Quick filters

With a right-click on a pill in the filters shelf, you can find the Show Filter option. It's, in fact, an option available when you click on any pill, but it deserve a focusing on in this section. It's the first option we have seen in this book that adds interactivity in Tableau. A click on Show Filter opens a quick filter card on the Worksheet.

You can automatically add a quick filter by right-clicking on a field in the Data pane or a pill in the View and selecting Show Filter. This shortcut only works when there is at least one pill in the View.

The quick filter allows you, and the people who interact with the visualization, to filter the values without having to open a menu. Here's an example of a quick filter on Category, where Furniture has been deselected:

There are many interesting options when you click on the arrow on the top right of the quick filter card, as highlighted in the following screenshot:

Here's a selection of the most important options:

You can allow single selections or multiple selections. For both options, you can choose between a list, a dropdown list, or a slider. The Wildcard Match is a bit different, as it allows any values to be entered. The following screenshot displays the different quick filters display for a Discrete field:

In Customize, you can remove All from the quick filter list. It may be crucial that you don't allow all the values to be selected at once. This option is often used with a Single Value selection.
In Customize again, the last option adds an Apply button to the quick filter. It's useful when you have a long list of values, and you don't want the visualization to refresh after each selection. This option is often used with a Multiple Values quick filter.
With Only Relevant Values, the quick filter only shows the possible values when considering the other filters. For example, in the following screenshot, only State: District of Columbia is kept, and with the Only Relevant Values option, the Sub-Category quick filter only shows the six existing values:

All Values in Hierarchy is automatically applied when you are using fields from a common hierarchy. With this option, the quick filter shows only the possible values considering the filtered parent value.
All Values in Database always shows all the values of the field, even if the combination of the different filters returns no lines.

A quick filter based on a Continuous field is always represented by a slider. You can customize it to display the readouts, the slider, and the null controls. You can also visually choose between Range of Values, At Least, or At Most.

Now that you know how to add filters and play with quick filters, let's talk about the hierarchies between the filters.

Table of Contents for Quick filters

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Table of Contents for
Quick filters