What is ATTR (...) aka Attribute function in Tableau?

0:00Hey it's Tim here, in today's video we're

0:01talking about the attribute function inside

0:04of Tableau.

0:04In one of my previous videos where I was

0:06talking about new models in Tableau 2020.4,

0:09I used the attribute function to get me out

0:11of a tight spot inside of a calculation.

0:13And so a subscriber simply asked, "hey can

0:15you go into more detail about that function

0:17?" So here we

0:18are. In today's video what I'm going to do

0:20is tell you what the attribute function is,

0:22some use cases

0:24for it, and then lastly some limitations to

0:26be aware of. Okay let's get stuck in. Okay

0:28to get this

0:28video started it's really important you pay

0:30attention to this next step. I need you to

0:32connect

0:32to the American Superstore sales data set.

0:35That's the second one here on the bottom

0:37left. Okay

0:38as long as you connect into the American

0:39one this is going to work because

0:41essentially I need the

0:42fact that there are cities in the United

0:44States that the name exists in multiple

0:46states. You'll

0:47see what I mean by that in a little bit.

0:50Okay so when we're working with Tableau and

0:53you want to

0:53know what an attribute function is or you

0:55want to know what any function is, you can

0:57actually just

0:58look inside of the product itself to find

0:59out the meaning. I'm going to go ahead and

1:01open the

1:02calculation window here, create a

1:03calculated field and you'll notice that

1:06mine opens up with this

1:07side pane enabled already. Now if you can't

1:09see this don't worry there's this tiny

1:11little arrow

1:11here. This is always frustrating for new

1:13users because when they start out with

1:15Tableau it opens

1:16this window and you don't necessarily know

1:18that there's more to offer when you click

1:20this button.

1:20But when you click this button essentially

1:22you get this list and these are all the

1:24functions that are

1:24available in Tableau. Now at the very top

1:26they're actually grouped okay so you can

1:29see all the

1:29different groupings for these functions. If

1:32I go down to this aggregate grouping you

1:34can see that

1:35the attribute one is right at the top so

1:37that's the first clue. The attribute

1:39function is a type

1:40of aggregation inside of Tableau. What does

1:42it do? Well there's a description right

1:44here so returns

1:45a value of the given expression if it only

1:48has a single value for all the rows in the

1:50group.

1:51Otherwise it displays an asterisk. Null

1:53values are ignored okay so that's

1:55essentially what it does.

1:56Let's take a look at that and I'm just

1:58going to put this here to the bottom so we

2:00can sort of keep

2:00it in view whilst we work with it. We're

2:03also going to work in the data viz pane

2:04whilst that's open. So

2:06I'm going to go ahead and go to location. I

2:08'm going to open up the hierarchy by

2:09clicking this

2:10down arrow here. Then I'm going to drag

2:13city onto rows then state onto rows as well

2:16and what we'll

2:17get is this table. It's a very simple table

2:20that has city on the left state on the

2:22right. Now you

2:23will notice that there are some cities here

2:25that have multiple states. This makes sense

2:28because

2:28Arlington is both the name of a city in

2:30Texas and in Virginia and so on and so

2:33forth. So you get the

2:34idea and Obern exists in three states as a

2:37name. So now we've got this set up

2:40correctly we can

2:41actually start to see what the attribute

2:43function does. What I'm actually going to

2:45do is I'm going

2:45to bring this calculation window back into

2:47context now. I'm just going to call this

2:50attr state. Okay

2:52and what we're going to do is wrap the

2:54state inside of the attribute function. So

2:57let's go

2:58ahead and just write state when we do that

2:59tableau auto complete. So when I just click

3:02that

3:02and then what I'm going to do is I'm

3:03actually going to highlight this is another

3:05hack you can do

3:06when you highlight a field then you double

3:08click the function. Tableau automatically

3:10puts the

3:10function around the thing you've

3:11highlighted. So that's a quick way of

3:13adding attribute to the

3:14whole entire state. Click apply and now we

3:16've got that attribute function here on the

3:18bottom left.

3:19I'm going to go ahead and drag that next to

3:21the state and you'll see essentially

3:25nothing happens.

3:25And this is fundamentally because of the

3:28level of detail that we're working with

3:30inside of this view. Because we are at the

3:33state level of detail the attribute

3:35function is working

3:36correctly. If I just go back to the

3:39description and we just click on this text

3:41here. When you

3:42click on these sometimes they're a little

3:44bit buggy but when you click on the name

3:45here in

3:46the calculation window this always works.

