How to dynamically hide/show worksheets in Tableau in just 5 steps!

Sheet swapping in Tableau can be extremely useful for saving space in a dashboard as you can have two sheets taking up the space of one. They can also allow for the user to have the option of choosing which format they see the data in i.e. a scatter plot and a bar chart. The premise of sheet swapping uses exclude/include filtering to conditionally hide & show sheets respectively, in this example, we’re going to use parameters!

1. Create a parameter with a value for each sheet you want to include in the swap (in this case I used integers and displayed them as strings but you could just use strings). The ‘Value’ is what Tableau will see and ‘Display As’ is what the user will see in the parameter controls so you want these to have easily comprehensible display names.

2. Create a calculation using the parameter to assign each value to a sheet.

3. Drag this calculation to ‘Filters’ on all sheets you want to include in the sheet swapping and select the value which corresponds to the sheet. (PRO TIP: If the currently active value is not correct for the sheet you’re currently on, you can ‘force’ the correct value from Edit Filter -> General -> Custom Value List -> (Type Your Value) and click + -> OK)

4. Make a dashboard, add a container and put your sheets inside it. Be sure to hide the titles of each sheet – they are not affected by the worksheet filter.

5. Click the drop-down arrow on one of the sheets, go to parameters and select the sheet swap parameter.

You should now be able to use the parameter to sheet swap!

But Natasha - I’ve set my Tableau worksheet up properly. Why is my worksheet still not hiding?

Common Issues: 

1. Fixing the size of a worksheet will also prevent the sheet from ‘collapsing’. In Step 4 we created a container for our linked charts. Aside from general good practice, this also allows us to set a size limit on our charts.

2. ‘Gridless’ chart types, such as Bubble Charts & Pie charts that don’t contain a pill on rows/columns won’t hide. The solution is to add a blank pill (like [“”]) to your shelf somewhere and right click -> hide header.

If you're interested in learning more about Tableau check out our upcoming training courses!

- Natasha

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