Creating A Dynamic "Parameter" With A Tableau Data Blend

4/14/2016
CreatingaDynamicParameterwithaTableauDataBlend|DrawingwithNumbers
DrawingwithNumbers
Thoughts on data visualization and Tableau
Creating a Dynamic Parameter with a Tableau

Data Blend
As of June 2015, Tableau is actively looking at dierent aspects of the (complicated) subject of
dynamic parameters. See Dynamic Parameters: The Results are In for an overview, and
Dynamic Parameters Update for continuing updates.
Currently (July 2013), the #1 most-voted-for Idea for Tableau is Dynamic Parameters. Here, Ill show
you a technique for using Tableau data blending to create a dynamic, data-driven
parameter.Were going to use a loosely coupled secondary data source to get the information
associated with the parameter and return that information to the primary data source, where it can be
http://drawingwithnumbers.artisart.org/creatingadynamicparameterwithatableaudatablend/
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used in further calculations. Some examples of where this can be useful:
Choose one value to build a comparison to other values, such as nding the distance from a
chosen origin city to a set of destination cities, or a market basket-type analysis where we
want to compare one against others.
Set the limits and input data to an algorithm that is then used to create other results, for
example to get a starting set of data to use to build a projection, such as an executive
retirement forecast model.
Read on for a description of the technique and demos of all three options!
Process for Creating the Dynamic Parameter

Here are the 7 major steps for putting this together:
1. Set up your primary (main) and secondary (parameter) data sources.
2. Build whatever calculated elds from the secondary that need to be used in in the primary.
3. Create a Blend Field with a value of 1 in both your primary and secondary. This is necessary
to stop the Fields cannot be used from the [secondary] data source error:
4. Build the initial view in the primary.

5. Add the necessary lter(s) from your secondary data source. There are a few steps to this:
a. Drag the ltered dimension from the secondary onto the Filters Shelf.
b. Choose the Select from List radio button.
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c. Click OK to close the Filter dialog.

d. Click on the pill on the Filters Shelf and choose Quick Filter.
e. On the Quick Filter, edit the Quick Filter settings as necessary, for example to make it a
single select lter, and choose one of the options. Depending on your view, it may change
radically here and look totally wrong. The next step will solve that.
6. Turn on the relationship for the Blend Field, and turn o
the relationships on as many elds
in the secondary as you need, which is probably all of them except for the Blend Field.
7. Finish setting up the view.
8. If you have multiple worksheets for a dashboard, you can set up scoped or global lters.
Demonstration #1: Choosing a Customer and Showing Pro t & Sales for
Customers within X% Sales of Selected Customer
This is a totally made-up scenario using Superstore Sales to do a market basket analysis. Here, were
picking a particular customer, nding out their sales, then showing every other customer that has sales
within X% of the selected customer. Heres the view:
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SalesRange
ExecRetirementForecastModel
DistancefromSelected
SalesRangeWorkout
ExecRetirementForecastWorkout
DistancefromSelectedWorkout
There are a few other ways we could go about this, such as:
Using a parameter to identify the customer. This would have to be updated every time
theres a change in the list of customers.
Putting the basket creation logic into Custom SQL or custom queries. This depends on skills that
not all Tableau users have.
Data blend and table calculations. This is powerful, but complicated and potentially the
slowest option. Also depends on skills that not all Tableau users have.
This is how I set this up the data blend for a dynamic parameter:
1. For this example, I used Superstore Sales and simply duplicated the data source to make the
secondary source of Customer Names. In practice, Id probably use a separate data source that
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just had the names and sales to reduce the size of the secondary source (in other words, use the
minimum number of dimensions and measures).
2. In Superstore Sales, I built the following calculations in the primary data source:
Sales for Selected This is the sum of sales from the secondary
Sales Range Filter Used to lter the customer list based on the % dierence, using a
Sales Range from Selected Customer parameter.
IF(ABS(SUM([Sales])[SalesforSelected])/[SalesforSelected])<=[SalesRangefromSele
1
END
Selected Customer Identies the Selected Customer from the secondary so we can use
that on the Color, Shape, and Size Shelf:
IFMIN([CustomerName])==MIN([dupSampleSuperstoreEnglish(Extract)].[CustomerName]
"SelectedCustomer"
ELSE
"Other"
END
Size 1 Has the formula SIZE()-1 and a Compute Using of Customer, it is used for the title.
3. In both Superstore Sales and the duplicate Superstore Sales, created a Blend Field dimension with
a value of 1.
4. Now to build the initial view:
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5. Now to add the quick lter on the Customer Name from the secondary source. Once I choose one
customer, theres now only one mark in the view:
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This is because Customer Name exists in both data sources and Tableau is automatically linking
the two dimensions. So
6. In the secondary data source, turn on the relationship for the Blend Field, and turn o
the
relationship on Customer Name:
You will now see all the marks again, as in the view from step 3 above.
7. To nish up this view, I put the Selected Customer eld on the Color Shape, and Size Shelves, put
the Sales for Selected Customer on the Level of Detail Shelf, put the Sales Range Filter on the
Filters Shelf ltering for non-Null values, edited the title and added a couple of reference lines:
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And there you have it, a completely dynamic view with no SQL necessary, and the only table calculation
is to give us some extra information in the worksheet title.
Demonstration #2: Executive 401(k) Retirement Forecasting Model

