Filter not showing up on dashboard

In Tableau, There is an option to ask the user to choose what they want to look at giving them the filters to choose from. This is one of the features which is most commonly used. It is used to limit the data for better visualizations or to analyze the data in detail. But we do face a few issues while applying the same to work in a particular way. Below is one of those issues where we might need to rebuild the most part of the dashboard when we don’t find a solution.

Issue

Some of the times while building a Tableau Dashboard, We face an issue with applying filters. Although the filters are selected to show in the dashboard for a few sheets, We won’t be able to see them anywhere on the Dashboard when we are using them in a tiled layout(In Tableau, we can select the objects to either be tiled or floated. Tiled means they are set in a particular position on the dashboard and floating objects are those whom we can move anywhere on the dashboard and they can even overlap with one other, unlike tiled objects.). Most of the time, Unselecting and selecting the filters option again also makes no difference. As we can see in the below picture, City Filter is selected for that particular sheet but that is not visible anywhere on the dashboard.

Solution

Most of the times, what actually happens in such above case is, We might be using different vertical or horizontal tiles in the dashboard and the filter is being added behind some tile in the dashboard. So even when we unselect and select , it is going to be added in the same place or tile. You can try following the below steps which might help you resolve the issue.

Steps to Follow:

• Click on the dropdown of the sheet or any sheet(if there are multiple sheets in the view ) having filters.
• You will be seeing a lot of options as in below picture. Click on floating button and it makes that particular sheet floating which was in a tiled layout initially.

• Now, the sheet is converted to a floating object as you can see in the below image. Click on the dropdown again and from those options, unselect the filters and select again which makes the filters section as a floating element too and which could be now visible on the dashboard as you can see in the picture below it.

• Here, you can see the selected filter city in the image below.

• As we can see both the sheet and filters as floating objects. Now, click on the dropdown of sheet and uncheck the floating option which makes it a tiled as it was initially.

• As you can see the sheet converted to a tiled object. Next, click on the dropdown of filter which is appearing on the dashboard and uncheck the floating option there too to make it a tiled element again which was the earlier requirement.

• After both the sheet and filter being converted to a tiled layout, Arrange the objects as per your requirement. (If any tile gets vanished in this process, make sure you reapply that in the dashboard after all the above steps. If you try to add those tiles first, You might be facing the same issue again even after following the above steps as it wit will be acting the same way as before. )
• Then, you would be able to see the required output with filter as in the below picture.

In the above scenario, when we make it a floating object, it makes any filter or object overlapped and visible where as initially it got hidden behind some other tile as it was a tiled object.