How To Exclude Marks From The Worksheet

Without using the Tooltip

Let us introduce this subject first with a brief conversation between a customer and an analytics consultant. 

Situation:

Customer: ‘ We would like to no longer see a Tooltip on this VIZ but at the same time be able to exclude values ​​and keep track of the banned marks for further analysis.’

Consultant: We will look further for a solution and share our feedback as soon as possible.’

This situation may sound tricky, considering that the exclude marks feature is enabled by default only within the Tooltip functionality. Fortunately, this is where the Set action part comes in handy.

Wondering how we can resolve this problem?

Without using the tooltip feature?

Check these ingredients first, then follow the short recipe described below. 

Step 1: Create a Fixed Set to select the marks that should be excluded.

Click on one of the marks in the worksheet and choose the Create Set option within the Tooltip.

What is a Fixed Set? A subset of the data, based on single or multiple dimensions. It is created by selecting marks from a visualisation. 

Step 2: Build an Action to change the Set values.

1. From the Toolbar, click on Actions.
2. Select add Action to Change Set values.
3. Within the new window, define a name for the action, select the worksheet where the action will be applied, set the action to run on Select and choose the Fixed Set previously created. 
4. Define the action effect. (Running on every mark will Add values to the set, and clearing the selection will Keep set values.)

What is a Set action? A trigger, used to update the set after interacting directly with a visualisation. Check out this link to learn more about it.

Step 3: Define a Filter by using the Fixed Set.

1. From the Data pane, drag and drop the Fixed set to the filter’s shelves.
2. Within the drop-down menu of the set, select the Show In/Out of Set Option.
3. Edit the filter to include only the marks that are Out of the set.

Keeping only the marks that are Out of the set will exclude the selected points from the viz.

Step 4: Design a Button to Clear the excluded marks.

1. Build a sheet with the dimension used to create the fixed Set (added to the details card) and hide the details using a Polygon as marks.
2. Create an action at the worksheet level to Change Set values On every selection.
3. Within the new window, define a name, select the current worksheet, and choose the Fixed set previously created. 
4. Define the result of the action. Where Running (Select or Clear) will Remove all the values from the set. 

Designing this button will give more control to the user who is interacting with the visualisation to ask questions and get answers. 

Step 5: List the excluded marks.

1. Create a table to list all the banned elements from the main visualisation (By dragging and dropping the different fields : dimensions and measures).
2. From the Data pane, add the Fixed set to the filter’s shelves.
3. Within the drop-down menu of the set, select the Show In/Out of Set Option.
4. Edit the filter to include only the marks that are In the set. 

Keeping only the marks that are In the set will display the excluded points from the main visualisation within the table.

End things with style: Combine all the ingredients within the dashboard view.

1. Add a Vertical container, 
2. Drag and drop the main view and the table (on top of each other)
3. Hide the title of the table.
4. Add the button (the dummy sheet created before) to reset the Fixed Set.
   
5. Deactivate the Tooltip at the main worksheet level.
6. Update the Set actions previously created (To add value or clear value of the Fixed set) by setting the Source Sheets to run from the worksheet within the dashboard (Rather than the main worksheet)

Tableau has brought all the actions created previously on the dashboard level (no need to recreate the same things multiple times).

Bon Appétit !