This example comes from a scenario where I was helping another Tableau user to build a retirement
calculator for executives, where based on some data about each executive and some choices a scenario
would be built of what their particular 401(k) and assets would look like. Heres a simplied
reproduction of one of the views:
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SalesRange
SalesRangeWorkout
1. Setting up the data. This example is a bit more complicated because of the data arrangement and
the goals. In the main data, there is a row for each executive:
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To build the forecast, were using table calculations. Since table calculations require something to
address over, we need a set of dates.Unlike set of dates need to be the primary data source. The
reason why is that if we make the executive data the primary, it doesnt have enough level of detail to
show the individual dates from the secondary, and we see a bunch of asterisks:
An alternative solution that would get rid of the asteriskswould be to do a Cartesian aka cross
product query of a set of dates for every executive. In that case, wed have everything needed
to do the view and could use a regular lter on the executive. However, Custom SQL isnt
everyones cup of tea, so we have this data blend solution as an alternative.
Therefore, we make the dates primary, and executive data secondary, then use the dimension
lter on the secondary to pull the information for a particular executive. This ability to lter a
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dimension in the secondary without needing a linking dimension in the primary is one of the most
useful new additions to data blending in v8. For the date data, I used Joe Makos 2 row data source
scaold technique. You can see his Think Data Thursday presentationon data scaoldingfor complete
details, the short form is that we take a data source with two values, then assign dates to them (which
can be dynamically calculated), then turn on domain padding in Tableau via the Show Missing Values
option to ll in the dates in-between. So this:
is brought into Tableau, then with a [Years to Retirement] parameter and this calculated eld for
the Date:
CASE[Value]
WHEN1THENTODAY()
WHEN2THENDATEADD('year',[YearstoRetirement],TODAY())
END
Becomes this in the view when using the YEAR(Date) aggregation:
And then we turn on domain padding to ll in the missing years:
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And end up with this padded out set of years:
Tableaus domain padding occurs before the blended data is added, so we can use this padded source
(no SQL required!) to blend in the executive data. For more details, see my earlier post onBlending
Secondary Data into Primary without Linking Data in Primary.So thats step 1 of the process.Heres the
rest:
2. In the primary data source, I built out a set of parameters and calculated elds for the data. For
example, the 401(k) Balance calc has the following formula, where the 401(k) Growth Rate and
Annual Contribution are both parameters. The table calculations all have a Compute Using of the
Date.
IFFIRST()==0THEN
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SUM([ExecutiveData(executivedata.xlsx)].[Starting401(k)Balance])
ELSE
PREVIOUS_VALUE(0)*(1+[401(k)GrowthRate])+[Annual401(k)Contribution]
END
3. In both the primary and secondary, build the Blend Field with a value of 1.
4. The initial view is just the padded out date. I work with this way for table calculations to get the
addressing and partitioning right, then will duplicate the sheet later to create the nal view.
5. Add the lter on the Executive Name from the secondary.
6. Turn on Blend Field as a linking dimension.
7. Add the table calculations, set their Compute Usings and validate, add the parameter
controls, build the title, etc. Once that was working, then I duplicated the worksheet and used
those settings to build the nal view:
Ok, so thats a modeling application of data blending.
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Demonstration #3: Distance from Selected Origin City to Destination

