How to create a toggle button in Tableau

Learning how to create a toggle button in Tableau is very useful when you want to make a filter between data points, switch from data visualisation to another, or show true versus false results. The toggle button practically looks like an on/off button that allows you to change the setting between two visualisations.

Let’s see how does the entire process of creating this button look like. Watch closely the tutorial here, custom-created by our colleague Serban Grecu, Data Analyst@btProvider.

If you want to implement the toggle button on your own projects, here are all the steps you must take.

Step 1: Connect to data

In Tableau Desktop, connect to Sample – Superstore data provided by Tableau.

Step 2: Create the calculated fields and the parameter

→Create a calculated field named “Current Year Sales”:

if YEAR([Order Date])=” Insert Year here”  then [Sales] END

→Create a parameter named “Toggle Parameter” :

Data type – Integer

Allowable values – List

Under List of Values add the following values: 1 and 0

→Create another calculated field named “Prior Year Sales”:

case [Toggle Parameter] when 1 then

if YEAR([Order Date])=2015 then [Sales] END

else null end

→Create a line chart using the Current Year Sales and Prior Year Sales in a sheet called “Sales”

Drag “Order Date” to Columns and display it as Months

Drag Current Year Sales and Prior Year Sales to rows

Right-click on Prior Year Sales and select Dual Axis

Right-click on a chart axis and select Synchronize Axis

Format the chart as you see fit (remove headers, add mark labels etc)

→Create a new sheet (named “Toggle”) where you will create the visual for the toggle button

Drag “Value” to Columns and make sure it is formatted as Continuous Dimension

Drag the “Toggle Parameter” next to “Value” in the Columns bar

Format the “Value” visual as a line and change its thickness as needed

Format the “Toggle Parameter” visual as a circle and change its size as needed

Drag the “Values” to Color

→Create a New Dashboard and drag the Sales sheet and Toggle and format the tiles as needed (w w/o title, legend etc)

→Go to Dashboard -> Actions -> Add Action -> Change Parameter

 Source Sheets à your New Dashboard

In the window, select the sheet where you created the toggle button (in our case, sheet “Toggle”)

Parameter à chose the “Toggle Parameter” parameter

Field à Value (Toggle sheet)

Aggregation à None

→Hit OK twice and enjoy. Happy data analysis!

Here is the Viz on Tableau Public>

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