How to Add Navigation Button in Tableau

Creating navigation buttons in Tableau turns a functional dashboard into a polished, app-like experience for your users. Instead of forcing them to click through a series of tabs, a well-placed button provides a clear, guided journey through your data story. This guide will walk you through, step-by-step, how to add both simple text buttons and custom image buttons to enhance your Tableau dashboards.

Why Use Navigation Buttons in Tableau?

While the standard tabs at the top of a Tableau workbook get the job done, navigation buttons offer a much cleaner and more professional user experience (UX). They are essential when you want to exert more control over how your audience interacts with your analysis.

Consider these key benefits:

• Guided Analytics: Buttons allow you to create a specific path for your users. You can lead them from a high-level summary dashboard to more detailed views in a logical sequence, preventing them from feeling lost or overwhelmed.
• Cleaner Dashboards: For workbooks with many sheets, showing all the tabs can look cluttered. By hiding the sheets and using buttons for navigation, you create a tidier and more focused interface, keeping the user’s attention on the insights.
• App-Like Feel: Custom buttons make your dashboard feel less like a static report and more like an interactive, custom-built application. This polished presentation makes your work more engaging and adds a layer of professional credibility.
• Intuitive for Non-Technical Users: A big, clear button that says "View Sales Details" is more intuitive for business stakeholders than asking them to find and click a small sheet tab with a generic name.

Understanding Tableau's Navigation Object

At the heart of this functionality is the Navigation object. Before this feature was introduced, developers had to rely on complex workarounds using worksheet actions to create navigation. Now, Tableau has a dedicated object that makes the process incredibly simple.

You can find the Navigation object in the Dashboard panel on the left-hand side, usually grouped with other objects like Text, Image, and Web Page. When you drag it onto your dashboard canvas, a configuration window pops up, allowing you to define its appearance and destination.

There are two primary styles you can create with the Navigation object:

1. Text Button: A straightforward button with customizable text, font, background, and border colors. It's quick, effective, and easy to set up.
2. Image Button: This allows you to use a custom image - like an icon, company logo, or a specially designed graphic - as your button. This is perfect for creating a branded or highly stylized dashboard interface.

Step-by-Step Guide: Creating a Simple Text-Based Navigation Button

Let's start with the basics. Imagine you have two dashboards: a main "Sales Overview" dashboard and a "Regional Performance" dashboard with more granular details. We'll create a button on the first dashboard that takes users to the second.

Step 1: Prepare Your Dashboards

Before creating a button, make sure both your source dashboard (where the button will be) and your destination dashboard are built and named properly within your workbook. For this example, call them "Sales Overview" and "Regional Performance".

Step 2: Drag the Navigation Object onto Your Dashboard

Go to your "Sales Overview" dashboard. In the left-hand 'Objects' panel at the bottom, find the Navigation object. Click and drag it onto your dashboard canvas. As you drag, Tableau will show you where the object can be placed, either as a tiled object (fitting into the grid) or as a floating object (which you can place anywhere).

Quick Tip: Using a floating object for buttons often gives you more flexibility with placement and sizing. You can toggle between Tiled and Floating at the bottom of the Objects panel.

Step 3: Configure Your Button

As soon as you drop the Navigation object on the canvas, an "Edit Button" dialogue box will appear. Here’s how to set it up:

• Edit Button: If you need to edit button settings later, click the carrot menu of the button on the dashboard and click “edit button."
• Navigate to: Use the dropdown menu to select your destination sheet. In this case, choose the "Regional Performance" dashboard.
• Button Style: Select Text Button.
• Title: This is the text that will appear on the button. Type something descriptive, like "View Regional Details."
• Font, Background, & Border: Customize the button’s appearance to match your dashboard's design. You can change the font family, font size, button color, and border style.
• Tooltip text: This is the text that appears when a user hovers their mouse over the button. It’s a great place to provide extra context. For example: "Click here to see a performance breakdown by sales region."

Once you are happy with the settings, click OK.

Step 4: Reposition and Resize

Your new button will now be on the dashboard. If you used a floating object, you can click and drag it to the exact position that feels right - like the top-right corner. You can also resize it by dragging its edges.

