How to Add Hyperlink in Tableau Dashboard

Adding a clickable link to your Tableau dashboard unlocks a whole new level of interactivity, turning a static report into a dynamic gateway for more information. Instead of just showing data, you can guide your audience directly to the source, related content, or the next step in their workflow. This guide breaks down exactly how to add hyperlinks in Tableau using URL Actions, from creating a simple static link to building powerful dynamic URLs based on your data.

Why Add Hyperlinks to a Tableau Dashboard?

Before we get into the "how," let's quickly cover the "why." At its core, adding hyperlinks is about providing context and extending the functionality of your dashboard without cluttering it. Dashboards are meant to provide an at-a-glance summary, links let you offer a path to deeper details for those who need them.

Here are a few common scenarios where hyperlinks are incredibly useful:

• Linking to Full Reports: Your dashboard might show top-level sales numbers. A hyperlink can take a manager to a detailed sales report in a Google Sheet or another system.
• Viewing Source Records: Imagine a sales performance dashboard showing revenue by account. A link could open the specific account record directly in Salesforce or HubSpot, right from the chart.
• Connecting to Product Pages: An e-commerce dashboard showing top-selling products could have links that go directly to each product page on your Shopify store.
• Accessing External Resources: You could link from a marketing campaign dashboard to the actual live ad on Facebook or the blog post that's driving traffic.

In short, hyperlinks bridge the gap between your data analysis and an actionable next step, making your work more valuable to your team members and stakeholders.

The Key: Understanding Tableau URL Actions

In Tableau, you don’t just "add a hyperlink" like you would in a text document. Instead, you create something called an Action. An action is a user-initiated event that triggers a response. You could trigger a filter, highlight data, or, in our case, open a URL.

A URL Action is a specific type of action that, when triggered, opens a web link in a new browser tab. The magic of URL Actions is that you have complete control over three key parts:

1. The Source: What worksheet or part of the dashboard will the user interact with to trigger the link? (e.g., a specific chart, a table, or even a text box).
2. The Event: How will the user trigger the link? Tableau gives you three options:
3. The Destination: What URL should be opened when the action is triggered? This can be a fixed, static URL or a dynamic URL that changes based on the data point that was clicked.

Once you understand these three components, building hyperlinks becomes a straightforward process.

Step-by-Step Guide: How to Create a Basic URL Hyperlink

Let's start by creating a simple "static" link. For this example, imagine we have a worksheet named "Company Logos," and we want clicking on it to take users to our company's homepage.

Follow these steps:

Step 1: Navigate to the Actions Menu

First, open the workbook and go to the dashboard where you want to add the link. At the top menu bar, click on Dashboard > Actions...

This will open a new window titled "Actions." This is the control center for all interactivity on your dashboard.

Step 2: Add a New URL Action

In the Actions window, click the blue Add Action > button at the bottom and select Go to URL... from the dropdown menu. This will open the configuration window where you'll set everything up.

Step 3: Configure the URL Action

This screen can seem intimidating, but it breaks down logically based on the concepts we just discussed. Let's fill it out section by section.

Section 1: The 'What' and 'How'

• Name: Give your action a descriptive name. This won't be visible to users, but it helps you stay organized if you have multiple actions. Something like "Link to Company Homepage" is perfect.
• Source Sheets: This is where you choose which sheet(s) on your dashboard should trigger the action. In our dropdown, we'll select our "Company Logos" sheet. You can select multiple sheets if you want the same link to be available on different charts.
• Run action on: Choose how the user will activate the link. Let's choose Select (click), as it's the most common and user-friendly option.

Section 2: The 'Where'

• URL: This text box is where you define the destination link. For our simple example, you would type out a full, static URL, like: https://www.yourcompany.com
• Leave the other settings (URL Options and URL Target) as is for now.

Step 4: Click OK and Test Your Link

Click OK to close the URL Action window, and then click OK again to close the main Actions window. You'll be taken back to your dashboard.

Now, click on the worksheet you selected as your source ("Company Logos"). A new tab should automatically open in your web browser, directed to the homepage you specified. It's that simple!

Leveling Up: How to Create Dynamic Hyperlinks

A static hyperlink is useful, but the real power comes from creating dynamic links. A dynamic link changes its destination based on the specific data point you click.

Let's imagine you have a performance dashboard for your most recent blog posts. The dashboard shows metrics like Clicks, Views, and CTR for each post. You want to set it up so that when you click on a post's title in the dashboard, it takes you directly to that live article on your website.

This requires your data source to contain the URL (or parts of the URL) for each post. For example, your spreadsheet might have columns for "Post Title" and "Post URL".

Step 1: Open the URL Action Configuration Again

Following the same steps as before, go to Dashboard > Actions... > Add Action > Go to URL...

Step 2: Set the Source, Name, and Trigger

Fill out the top section just like you did before:

• Name: "Link to Live Blog Post"
• Source Sheets: Select your "Blog Post Performance" worksheet.
• Run action on: Select

Step 3: Build the Dynamic URL

This is where things change. Instead of typing a static URL into the URL box, we will insert a reference to a field from our data.

• Clear any text from the URL box.
• Look for the small grey arrow icon ▶ to the right of the URL box. Click it.
• This will bring up a dropdown of all the available fields from your selected "Source Sheet." Find and click on the field that contains your blog post URLs. In our example data, this might be named "Post URL".

When you click it, Tableau will insert a placeholder into the box that looks like this: <Post URL>

This placeholder tells Tableau: "When a user clicks on a mark in the chart, don't use this text literally. Instead, find the value from the 'Post URL' column for the specific row they clicked, and use that value as the hyperlink."

You can even combine static text with dynamic fields. For example, if your data source only contained the end part of a URL (the "slug"), you could build the full URL: https://www.yourblog.com/posts/<Post Slug>

Click OK twice to save your new action.

Step 4: Test Your Dynamic Links

Go back to your dashboard and click on different rows in your Blog Post performance table. Each click should now take you to a different, specific blog post URL, directly corresponding to the title clicked.

Practical Use Cases & Examples

With dynamic links, you can create highly efficient workflows directly from Tableau. Here are a few other ideas:

• Salesforce/CRM Integration: If your Salesforce report includes a 'Record ID' field for each opportunity, you can construct a dynamic link like: https://yourinstance.salesforce.com/<Record ID> Now your managers can jump from a sales dashboard to the live CRM record with a single click.
• Drill Down to Google Sheets: You can even link to a specific tab within a Google Sheet for more granular data: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/yourdocid/edit#gid=<Sheet GID>
• Conduct a Google Search: Want to research a company seen in your dashboard? Use action: http://www.google.com/search?q=<Company Name>

Final Thoughts

Learning to use URL Actions transforms your dashboards from static reports into interactive hubs for exploration and action. By incorporating both static and dynamic hyperlinks, you provide your team with the immediate context they need to dive deeper, answer follow-up questions, and make faster, more informed decisions right from your visualizations.

While mastering specific features in tools like Tableau is powerful, we know that getting all your data connected and building even simple interactive reports can still take hours of clicking, configuring, and tweaking. That’s a big reason we built Graphed. We wanted to eliminate the steep learning curve and constant manual work by letting you create real-time dashboards and reports simply by asking for what you need in plain English. Instead of navigating menus to create a URL Action, you just describe what you want to see - like "show me top-selling products from Shopify and link each product name to its product page URL" - and the dashboard gets built for you in seconds.