6 Replies Latest reply on Jun 30, 2014 10:20 AM by Jonathan Drummey

Field Length Workaround

archie karas Jun 16, 2014 1:54 PM

Hi,

I am working on a project and have run into a little difficulty.

I have solved the first problem. I have a list of countries that I want to display as a full list in one cell separated by commas, but filter them on the individual country names. This was solved by creating a calculated field, using "if contains([CountryListCommaSep],[IndividualCountryName]) then [CountryListCommaSep] end", laying out my data in junction table output, placing the country list in the shelf and the individual country names in a filter.

Now I am encountering an issue with the length of the field entry that I want to display in one cell. I have 80 or so county names I want to put in one cell separated by commas so what I explained above works, however it truncates my list half way through and then the results of the "If" come out as nulls. Is there a workaround for this issue?

I would be VERY grateful for any suggestions, thanks in advanced.

PS: Here is a visualization of the problem. You can see that In "Countries" the list in truncated after Jordan. But the underlying data has all the values in "CountryName", Kazakhstan, Korea, Kuwait....Etc.

1. Re: Field Length Workaround

Keshia Rose Jun 16, 2014 5:25 PM (in response to archie karas)

Hmm, I don't know if there is a workaround for that, but there are other options for showing the list of countries. What is your end goal supposed to look like?
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2. Re: Field Length Workaround

Tom W Jun 17, 2014 4:55 AM (in response to Keshia Rose)

What's your datasource? I'm guessing Excel or Access. If so, there's a restriction on the amount of characters which can be displayed at one time.

As per Keshia's post though, I'm curious to understand what you're trying to achieve and why you're doing this!
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3. Re: Field Length Workaround

archie karas Jun 17, 2014 11:16 AM (in response to Tom W)

The goal is to have a list of all the countries grouped separated by commas, but to be able to filter on individual countries. However the field length truncates the grouped countries. The only way to have multiple values in one cell but filter them individually I have found has been to lay out the data in this way, create a calculated field ( if contains([BIGLIST],[INDIVID]) then [BIGLIST] end) and build a quick filter on the individual values.

The data sounce is Access, however my database does not connect to tableau. So I have been using Excel as my data source.

For reference the first problem was solved in this thread Custom Lists . I am still buggered on the second one however (field length).
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4. Re: Field Length Workaround

Jonathan Drummey Jun 17, 2014 11:42 AM (in response to archie karas)

JET sources (Excel, Access, text files) are limited to 255 characters. This is a limitation of the database driver, not Tableau.

Tableau 8.2 has a new connector type for Excel and text files that supports more than 255 characters, I've tested it with memo fields with up to 10K characters. The new connector will do ODBC-pass-through, though, so you could either connect directly to Excel or indirectly to your Access database via Excel. When 8.2 is released (hopefully in the next couple of weeks) you could change your workbook to take advantage of the new connector by using the Replace Data Source functionality.

Jonathan
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5. Re: Field Length Workaround

archie karas Jun 20, 2014 10:21 AM (in response to Jonathan Drummey)

Yes, you are right. No need for a workaround, 8.2 does it perfectly. Thanks for letting me know, appreciate it!!
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6. Re: Field Length Workaround

Jonathan Drummey Jun 30, 2014 10:20 AM (in response to archie karas)

You're welcome!
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