3:48Now returns the value of the given

3:49expression if it

3:50only has a single value for all the rows in

3:53the group. So it's working in this sense

3:55because

3:56everything only has a single value because

3:58the level of detail we're working at is

3:59state. So

4:00there's a one-to-one match for nearly

4:02everything for everything in this table in

4:03fact. Okay now

4:05the thing it will do if there's multiple

4:07values is return an asterisk. So the way we

4:09do that the way

4:10we create this scenario in our view is to

4:12just remove state. So I'm going to go ahead

4:14and remove

4:14state and leave the attribute only. Okay

4:17and you'll notice that now we get the aster

4:20isk that

4:20it was talking about earlier on. The other

4:23thing to note is that it's calling our

4:25calculation and

4:26aggregate. This agg notation lets you know

4:29that this is an aggregate. Okay so we've

4:31somehow managed

4:32to create an aggregate function around

4:34state names essentially. So it's somehow

4:37sort of creating an

4:38aggregation around these things and

4:39essentially returning just one value if it

4:41's the only value

4:42and an asterisk if there's multiple values

4:45and that's essentially what the attribute

4:47function

4:47does. It's pretty much it in a nutshell. If

4:50this is all you take away from the video

4:52then that's

4:52all you need to know. Of course there's a

4:54little bit more to this so we're going to

4:56try and dive

4:56into that in more detail. Let's try and do

4:58that. Okay so we now know what the

5:00attribute function

5:01does. Let's talk about when you might use

5:04this. Okay now if I just bring out a bar

5:06chart here

5:07let's bring cells onto columns to build out

5:10a bar chart and what you'll see here is

5:12that you get

5:12some nice bars here. If I just sort this by

5:16biggest to least you'll see that if I just

5:19undo

5:19that step actually if I just hover over

5:22this particular city Jacksonville you'll

5:25see that

5:25the attribute state has a star and if I go

5:28to the one above it California is in that

5:31place. Now

5:33what is quite common is when you're doing

5:35things like blending inside of Tableau you

5:38will often get

5:38a scenario where multiple items match to

5:41one value and in the visualization that you

5:43're asking Tableau

5:44to create it is not actually possible for

5:47it to aggregate that particular value down

5:50any more or

5:50any less and so it will just return a star

5:53in its place. Okay so in this case if I was

5:55to take

5:56attribute state away from here and put it

5:58on the tooltip you'll see that when I hover

6:01over

6:02what's this Columbus I get a star if I go

6:05to Detroit I get Michigan. Okay so this is

6:07actually

6:08a typical use case for the attribute

6:09function it's essentially telling you hey

6:11there's more detail

6:13underneath this data set. Now back in the

6:15old day you couldn't really solve this

6:17problem easily

6:18because it was really difficult to sort of

6:20create a way for people to drill in you

6:22probably have to

6:22have another chart somewhere else now we

6:25have charts and tooltips and you can just

6:27create a

6:27chart that shows okay yeah this particular

6:30one city exists in these three different

6:32states and

6:32so you can break that view down a little

6:35bit more but in the olden days you couldn't

6:37do that so this

6:38was actually a nice way of letting the user

6:40know there's more detail here they need to

6:41dig into so

6:42that's one use case for that. Now for the

6:44next use case this is the one that actually

6:46came up in the

6:472020.4 video where sometimes when you're

6:49working inside of a calculation you come up

6:51against this

6:52aggregation error okay I'm going to sort of

6:54forcibly create a similar scenario just by

6:56opening up the calculation window and we're

6:58basically going to create like a pretty

7:00pointless

7:00calculation but it should we should try and

7:03make it sort of valid if that makes sense.

