty pretty
9:52good we have a sort of nice way to you know
9:55find the smallest date in our data set and
9:57this will
9:58stay true whatever happens so even if I run
10:00a context filter this is still going to
10:02work
10:02and what I want to do now is just go into
10:04this text label and just change this and
10:07the value is
10:08in the visualization it's on the marks pane
10:09but it doesn't actually need to be
10:11displayed anywhere
10:12I just want to turn this into a nice button
10:14so I'm just going to call this reset my
10:16view
10:16hit apply and click a hit ok and you can
10:19see that that's it that's all it's going to
10:22do and there's
10:23a few formatting problems here if I just if
10:26I just go into this actually let's go into
10:29alignment here
10:31and let's make sure this is absolutely
10:33centered so now that's that's nicely
10:35centered if I was to say
10:37fit the entire view that you can see that
10:38that's centered it goes to the middle so
10:40now if I go back
10:41to my dashboard I've got sheet 4 here and I
10:43'm just gonna this time float it out so I'm
10:45gonna float it
10:46out and you can see there it is I'm gonna
10:48hide the name of the sheet and I'm just
10:50gonna make this a
10:51lot smaller so it's much much better okay
10:54and you can do a few things like style this
10:56out so let's
10:57very very quickly give it a nice thick
10:59border so it's easy to see and we could
11:01even go into the
11:02view and for this specific worksheet if we
11:05just go into formatting let's just go into
11:08the formatting
11:10and can we do the worksheet shading here
11:12yeah let's just make this slightly gray and
11:15then that will
11:15sit nicely on our dashboard like that so
11:18there we have the reset my view and it's
11:20ready to go you can
11:21see the tool tip says day of smaller state
11:23third of January so now what we need to do
11:25is set another
11:26action so when I click on this sheet it
11:28passes it to the chart and changes this
11:31parameter so let's
11:32go back into dashboard actions add another
11:34parameter action and this time it's coming
11:37from
11:37this sheet which is going to be sheet 4
11:40okay and it's going to change the same date
11:43parameter we
11:44changed before it's going to grab this
11:46state and it's going to pass it to that
11:49parameter okay so
11:50let's hit okay and let's go ahead and try
11:53this out so if I then go ahead and hit this
11:55date you'll see
11:56that it resets now there's an issue there
11:58because essentially this blue item means it
12:00's selected
12:01and you can do a few hacks to make sure
12:02that this doesn't happen so once you see
12:04when I click it
12:05nothing happens because I was deselecting
12:07it only when I click it again does it
12:09actually sort of
12:10come back into action so you can actually
12:13set this up in a way that it doesn't sort
12:16of persist
12:17the selection if that makes sense but you
12:19can see that that works so now you can see
12:21the parameter
12:22here is 301 2017 and now if I click on one
12:25of these other dates you can see that that
12:28works fine
12:29go then reset my view and now we're back to
12:31the beginning okay so that's pretty much it
12:33that's
12:33how this is all working now that we've done
12:35that I can actually get rid of my date
12:37parameter and I
12:38can move this back over here to the top
12:40right just to make it sort of aesthetic and
12:42you can actually
12:43start to use this technique in lots of
12:45different ways one technique you might use
12:47it for is if you
12:48decide to build a selector with a start
12:51date and an end date you can give people
12:53two sort of
12:54options where they can choose their
12:55starting year and their finish year and it
12:57can actually filter
12:58both ends of this calculation essentially
13:00you're making sure that you put two filters
13:02in one which
13:03controls when the data starts and one which
13:05controls when the data ends and then
13:07everything
13:08that's left over is essentially in between
13:10and you basically have a dynamic way of
13:12choosing start and
13:13finish dates in a visualization so that's
13:15pretty much it there's not much more to it
13:17it's a really
13:18really simple trick you can use this in
13:20lots of different use cases but I thought I
13:22'd just make
13:23a video I was teaching ds25 at the data
13:25school in London today and they actually
13:28asked me this
13:29question and that's where this came from
13:32shout out to Jesus for reminding me that I
13:34didn't actually
13:35need to have the date value here inside of
13:37the text element so thank you for that
13:40because I just
13:42completely forgot that that wasn't
13:43necessary because it's already in our marks
13:45pane so it
13:46gets sent along anyway into our view now
13:49one last thing I'm going to do is disable
13:51these tool tips
13:52so if I go into the tool tips and I just do
13:54select the tool tips it's not going to show
13:56up with this
13:57date so now when I go back to my dashboard
13:59this doesn't need any sort of explanation
14:02if I just
14:02go in and reset my view it's going to do
14:04its job as it should do so thanks for
14:06watching that's pretty
14:07much it for today I just wanted to show you
14:09this really cool trick and just to see if
14:11there's maybe
14:11a use case that you can find for it and
14:13maybe something you might find useful I'm
14:15going to
14:16really struggle to name these use cases
14:17because I don't know how to tableau doesn't
14:19we don't have
14:20sort of a standardized way of naming these
14:22things so if you can think of a nice name
14:24to give this
14:25for the thumbnail maybe we can change it in
14:27the future let me know in the comments
14:28below but
14:29otherwise I'm just going to name it
14:30something like changing dates with the
14:32parameter action
14:32and leave it at that thanks for watching
14:34and I'll catch you in the next video
Tableau | Data visualisation