9 Replies Latest reply on Apr 16, 2018 7:49 PM by . Ashish

Quick filter month slider

Brian Smith Mar 19, 2013 7:01 AM

I am using sales data summarized at the monthly level, and I'm running into two issues. First, while all of my records have a month and a year attached to them, I can't seem to get Tableau to treat those values as being date-related in any way. In other words, if there is no specific date involved (like the 10th or the 21st), Tableau does not want to treat my month or year values as anything other than simple numbers.

This part is not crucial -- I can use numbers like 201203 to stand for March 2012, for instance, and still get by -- but it would be nice to be able to present actual months in my interface, have them automatically be in the correct order, etc. Any guidance on this point is appreciated.

The other problem is this: I would like to create a slider quick filter for those numeric month values like 201203, and it needs to be the type of slider that has separate arrows for the minimum value and the maximum value. Tableau is only allowing me to make a single-arrow slider, so I can't choose a range -- and I suspect it's because those numeric month values are not continuous, but instead have gaps like the one between 201212 and 201301. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks,

Brian

1. Re: Quick filter month slider

Brad Llewellyn Mar 19, 2013 7:06 AM (in response to Brian Smith)

Brian,

I think both of your issues may be solved by Right-Clicking on your date field -> "Change Data Type" -> Date

Let me know,

Brad Llewellyn
Associate Consultant
Mariner, LLC
brad.llewellyn@mariner-usa.com
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/brad-llewellyn/4a/80a/73b/
http://breaking-bi.blogspot.com
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2. Re: Quick filter month slider

Brian Smith Mar 19, 2013 7:15 AM (in response to Brad Llewellyn)

Brad, thanks for your reply. I have Year and Month as separate, numeric fields. When I change them to data type Date, Tableau allows the change, but then parses their values incorrectly -- the year goes from 2011 (as Numeric) to 1905 (as Date). Am I missing a step? Again, I don't see a way to get Tableau to grasp the concept of a summarized month.

Thanks again,
Brian
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3. Re: Quick filter month slider

Brad Llewellyn Mar 19, 2013 7:22 AM (in response to Brian Smith)

Brian,

You could make a day value for each month that equals one and use the following calculated field:

DATE( STR( [Month] ) + "/1/" + STR( [Year] ) )

Hope this helps,

Brad Llewellyn
Associate Consultant
Mariner, LLC
brad.llewellyn@mariner-usa.com
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/brad-llewellyn/4a/80a/73b/
http://breaking-bi.blogspot.com
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4. Re: Quick filter month slider

Brian Smith Mar 19, 2013 11:06 AM (in response to Brad Llewellyn)

Brad,

That gets me a bit closer; the calculated field works the way you intended it to. I still can't seem to get the slider to give me two arrows, or even to show me all of the date values with a single arrow (which would not let me choose a range anyway). The goal of having a two-arrow slider with the range expressed in sequential month-year values is still out of reach for the moment.

Thanks again for your help.
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5. Re: Quick filter month slider

Brad Llewellyn Mar 19, 2013 12:11 PM (in response to Brian Smith)

Brian,

If you set the filter on the date to be a range of dates, the quick filter will show a two-sided slider.

Thanks,

Brad Llewellyn
Associate Consultant
Mariner, LLC
brad.llewellyn@mariner-usa.com
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/brad-llewellyn/4a/80a/73b/
http://breaking-bi.blogspot.com
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6. Re: Quick filter month slider

Brian Smith Mar 20, 2013 1:25 PM (in response to Brad Llewellyn)

Aha! There is the double-arrow slider. It still tries to show every date instead of just the first of the month, so I will need to alert our client to be careful of this, but I think this gets me where I need to be. Thanks again!
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7. Re: Quick filter month slider

Ben Shirley Oct 7, 2015 9:24 AM (in response to Brian Smith)

Hi Brian,

I was looking for the same thing i think, stepping in whole months rather than just days.
I dont know if you resolved this, but i found a solution and thought i would share it here

Drag your Date to the filters, change it to a 'month' + 'Continuous' (it should go green)
Then set that as your quick filter, it should then just show "month and year" on the slider options.

hope that helps,
Ben
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8. Re: Quick filter month slider

Jamieson Christian Jan 20, 2017 10:26 AM (in response to Ben Shirley)

[Tableau 10.x]

In case anybody finds this older thread (like I did)…

It's worth noting that if you create a Range of Dates filter and configure it as Month (continuous), then yes, the quick filter will show a slider that only displays month/year.

HOWEVER, the slider, and the underlying filter, are still tracking at day-level granularity.

This can cause confusion because you may only get part of the first/last month's data, but not all of it. If you click "Edit Filter", you can see how it may actually filter into the middle of those months, even though the display makes it seem like it pulled the entire month.

Use with caution.
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9. Re: Quick filter month slider

. Ashish Apr 16, 2018 7:49 PM (in response to Jamieson Christian)

Yes, exactly what I noticed. The underlying filter still remains at day-level and I had to change the filter and other things because of this behaviour.
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