Cities
This one isbased on a Tableau forums thread from last week. The goal here is to allow the user to
pick an origin city and return the distance (and potentially other data about) destination cities.
There are a couple of other ways to go about this:
Build a data source that has a row for every origin/destination pair with latitudes and
longitudes for both, and potentially also pre-computed distances. This is the ultimately the
most exible in terms of what can be done in Tableau, and requires the most eort and
resources to set up.
Use a parameter to select the city, then a table calculation to propagate the
latitude/longitude for the selected city to all the other cities, then further table calculations to
compute the distance. This was what I rst tried out, and Jim Wahl completed in the thread.
The parameter would have to be updated any time new origins are added.
Heres the alternative:Use a secondary data source to select the origin city, then feed back the
latitude/longitude of that for use in a dynamic distance calculation. With the computations
happening as regular aggregates instead of table calculations, we can then take advantage of
global & scoped lters, and get some nice dynamic ltering, and will automatically update when
new origin cities are added. This should be faster than the parameter-based solution, and has a
smaller data storage footprint than the fully computed data source. Heres the view:
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SalesRange
SalesRangeWorkout
One more time through the 7 steps:

1. I rst set up two data sources (one for origin and one for destination) to get the latitude and
longitude of all the cities. Because were needing to compute a distance between the origin
city and other cities, we cant use Tableaus built-in generated latitude and longitude.
Heres a nice little hack for using Tableau to get your latitude/longitude data: Build a map with
the points you want, then use Worksheet->Copy->Data, then Ctrl+V to paste the data back into
Tableau. Voila, instant geocoding!
2. Then I created elds in the Superstore Sales primary to bring in the origin and destination
latitude and longitude, and used a Great Circle Distance formula from the Tableau
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Knowledgebase to make a Distance calculated eld.And I created an Origin City Flag in the
primary to identify the selected city for color & shape:
IFMIN([State+City])==MIN([OriginGeoData].[State+City])THEN
"Origin"
ELSE
"Destination"
END
And heres a State+City calc for the Origin data source to use for the lter:
[State]+""+[City]
3. The next step is to create Blend Field with a value of 1 in both the primary and secondary
sources.
4. Now to build the initial view. From the primary, drag the City to the Level of Detail and
Tableau will automatically include the State & Country and start a map:
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5. Now to add the lter from the secondary. Switch to the secondary data source, drag the
State+City dimension onto the Filters Shelf and pick a city from the Filters dialog. The view will
change to only the selected city:
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6. Next, turn on the relationship for the Blend Field, and turn o
the relationships for
Country/Region, City, and State:
7. To build the rest of the view, I put Distance on the Filters Shelf and used an At Most lter so the
users couldnt lter out 0 distance and hide the origin city, then set it up to be a Quick Filter. Origin
City went on Shape and Size, and Distance on Color:
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To get the origin city to be red and the rest blue, I tried several dierent techniques such as
multiple discretes on colors, dierent levels of detail, and dual axes, and all of them had their
issues. Then I gured out I could use a diverging red/blue color palette. Because only the selected
origin city has a distance of 0, I set the center of palette to 1, so the origin would be red and the
rest of the marks shades of blue:
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Then to demonstrate how we can use the the lter across worksheets, I set up another worksheet
to be the title:
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Then those sheets could be laid out in a dashboard:
Potential Issues and Complications

