In Tableau, you can combine parameters and actions to create on-demand charts that show up in a Tableau Pop Up Box.

Often times you want to have a chart that provides more detail, but you don’t want to overwhelm a dashboard with too much information all at once.  This is where having a chart or table pop up on demand can be extremely beneficial. 

How to Create a Tableau Pop Up Box

In order to make this a Tableau pop up box work, we must make use of layout containers.  We will cover more about the Tableau pop up box in detail in the Advanced Formatting section.  For now, it’s enough to know we need layout containers to make your first Tableau pop up box work. 

  1. Create a new blank dashboard.  
  1. From the left hand pane, find the label that says “Vertical” with the two hollow stripes icon. Drag that out until you see a gray shaded box that runs the entire length of the dashboard.   
  1. Bring out the heatmap that we entitled “Sales by Customer Segment and Region” and set to entire view. 
  1. If you can’t see the bottom of the chart, scroll all the way down, so that you can.  Now, drag the text table entitled “Totals and Subtotals “Sales and Profit Detail” into that vertical layout container.  You’ll know you have it right when you see a dark blue outline and a gray shaded space inside. 
Tableau Pop Up Box
  1. Now click on the bottom chart and then set this to Fit Width in the drop down box on the tool bar. 
  1. Right click on the title of that table and select “Hide Title.” 
Pop Up Tableau
  1. Now, go back to Dashboard >  Actions and add a Filter Action. 
  1. Name this “See more details…” 
  1. Then in the first pane, check the box for the heatmap and uncheck the Totals and Subtotals box. 
  1. Set “Run Action On” to Select. 
  1. Under “Target Sheets” down below, check only the Totals and Subtotals Formatted box. 
  1. Set the radio button to “Exclude all Values.” 
  • This last step is crucial to have the chart disappear, and only reappear when desired. 
  • When you click a chart and see the Tableau tooltip pop up to see more details, you can click that pop up to have the table down below appear.  When you click somewhere else, that table will disappear again.  This is how it becomes a Tableau pop up box.
  1. Click ok. Your view will look similar to this: 
Tableau Pop Up Chart
  1. Click on one of the Customer Segments in the top chart.  Now, click it again.  You’ll notice that the bottom chart disappears.  This is what we want to be the Tableau pop up box.
  1. Add in the following parenthesis after the title of the top chart: (click customer segment for more details).  Set the font size on that to 10. 
  1. If just the bottom chart disappears, leaving a lot of white space, click into that area and you’ll see a push pin icon at the top left of the chart.  Click that to uncheck it.  The push pin fixes a particular size, which then breaks the Tableau pop up effect.  We want to ensure the Tableau pop up charts are set to automatic, not fixed sizes. 
  1. Now click back into the top chart.  Your viz should look like this: 
Create Pop Up Windows in Tableau
  1. Click the Tableau pop up chart once more to see how the details pop up in Tableau.  Feel free to change the Measure Names filter on the right to get a sense of how it affects the chart down below. 
Tableau Dashboard Pop Up

To learn more about how to create a Tableau pop up box, be sure to head over to our Advanced formatting blog to find out more about this feature. Better yet, you can join our individual Tableau classes or enroll your team in our Tableau courses.