Tableau Dynamic Zones: The Basics

Dynamic Zone Visibility was added to Tableau in update 2022.3, and it’s one of the most powerful new features of the last few years. I’m going to be starting a series of articles about the many use cases for dynamic zones, from obvious to wacky. This first post will cover the basics of what they are and how to use them – if you haven’t used dynamic zones before, start here!

What is Dynamic Zone Visibility?

At its most basic, dynamic zone visibility is a tool that lets you decide what users see. You can set conditions for what areas of the dashboard are shown that are based on user role, a parameter value, a calculation in your data, or a value. If that sounds a little vague, it’s because the tool is really broad – you can use it for anything from chart changers to pop-ups to custom user controls. In this series of posts, I’ll be exploring a wide range of uses for dynamic zones, and I’ll add the links here as we go.

One of the coolest things about dynamic zones is the “zone” part. As you show and hide pieces of your dashboard, you’re not limited to just one chart or sheet. You can control whole containers, both floating and tiled, which opens up a whole new world of options.

How Do You Use Dynamic Zone Visibility?

The steps to use dynamic zone visibility are:

1. Create a zone (container or single sheet/object) to change the visibility of.
2. Make a parameter or field that will control the visibility.
3. In the “Layout” pane, apply the controller to the zone.

Let’s dive deeper into this process by taking a look at one of the most straightforward examples of dynamic zone visibility – a chart that appears and disappears when we change a parameter. (I can’t think of a lot of real world uses for this exact set up, but it’s a great place to practice!)

First, let’s make a chart. I’m using the superstore data set to make a simple sales-vs-region bar chart. This and all of the dashboards from this series can be found in this Tableau Public workbook.

I’ll go ahead and add this to a dashboard. I’m using a vertical container, but you could make it floating, tiled, or horizontal too.

Now we need a controller for our dynamic zone. Tableau sets some restrictions on what you can use:

-It must be boolean (True/False)

-It can only have one value at a time

-It can’t depend on the structure of the viz: i.e., it has to be the same value no matter how you slice and dice the data.

That last condition is the trickiest to work with, and it can make it difficult to work with field values for dynamic zones. The easiest way to use fields is if those field are already independent of the data in the viz; for example, a “current date” or a “user group”. If you want to use fields that are also used in the viz itself, you have to do some work with level of detail calculations to make the field independent.

We’ll dive deeper into that into a future post, but for this first example, we’ll use the easiest (and most useful, in my opinion) way to control a dynamic zone: Parameters. Parameters are guaranteed to be independent of the viz, and become very powerful when you add parameter actions into the mix.

For now, let’s head back to the sheet and create a simple parameter. The actual values need to be boolean, but you can alias them if you want – I’ve labeled mine “Chart” and “No Chart”.

Now we can add this parameter to the dashboard (by clicking the more options arrow on the chart) to give us a control switch.

I’ll keep my parameter as the default drop-down control, but you can change it! Here’s what my dashboard looks like now:

Here’s what I want to happen: When I change the “Control” parameter to be “No Chart”, I want the chart to disappear. To make this work, select the chart and go to the “Layout” pane on the left side of Tableau.

Check the box that says “Control visibility using value”. Use the dropdown menu that appears to choose the controller for the zone.

And that’s it! We’ve set up a simple dynamic zone that appears when our parameter is True (“Chart”), and disappears when the parameter is False (“No Chart”). When you change the parameter, the chart will appear and disappear.

What Other Options Exist?

There are two alternatives to dynamic zones. In pre-2022.3 versions, these are the only ways to control what shows on a dashboard.

Option 1: Show/Hide Button

If all you want to do is show and hide a section of the dashboard when you click a button, you’re in luck. (This is often used for simple one-container pop-ups or expanding sections). Tableau has built-in functionality for this. To use it, click the more option arrow on the container or object you want to show and hide, and select “Add Show/Hide Button”.

You’ll be given options for formatting a text or image button, and can configure what the button displays when the item is shown and when it is hidden.

If all you want to do is show or hide one object or container, and a button control works for your use case, I highly recommend just using the Show/Hide button. It’s basically a short cut for a parameter and parameter action button with dynamic zones, and is much faster.

However, if you want more than one object to appear and disappear at the same time, or if you need a drop-down, radio button, slider, or custom sheet control, you’ll need to use dynamic zones instead.

Option 2: Sheet Swappers

I won’t go too deeply into the mechanics of this method, because the addition of dynamic zones made it pretty much obsolete. The basic gist is that you create a parameter or field that is used as a filter (or with manual “hide”) on multiple sheets, and arrange the sheets in the same container. Swapping the parameter lets you swap between them. Interworks has a great tutorial on this method.

This method is very limited, and in almost all cases, dynamic zone visibility will be easier. There are occasionally times when a sheet swapper is needed – the case when the controller is somewhat view-dependent comes to mind – but I would recommend always going with dynamic zone visibility as your first choice.