How to Combine Sheets in Tableau Dashboard

Bringing multiple worksheets together into a single Tableau dashboard is how raw data visualizations become a cohesive, insightful story. If you've ever felt stuck looking at isolated charts, learning how to combine them is your next step toward building powerful, interactive reports. This guide will walk you through the essential methods for arranging and linking your sheets, from basic layouts to advanced interactive filters.

Why Combine Sheets in a Dashboard?

Before jumping into the "how," let's quickly cover the "why." Combining sheets isn't just about cramming more visuals onto one screen. When done right, it serves several important purposes:

• Creates a Holistic View: It allows you to see the big picture. You can place high-level KPIs next to detailed charts, providing context that a single sheet can't offer. For example, you can show a headline sales number right next to the trend line that produced it.
• Drives Guided Analytics: By linking sheets with actions, you can create a user journey. A user might click on a region on a map, which then filters a bar chart to show sales for that specific region only. This turns a static report into an interactive analytical tool.
• Improves User Experience: Instead of making your audience click through multiple tabs or reports, you're presenting all relevant information in one place. A well-organized dashboard is intuitive and tells a clear story, making it easier for stakeholders to get the answers they need.

Method 1: The Basics with Tiled Layouts

The most straightforward way to combine sheets in Tableau is by using the default "Tiled" layout. When you drag a sheet onto the dashboard canvas, Tableau automatically arranges it to fill an available space, almost like tiling a floor. No overlap is allowed.

This is the starting point for most dashboards and is perfect for building structured, grid-like reports.

How to Use a Tiled Layout:

1. Create a new dashboard by clicking the "New Dashboard" icon at the bottom of the Tableau workspace (it looks like a grid).
2. On the Dashboard pane on the left, you'll see a list of all the worksheets in your workbook.
3. Click and drag your first sheet onto the empty canvas. It will automatically expand to fill the entire space.
4. Now, drag a second sheet onto the canvas. As you move it, you'll see a grey shaded area appear. This area shows you where Tableau will place the sheet. You can place it to the left, right, top, or bottom of the first sheet.
5. Release the mouse button when the grey area is in your desired location. Tableau will resize the existing sheet to make room for the new one.
6. Continue this process for all the sheets you want to add. Tableau will keep splitting the space to accommodate them.

When to use it: Tiled layouts are ideal for simple, organized dashboards where you want a clean, no-fuss grid structure. They are easy to manage and predictable.

The catch: Tiled layouts can feel rigid. If you want more precise control over placement or need to overlap visuals, you'll want to use a Floating layout.

Method 2: Gaining Control with Floating Layouts

A floating layout unpins your sheets from the grid. It lets you place items anywhere on the dashboard, resize them freely, and even layer them on top of one another. This is great for designs where you want to place a KPI card over a chart or add a text box with notes in a specific corner.

How to Use a Floating Layout:

1. In the Dashboard pane, find the "Objects" section at the bottom-left. Below it, you'll see a toggle between "Tiled" and "Floating." By default, it's on "Tiled."
2. Click "Floating." Now, any new objects or sheets you drag onto the dashboard will be floating.
3. Drag a worksheet onto the canvas. It will appear as a freely movable box. You can drag it to any position and resize it by dragging its edges.
4. To change an existing tiled sheet to floating, click on the sheet to select it. Then, click the small dropdown arrow that appears at its top-right corner, go to "Floating," and you're all set.

When to use it: Use floating layouts when pixel-perfect placement matters. It's perfect for overlapping objects, creating custom KPI dashboards, and breaking free from the standard grid.

The catch: Overusing floating layouts can make your dashboard difficult to manage, especially when it needs to work on different screen sizes. A common best practice is to use a tiled layout for the main structure and then float a few specific items (like filters or titles) on top.

Method 3: Organizing Everything with Layout Containers

Layout containers are the secret to building professional, well-organized dashboards. They are invisible boxes that hold and arrange your worksheets and objects for you. There are two types: Horizontal containers line up objects side-by-side, and Vertical containers stack them on top of each other.

Using containers seems like an extra step at first, but it pays off by making your dashboard much easier to manage, resize, and update.

Step-by-Step Example Using Containers:

Let's create a common layout: an executive summary on the left with a main chart on the right.

1. Start with a new, empty dashboard with the layout set to "Tiled."
2. From the "Objects" section, drag a Horizontal container onto the canvas.
3. Next, drag a Vertical container and place it inside the left half of the horizontal container you just added. You'll know it's going inside when the grey area is contained within the horizontal container.
4. Now, drag three of your smaller "KPI" sheets (e.g., text tables showing total sales, profit, and customer count) one-by-one into the vertical container. They will neatly stack on top of each other.
5. Finally, drag your main chart (e.g., a Sales over Time line chart) and place it into the right half of the main horizontal container.

You now have a perfectly organized dashboard. If you want the three KPI cards to be equally sized, click the dropdown menu for the vertical container and select "Distribute Contents Evenly." Now resizing the entire dashboard is much cleaner, as the content inside the containers adjusts accordingly.

When to use them: Always. Getting into the habit of using containers for anything more than two sheets will save you headaches down the line. They are essential for building dashboards that look good and function well across different screen sizes.

Method 4: Linking Sheets with Dashboard Actions

Combining sheets isn't just about physical placement, it's also about making them work together interactively. Dashboard Actions bring your dashboard to life by allowing one sheet to affect another.

The most common and useful type is the "Filter Action." A filter action lets you use a selection in one sheet (the "source sheet") to filter the data displayed in another sheet (the "target sheet").

How to Create a Filter Action:

Imagine you have a dashboard with two sheets: a world map showing sales by country (Sheet 1) and a bar chart showing sales by product category (Sheet 2).

1. Arrange both sheets on your dashboard canvas using one of the layout methods above.
2. From the top menu, go to Dashboard > Actions...
3. In the pop-up window, click the "Add Action" button and select "Filter..."
4. This opens the configuration window. Let's give it a name, like "Filter Categories by Country."
5. In the "Source Sheets" box, make sure only your map worksheet is checked. This is the sheet that will trigger the filter.
6. In the "Target Sheets" box, make sure only your bar chart worksheet is checked. This is the sheet that will be filtered.
7. Choose how you want the action to run. "Select" is the most common - it means the action will run when you click on a country on the map. "Hover" and "Menu" are other options.
8. For "Clearing the selection will:", choose what happens when you deselect the mark. "Show all values" is a common choice.
9. Click OK to close both windows.

Now, go back to your dashboard and click on a country on your map. You'll see the product category bar chart instantly update to show data only for that selected country. This makes your dashboard an exploratory tool instead of just a static report.

Final Thoughts

Mastering how to combine sheets is a foundational skill in Tableau. Whether you're using simple tiled layouts, gaining precision with floating elements, organizing with containers, or creating powerful guided analytics with actions, these techniques transform individual charts into a single, cohesive narrative that helps you and your stakeholders make better decisions.

While mastering Tableau is an incredibly valuable skill, we know that building dashboards and digging for insights can often be a slow, manual process. Sometimes you just need to answer a business question without spending hours wrangling data or perfecting a layout. We created Graphed for exactly that. You can connect your marketing and sales data sources in seconds, and then just ask for what you need in plain English. For instance, asking "Show me a dashboard comparing Facebook Ads spend vs. revenue by campaign for last quarter" instantly gives you a live dashboard, letting you get straight to the insights.