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3 Types of Calculations that Can’t Be Dimensions in Tableau

This post was originally published on The Data School blog between 2018 and July 2025, before our program was renamed to MIP’s Analytics Career Accelerator. References throughout this article to “The Data School” or “DS” all refer to what is now MIP’s Analytics Career Accelerator. The program, its people, and its commitment to launching outstanding analytics careers remain the same – just under a new name.

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Did you come across a time when Tableau would not allow you to drag a calculation to the dimension field?  It may be frustrating when you want to apply them as the dimensions when you would like to create a group or a set to them. In this blog, I am going to explore 3 kinds of numeric calculations that can’t be the dimensions in Tableau.

3 calculations can’t be the dimensions in Tableau

  1. Exclude and Include LOD calculation:
  2. Table calculation:
  3. Basic aggregation calculation:

The way to fix this problem

Generally speaking, Tableau won’t allow you to use a calculation that will change base on the view. Next time when you come across that, use a Fixed calculation to fix it or try to avoid the aggregation.

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