Have you ever accidentally clicked on a point in your chart, only to have everything else become greyed out? Or have you tried to create an interactive chart, but Tableau keeps highlighting a point in the chart instead of running your action?
Today, I will share a “dummy highlight” technique that can solve these problems. This is one of my favourite tricks that our coach, Ross, taught us in our first week. I find it to be a simple yet practical technique that is great to have on hands.
Here’s step by step guide on how to implement it:
- Start by creating a calculated field with a value of ‘1’
- Drag this “Dummy” calculated field to the Detail card
- Navigate to Worksheet > Action and click Add Actions to create a Highlight Action
- In the Target Highlighting choose Selected Fields and tick “Dummy”, then OK.
And there you go! Tableau will now highlight this “Dummy” value instead of a specific point in your chart, preventing your chart from automatically greying out again.
I hope this trick can be a helpful for everyone! Good luck and have fun exploring Tableau!