7:05So I'm just

7:05going to call this sales in city okay and

7:09what I'm going to say if the city is null

7:12yeah so if is null

7:14city let's just type this in

7:18then null

7:24else sum of sales okay and and man I have

7:32written this in some sort of camel case I

7:34don't know

7:35anything about here so let's just use the

7:37suggestions that it's uh it's sort of

7:40giving

7:40us here I accidentally clicked else if in

7:42that case let's just type in else and you

7:44'll see if I

7:45just sort of um if I just sort of make this

7:47larger you'll see that I'm getting an error

7:51here okay and

7:51if I go down to the bottom here it says

7:53cannot mix aggregate and non-aggregate

7:56comparisons or results

7:57in if expressions okay so what's going on

8:00here okay let me sort of say this in plain

8:03English

8:03it's basically saying that over here I'm

8:05doing some aggregation I'm summing

8:07everything up

8:08and yet over here I'm basically just

8:11checking a single city so it's basically

8:13saying hey you

8:14can't simultaneously ask me to add

8:16everything up but then the beginning of the

8:18calculation asks me

8:20to compare with something that isn't added

8:22up okay so it wants me to aggregate the

8:24city in this

8:24particular case now the way I do that is

8:27coincidentally with the aggregate function

8:30okay

8:31and the reason it makes sense here is

8:32because when we then bring it into the view

8:34as long as

8:35we've got city on rows this calculation is

8:37still going to make sense so let's go ahead

8:40type in

8:40attr so this is the trick I used last time

8:43essentially just helped me clear out this

8:45error

8:46that I was getting and now you see the

8:48calculation is valid so if you're trying to

8:50write a calculation

8:51and you're getting into some aggregation

8:53issues and the thing you're trying to

8:55aggregate doesn't

8:56make sense to aggregate like a name or

8:57dimension or something like that that doesn

9:00't make sense

9:00because it's it's a sort of a grouping or

9:03an attribute of a dimension then this is

9:05what you

9:06do you essentially use the attribute

9:08function to sort of try and get past that

9:10error and now you

9:11can see the calculation is valid if I just

9:13go ahead and use that in my field I just

9:15say apply

9:16cells and city drag that next to that and

9:19you'll see it's exactly the same chart

9:21there is no issue

9:22here but if I was to remove the attribute

9:24item there then it would cause us an issue

9:27so that's

9:28pretty much the other use case so there's

9:30three use cases really like I showed you

9:32telling you

9:32there's multiple items inside of a

9:34particular grouping or particular level of

9:37detail the second

9:38is getting information into tooltips so

9:40when someone hovers over a bar chart or

9:43something

9:43like that where there is more detail in

9:45there then they can see that I'll just

9:48close this and I'll

9:49show you again this is still sort of the

9:51case here when I hover over Springfield

9:53here I get a star

9:54when I go to Jacksonville I get a star when

9:57I go to San Diego I only get California

9:58because that's

9:59the only item there and then the other way

10:02of doing this is of course in a calculation

10:05window

10:05where you have a little bit of a challenge

10:08so if I go in here cells and city you're

10:11trying to do

10:12an aggregation it's not letting you this is

10:14what's going on okay now we're not done yet

10:17because

10:18there's still more places you can see

10:19something called attribute okay what we

10:21have here is a very

10:22simple view and I'm going to actually work

10:23from here onwards I'm going to remove cells

10:25and city

10:26from the top row so we just got cells and

10:29city in context now the next thing I want

10:33to do is add

10:34something into this view and the thing I

10:36want to add is going to be at a higher

10:38level of detail

10:39than city okay so I'm going to add the

10:42country field let's go ahead here sorry it

10:46's a little

10:46bit further up this hierarchy I'm going to

10:49add country onto detail now when I do that

10:51it doesn't

10:52change anything meaningful in the

10:53visualization which is a good thing okay

10:56but watch what happens

10:57as I start to expand these items let's just

11:00add a region and now you'll notice that

11:02Springfield

11:03because it exists in multiple states can

11:06also exist in multiple regions okay so you

11:09can see

11:09here that this region is sort of west this

11:13is south this is east and this is central

11:17okay

11:18and so what's actually happening here is

11:20this our region field is controlling the

11:22level of detail in

11:23our visualization I know that because it's

11:25got this little icon here which is the same

11:28as this

11:28one here in the marks pane which is

11:30basically telling you that hey this item is

11:32actually

11:33affecting the lowest level of granularity

11:35in the visualization how do I get around

11:37that well this

11:38is how if I want to keep region in the view

11:40so that it can be used in a tool tip but I

11:42don't

11:43want it to affect the visualization what I

11:45can do is I can essentially turn this into

11:47an attribute

