Filter Manager

Tableau has no global Apply. Every quick filter card fires its own query the moment it is touched, a parameter control fires another, and a reader who wants to change five things at once ends up watching four dashboards they did not ask to see redraw, one after the other. Filter Manager puts every filter and every parameter of a dashboard in one panel, with one Apply. Nothing reaches Tableau while you are still deciding; the panel writes everything in one pass when you choose to send it.

What the panel manages

There is nothing to drag onto a shelf. Filter Manager reads the dashboard it sits on and lists what it finds:

• Every filter already in force on a sheet of the dashboard: a dimension, a date, or a numeric range, whichever card Tableau would otherwise show for it.
• Every parameter in the workbook, with the control its domain calls for: a list, a range, or a plain input.
• A field with no card yet can be added by name in the Configure dialog. The panel creates the filter on the sheets that carry it the first time it applies.

A field that lives on only part of the dashboard still works: Filter Manager writes a categorical change once, through the dashboard, which Tableau fans out to every sheet that carries the field; a date or a numeric range is written once per sheet, so a chart that never had the field is never touched.

Add Filter Manager to your dashboard

First, download the manifest file. It tells Tableau where to load the extension from.

Filter Manager is a dashboard extension, not a worksheet one: it goes on the dashboard directly, not on a sheet's Marks card. In Tableau:

1. Open a dashboard, and in the Objects pane on the left drag Extension onto it, wherever you want the panel to sit: a band across the top, or a column down the side.
2. In the Add an Extension dialog, choose Access Local Viz Extensions, then open the filtermanager.trex file you just downloaded.
3. When Tableau asks, allow the extension to access the data in the workbook.
4. The welcome screen appears. Sign in with your Dataskera account, or on Tableau Desktop choose Use on Desktop without an account. See Signing in & access below.
5. Open Configure from the extension's context menu and add the filters and parameters you want the panel to manage. See The Configure dialog below.

Signing in & access

Filter Manager is free. Whether you need to sign in depends only on what you are doing. Viewing a dashboard never asks for an account and is never blocked by one: the panel reads and writes Tableau's own filter and parameter state, and the licence check never runs in viewing mode.

No account yet? Create one free in under a minute. Includes a 30 day Pro trial, no credit card required.

The Configure dialog

Open Configure from the extension's context menu to set up the panel. It is for the dashboard author and is not shown to viewers. It has four tabs:

• Items: every filter and parameter found on the dashboard, plus any field added by name. For each one: a label, a group it is drawn under, the control (chips, a searchable select, a date range with presets, and so on, or left on Auto), whether a filter cascades under another, which sheets it drives, whether it excludes instead of includes, whether it is locked for readers, and whether it is hidden. The tab also totals the queries one Apply will cost.
• Behaviour: On Apply or straight away for every change, the Reset button, the applied strip, the active count, whether a cascaded list defaults to its relevant members only, the member cap for a long list, and the anchor a relative date counts back from.
• Layout: the panel's shape, automatic or forced to a bar or a sidebar, the density, the font size, and a title override.
• Presets: name the dashboard's current state and save it; a reader picks a preset and it stages every filter and parameter it holds in one click, still gated behind Apply.