Step 5: Test the Navigation

To test if your button works inside Tableau Desktop, you can’t just click it in the normal design view. You need to either:

• Hold the Alt key (or Option key on a Mac) and then click the button.
• Switch to Presentation Mode (by pressing F7 or clicking the icon in the toolbar) and then click the button normally.

This should instantly take you to the "Regional Performance" dashboard. Now, let’s add a way to get back.

Step-by-Step Guide: Creating a Custom Image-Based "Back" Button

An intuitive user experience requires a clear way to return. Let's create an image button on the "Regional Performance" dashboard to navigate back to the "Sales Overview."

Step 1: Find or Create Your Button Image

First, you need an image. You can design one yourself using tools like Figma, Canva, or even PowerPoint. Look for icons that are universally understood, like a "home" icon or a "back arrow" icon. Websites like Flaticon or Font Awesome are excellent sources for free icons.

For best results, save your image as a .PNG with a transparent background. This helps it blend seamlessly into your dashboard design without an ugly white box around it.

Step 2: Add and Configure the Navigation Object

Now, go to your "Regional Performance" dashboard. Repeat the process from before:

1. Drag a Navigation object onto the canvas (again, floating is often best).
2. In the "Edit Button" pop-up, choose the "Sales Overview" dashboard in the "Navigate to" dropdown.
3. For "Button Style", this time select Image Button.
4. Click the Choose... button and locate the "back arrow" or "home" icon file you saved on your computer.
5. Add helpful Tooltip text, like "Return to the main Sales Overview dashboard."
6. Click OK.

Step 3: Position, Resize, and Test

Place your new image button in a consistent location, such as the top-left or top-right corner. This consistency across your dashboards helps users know exactly where to look for navigation controls. Test it using Alt+Click (or Option+Click) to ensure it takes you back.

With these two buttons, you've created a seamless, two-way navigation flow between your dashboards!

Best Practices for Professional Navigation

Creating buttons is easy, but making them effective requires a bit of design thinking. Here are a few tips to elevate your dashboards:

1. Create a Navigation Bar

If you have several key dashboards in your workbook (e.g., Overview, Product, Marketing, Region), don't just scatter buttons randomly. Group them together in a unified navigation bar.

To do this, use a Horizontal Container or Vertical Container object from the Objects panel. Place your navigation buttons inside this container. This keeps them perfectly aligned and easy for users to find. You can then copy this container and paste it onto each of your dashboards to create a consistent global navigation menu.

2. Highlight the Current View

To help users orient themselves, it's good practice to visually indicate which dashboard they are currently viewing. A simple way to do this is to format the navigation button for the active page differently.

For example, in your navigation bar, if the user is on the "Sales Overview" page, its corresponding button could be a bolder color, while the other buttons are a lighter gray. This requires creating separate navigation bars for each dashboard, but the improvement in usability is often worth the extra effort.

3. Remember Usability First

• Be Consistent: Always place your navigation elements in the same spot on every dashboard. Don't make users hunt for the "back" button.
• Use Clear Labels: Your button text and tooltips should be unambiguous. "Drill Down" is less clear than "View Store-Level Details."
• Hide Unnecessary Tabs: Once your button navigation is in place, you can hide the individual worksheet and dashboard tabs to force users to follow the path you’ve designed. To do this, when you publish the workbook to Tableau Server or Public, uncheck the "Show Sheets as Tabs" option.

Final Thoughts

Adding navigation buttons is a simple yet high-impact technique for transforming your Tableau dashboards. By using the Navigation object for text or custom images, you can guide users through your analysis, declutter your interface, and deliver a more professional and intuitive analytical tool instead of just another report.

Mastering features like navigation is a fantastic way to make data accessible, and we believe getting insights shouldn't require complex software tutorials. At Graphed, we took this idea further by letting you build dashboards and reports simply by describing what you need in plain English. There’s no dragging-and-dropping or configuring objects, just ask our AI data analyst to "show me my Shopify sales by marketing channel last month," and a real-time dashboard is created instantly, turning hours of manual work into a simple conversation.