11:48so if I go in here click this drop down you

11:50'll see that one of the items here just

11:53after dimension is

11:54attribute and when I do that notice that it

11:57no longer affects my visualization so this

12:00is yet

12:00another use case for this particular

12:03capability it's going to do exactly the

12:05same thing so if I

12:06go back to Springfield you'll see that I

12:09now get a star for my regions okay

12:10essentially what this

12:12has done is it stopped region from

12:14controlling the way my visualization works

12:16it stopped it from

12:17sort of messing up the level of detail and

12:19actually that's a very deliberate trick

12:21that you can use if

12:22you just want to bring something into the

12:24view but you don't want it to interfere

12:25with your chart

12:26especially if it's the dimension you can

12:28just bring it in you can do this with

12:30virtually

12:30anything so if I go ahead here and get the

12:32product name if I put this on detail you

12:35notice it

12:35completely messes up my chart turn it into

12:38an attribute and boom my chart goes back to

12:40normal

12:41but now the product information is in the

12:44view the problem is here is that there's

12:46just so many

12:47products I'm always going to see a star

12:49here so it's really sort of pointless but

12:51if I need the

12:52product name in there this is going to work

12:55now if you're really advanced with Tableau

12:57and you'll get

12:58into use cases where having this

13:00information in the marks pane is necessary

13:02in order to achieve

13:03something else but that's for another video

13:04and that's for another day so that's pretty

13:06much the

13:07last use case you'll see for this okay

13:09limitations this is all we've got left to

13:11cover now there are

13:12some limitations with using the attribute

13:15function I've just reset the view here so

13:17we're back to a

13:18plain old data source I've cleared

13:19everything from the sheet and we've pretty

13:22much reset the work

13:22because if we've started from a fresh now

13:25one of the things I want to show you is to

13:26do with

13:27dynamic sorting what I'm going to do is I'm

13:30going to drag sales onto text then I'm

13:32going to drag

13:33subcategory onto rows this gives us a list

13:36of subcategories and essentially the values

13:38that go

13:39with them now I'm also going to create a

13:41calculated field I'll right click on the

13:43field create

13:43calculated field and what I'll do for this

13:46one is I will just set this to an attribute

13:50as we did

13:51before so I'll just wrap this in the

13:53attribute this time I'll type it out just

13:55just to show that

13:56I'm a lazy person and I'll call this ATTR

13:58sub cat okay so now we're pretty much ready

14:01to go that's

14:02all good hit apply perfect it's now gone

14:04over here to the bottom left hand side now

14:07if I drag that

14:09next to the subcategory you'll see that

14:11basically it says the same thing but when

14:13it comes to sorting

14:14it's a slightly different story if I go to

14:16the first one here and I click sort you'll

14:18see that

14:19I have the full capability of sorting I can

14:22do all the sorting I want including any

14:24dynamic sorting

14:26based on a field so you can see that the

14:28sort changes depending on what I'm actually

14:30counting

14:31here the minimum the maximum each time this

14:33is changing this is called dynamic sorting

14:36however if I then go to my second one let

14:38me just clear the sort when I go over here

14:42and I go to

14:42sort you'll see that I can only really sort

14:45it by the manual formats there's no dynamic

14:48sorting

14:49available to me here because I'm using an

14:51attribute function around the dimension so

14:53just a word of caution you lose this

14:55ability when you're using an attribute

14:57function so just be

14:58aware of that if you need to sort with an

15:00attribute you lose a lot of capability okay

15:02the next one is

15:03slightly easier to show you okay let's just

15:06open up a new sheet and what I want to do

15:08here is I

15:09want to create a grand total so what I'm

15:11going to do is I'm going to drag sales put

15:13it onto text again

15:14order date onto rows actually I want to put

15:17this on columns not rows and then I want to

15:19bring the

15:19subcategory here again okay and here we

15:22have a list of values now the use case here

15:25is that if

15:26you've used an attribute inside of a

15:28calculation what could happen sometimes is

15:30that the grand

15:31total won't render correctly okay let me

15:33show you like a forced example it's not

15:36quite the same as

15:37sort of a standard example you'd bump along

15:39because you would never write a calculation

15:41like this but

15:42I've just got to try and sort of recreate

15:43the scenario here so let's just close the

15:46side window

15:46because I now know what the attribute

15:48function is and I'm just going to sort of

15:50forcibly type

15:50something so I'm going to say if attribute

15:56not the subcategory if attribute actually

16:02yeah we can

16:02actually reuse that if attribute sub

16:04category let's use that let's use the same

16:06field we've just

16:07brought in I was going to do something else

16:09but we've already created a function that