There are a few rough spots with this technique that might aect you as you work with it:
As you can see onthemap above, there are some blue circles on top of the star. Because were
using data from a secondary source, in some cases we cant getthedata (and therefore the
marks) to sort and therefore layer the marks in the way that we might want.
We also cant control the sort of Quick Filters on the secondary the way we can for Quick Filters
from the primary.
Tableau always puts a Null value at the bottom of each Quick Filter from the secondary whether it
is actually needed or not, this is because Tableau does not fully compare the domain of the lter
from the secondary to the primary data source.
If the primary and secondary have dates or datetime elds that have the same name and you are
using those dimensions in the view, then the issue with linking elds I identied in this post will
crop up. Youll have to manually turn o the relationships using Edit->Data Relationships.
If you have additional linking dimensions turned on besides the manufactured Blend Field your
results may not be what you might expect, due to how Tableau blending and lters interact. I
hope to explore some of those details in a future blog post.
If any of these potential issues are showstoppers, the workaround is to use dierent method, such as
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building a scaold data source to use as the primary that has enough detail to enable the ltering and
computation to occur in the scaold source.
Conclusion
This can be a useful technique when scaolding is not an option and a dynamic solution is needed for
doing a comparison to other like with the map and similar customer views, or performing an
algorithmic computation across a set of rows of data as in the executive retirement calculator.Thanks
to Richard Leeke, Shawn Wallwork, and Joe Mako for their help at dierent times in putting this post
together, and go forth and blend!
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This entry was posted in Tableau v8 - The Kraken, Tips and Techniques and tagged blending, data
blending, ltering, lters, forecasting, maps, parameters on August 2, 2013
[http://drawingwithnumbers.artisart.org/creating-a-dynamic-parameter-with-a-tableau-data-blend/] by
Jonathan Drummey.
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24 thoughts on Creating a Dynamic Parameter with a Tableau Data Blend
Shawn Wallwork
August 6, 2013 at 2:42 pm
This look cool and promising Jonathan! Itll take awhile to digest. I was wondering why youd gone forum
silent, now I know. This was a lot of work. Thanks,
Shawn
Jonathan Drummey
Post author
August 6, 2013 at 3:08 pm
Thanks! Ive mostly been quiet with working on my TCC presentation and summer play.
Patrick Van Der Hyde

August 8, 2013 at 10:22 am
Very helpful and already put to use Jonathan! Thank you for all the hard work.
Jonathan Drummey
Post author
August 8, 2013 at 10:50 am
Thats great, and thanks!
Eric Chesebro
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October 24, 2013 at 7:27 am
Jonathan,
Thank you very much for this very in-depth and thorough representation of dynamic parameters. I was
able to use your example to get exactly what I was looking for using version 8 of Tableau Public.
Question is Demo #3 able to be reproduced in version 6 or 7? I seem to be having issues with the
data source linkings in 6 and 7 and am unable to reproduce in these versions.
Thank you in advance.
Eric
Jonathan Drummey
Post author
October 24, 2013 at 12:42 pm
Hi Eric,
All three of the demos depend on the new feature in Tableau v8 where we can use a dimension lter on
a secondary data source, so they wont work in version 6 or 7. In version 7 and earlier, what Tableau
showed as a dimension pill from the secondary on the Filters Shelf was really an ATTR() aggregate, so it
would return * where there wasnt sucient level of detail. The workarounds for v6 and v7 are to
increase the level of detail in the primary (and potentially vastly multiply your data), or to use static
parameters.
Jonathan
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Nick Silhacek
June 12, 2014 at 11:32 am
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You mentioned that in practice, Id probably use a separate data source that just had the names to
reduce the size of the secondary source.
My question is, how does the calculated eld Sales for Selected work, then? I was able to get
everything but that to work using your suggested practice.
Jonathan Drummey
Post author
June 14, 2014 at 9:27 am
Oops! Great catch, thanks! I think that might have been leftover from an earlier draft, Ive updated the
text to say use the customer name *and* sales, to have the minimum number of dimensions. There is
an alternative using a secondary source with just the customer name and then a table calc to get the
sales from the primary for the chosen customer, however that can run into issues with ltering (which is
part of why I came up with this particular solution).
Jonathan
Kelly
June 19, 2014 at 1:11 am
Hi Jonathan You cant imagine how many times Ive hit this page and downloaded this workbook. It is
so helpful in so many situations. Just wanted to say thanks!
Jonathan Drummey
Post author
June 19, 2014 at 6:22 am
Youre welcome! And to return an appreciation, Im in the middle of designing a dashboard right now
and Im regularly thinking, What would Kelly do?
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Sumesh
September 12, 2014 at 8:37 am
Hi Jonathan,
Appreciate the information you presented. I followed the rst one exactly like you presented (x% from
selected customer), but Tableau does not allow me to create a quick lter on the secondary duplicated
datasource by customer name. Am I missing something? Thanks.
Sumesh
Jonathan,
It actually worked after a few iterations of trial and error. I had to drop the customer name in the lter
and from there I was able to create a quick lter. The only issue I am now seeing is that the quick lter
has a null option in it and I have not been successful in removing it. Thanks.
Jonathan Drummey
Post author
Unfortunately, Tableau always puts in a Null option on lters using dimensions from secondary sources.
This is a just in case option for the situation where the primary source doesnt have corresponding
values in the secondary, Tableau doesnt go the extra step to determine whether the primary and
secondary have complete domains. Heres the link to voting for this to change:
http://community.tableausoftware.com/ideas/2847
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Alex
February 16, 2015 at 12:26 pm
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Jonathan Thanks, this is a great post a year or two old and still going strong!
Question: I have tried to replicate your example with my data (which is using campaigns instead of
customers). I followed the steps exactly as you wrote and have studied your workbook, but for some
reason my viz is not displaying the other marks (in your example, the 143 other customers). It seems
that since my secondary lter (Campaign Name) is on the Filters shelf, it is limiting the view to that
specic campaign, which obviously defeats the purpose since Im trying to show how this particular
campaign stacks up against all other campaigns. This leads me to believe that my join might be
incorrect, but I have double-checked it and found no dierence between your workbook and mine. Any
thoughts on where I might be going astray?
Best,
Alex
Alex
and of course I gure it out as soon as I posted that (feel free to remove it). I was still linking on the
Campaign eld in addition to the Blend eld. As soon as I removed the link to Campaign Namevoila!
Thanks again for a great workaround to dynamic parameters.
Alex
Jonathan Drummey
Post author
Hi Alex,
Im glad you gured it out! Im leaving the comment up because I think itll be useful to others, making
sure the linking dimensions are exactly what you want (no more, and no less) is key to getting the data
blend to return the desired values.
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Bobby Weaver
Jonathan,
Since the Null option in the Quick Filter cannot be removed entirely or just moved to the bottom of the
value list, is it possible to make the Quick Filter default to a non-Null value?
I know the setting of a default value could be achieved in Tableau Server with the Remember My
Changes feature but I was looking for a solution that could be applied prior to publishing.
Thanks,
Jonathan
If you have selected a lter option prior to publishing, itll stay in place when published.
Jonathan Drummey
Post author
March 6, 2015 at 7:33 am
Hi Bobby,
When we publish a workbook to Server each worksheet & dashboard each Quick lter for a discrete
retains the values that were set when published, so thats the default. I dont know of another way to
choose a specic value as the default.
Chandra
August 18, 2015 at 12:21 am
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Hi Jonathan
What if I were to nd out the Penetration of a Particular Item
i.e. Countd of Order Id (for an Item or a set of Filters) / Countd of Order Id (Across a Category No
Filters Applied)
How can I do this ?
Chandra
Jonathan Drummey
Post author
August 30, 2015 at 2:51 am
Hi Chandra,
There are a few ways to do this, see http://www.theinformationlab.co.uk/2013/01/14/maintainingpercent-of-total-whilst-ltering/ for a roundup (including my comment at the end).
Jonathan
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Creating a Dynamic Parameter with a Tableau

