Innovative Tableau

Chapter 51. How to Pass Parameters and Filters Between Workbooks

As Chapter 75 demonstrates, I often try to separate large workbooks into smaller individual files. This helps with efficiency, managing fields, and maintaining focus on individual business questions. My favorite tactic for linking the individual workbooks on Tableau Public, Tableau Online, or Tableau Server is to provide a recognizable menu to my end users that contains cross-workbook links.

But did you know that not only can you provide the links in Tableau, you can pass filters and parameters between workbooks. For example, if you have parameters for a start date and an end date in Workbook 1, you can set up your menu link to pass the current values of those parameters to Workbook 2. This provides a seamless experience and helps you to avoid confusion related to how the destination workbook is being filtered. This chapter shows you how to pass filters and parameters between Tableau workbooks.

How to Pass Fields Between Workbooks Using Query Strings

To illustrate how to pass filters and parameters between workbooks, let’s begin by changing the Minimum Date and Maximum Date parameters in a workbook that we’ll call the origin workbook. Then, we link from there to the Super Sample Superstore visualization on Tableau Public to show you how we can change the start date and end date of a destination workbook.

To show you the current parameter settings, we can navigate to any sheet in the origin dashboard and show the ...