16:11does that

16:11equals and let's say we're checking for

16:14something here a simple string let's say

16:18art

16:20then some of cells okay and I forgot my

16:24brackets so nothing

16:26automatically formatted let's just close

16:29that off and capital s for cells and now it

16:33gets going man

16:34I cannot spell here we go then some cells

16:36uh end okay we don't need to do an else

16:38because there's

16:39nothing else coming after that it just

16:40assumes that it's null if there's nothing

16:42after that okay

16:43so if attribute equals r then some of cells

16:45end okay so we'll call this attribute cells

16:48just to

16:49show that it's only going to show uh if the

16:51art attribute is basically the item so I'm

16:54going to

16:54hit apply hit okay and what we're going to

16:57do is we're going to remove this cells

16:59value from the

17:00view and we are going to put this on text

17:03instead so so far so good it's doing

17:06exactly as we

17:07expected we're getting the individual

17:09values for art and for nothing else however

17:12if I then go and

17:14enable a grand total a column grand total

17:16in this case you'll see the total doesn't

17:19work correctly

17:20and so this is another use case for

17:22attribute or limitation is that grand total

17:25sometimes won't

17:26render correctly now the fix for this is to

17:28use a min or max but then again might not

17:30render the

17:31right values so just be very careful about

17:33how you sort of solve this this really

17:35typically points to

17:37where the data prep issue you probably want

17:39to solve this problem further back in the

17:41stack as

17:41it were as the data comes in maybe doing

17:43something like order of operations to get

17:45around this problem

17:46LODs exist now as well so you can actually

17:48do this sort of more dynamically using that

17:51anyway

17:52but just something to be aware of and then

17:54the last thing is to do with performance I

17:56'm just

17:56going to build a very simple list actually

17:59maybe what I'll do is I will take a

18:01category

18:02and subcategory and put that next to each

18:05other okay so we've got a bunch of subc

18:08ategories that

18:09are part of categories now when we use the

18:11attribute function in this particular use

18:14case

18:14I'm not actually going to write anything I

18:15'm just going to stay on the screen what the

18:17attribute

18:18function has to do when it looks at each

18:20grouping here by grouping I'm talking about

18:22the categories

18:23is that for each category it has to go and

18:25look at what's inside of the subcategory so

18:29it will

18:29start with bookcases and then realize that

18:31bookcases and tables are not the same thing

18:33and so by doing that what that means is it

18:36has to load the entire data set in there

18:38okay now

18:39one of the things is that Tableau is

18:40actually very efficient and it sort of when

18:42you use something

18:43like an extract it pre-indexes the data and

18:45it understands a little bit about what's

18:47going on

18:48and so if you just need the smallest or the

18:51largest value in a particular table it's

18:54actually not a

18:55good idea to use attribute if the result

18:57would be achieved the same way if you used

19:00min or max

19:01okay because min or max will be much faster

19:03at finding what's first and last than

19:05something like

19:06an attribute so it's something to be aware

19:08of sometimes you're using attribute to

19:10solve a

19:10problem in the visualization when in fact

19:12you don't actually even need the capability

19:14that

19:15attribute is offering you it's just getting

19:17past the viz like I showed you earlier so

19:19in those

19:19cases you might be better off using using

19:21something like min and max to get around

19:23the problem rather

19:24than using something like attribute so it's

19:27a bit of a weird one to sort of show you

19:28and I need to

19:29think sort of more creatively in terms of

19:31examples maybe if you've got an example

19:33post it in the

19:34comments below and other people can benefit

19:36from that but that's pretty much it for

19:37limitations

19:38those are the three kind of key ones those

19:40are the ones that tabla also document on

19:41their help pages

19:42and that are worth highlighting so that's

19:44pretty much it that is the attribute

19:46function in a

19:46nutshell and there's definitely more we

19:48could have dived into but fundamentally

19:50this is all you

19:50really need to understand in order to use

19:53this day to day the first one is just using

19:56it to tell you

19:56if there's more detail underneath the thing

19:59you're analyzing it will show you a star if

20:01there is and

20:02it won't if there isn't it will show you

20:04the lowest level item in that particular

20:06group the other use

20:07cases inside of a calculation and the final

20:09use case is in this view where you need to

20:12change the

20:12level of detail without removing

20:14information from the marks pane the rows

20:16columns or anything else

20:18okay that's pretty much it in a nutshell if

20:19you've enjoyed this you know what to do if

20:21you haven't

20:22let me know in the comments below and I'll

20:23catch you in the next video