used in further calculations. Some examples of where this can be useful:

Process for Creating the Dynamic Parameter

4. Build the initial view in the primary.

c. Click OK to close the Filter dialog.

the relationships on as many elds

relationship on Customer Name:

Demonstration #2: Executive 401(k) Retirement Forecasting Model

Becomes this in the view when using the YEAR(Date) aggregation:

And then we turn on domain padding to ll in the missing years:

And end up with this padded out set of years:

Ok, so thats a modeling application of data blending.

Demonstration #3: Distance from Selected Origin City to Destination

One more time through the 7 steps:

the relationships for

Country/Region, City, and State:

Then those sheets could be laid out in a dashboard:

Potential Issues and Complications

LOD Expressions and Custom

User Dened Functions and

Unexpected Results: Aliases in

24 thoughts on Creating a Dynamic Parameter with a Tableau Data Blend

August 6, 2013 at 3:08 pm

Patrick Van Der Hyde

August 8, 2013 at 10:50 am

Thats great, and thanks!

October 24, 2013 at 7:27 am

October 24, 2013 at 12:42 pm

June 14, 2014 at 9:27 am

June 19, 2014 at 6:22 am

September 25, 2014 at 5:59 am

Pingback: Tableau Tips,Tricks,Best Practices - Calculation - Jenny (Xiao) Zhang

February 16, 2015 at 6:27 pm

March 6, 2015 at 7:33 am

August 30, 2015 at 2:51 am

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