How to Create a Slider Filter in Tableau

A slider is one of the most intuitive ways to filter data in a Tableau dashboard, allowing users to drill down into a range of values with a simple drag-and-drop motion. It turns a static chart into an interactive tool for discovery. This tutorial provides a step-by-step guide on how to create and customize slider filters for your metrics and dates.

Why Use a Slider Filter?

While Tableau offers many filter types, sliders are especially useful when dealing with continuous data - like sales figures, profit margins, dates, or quantities. Instead of forcing your users to type specific numbers into a "start" and "end" box, a slider gives them a tangible way to explore the data.

Here are a few benefits:

• Interactive Exploration: Sliders encourage users to play with the data, making it easier to spot trends and outliers at different value ranges.
• Intuitive for Any User: Everyone knows how to use a slider. There's almost no learning curve, making your dashboards more accessible to non-technical stakeholders.
• Saves Dashboard Space: A compact slider can replace bulky lists or multiple input boxes, keeping your dashboard clean and focused.

1. Creating a Basic Slider with a Measure

Let's start by creating a slider to filter a quantitative measure like Sales. We’ll build a simple bar chart and then add a slider to filter which bars are displayed based on their total sales value.

For this example, let's assume we're using Tableau's sample Superstore dataset.

Step 1: Build a Basic Visualization

First, create a simple chart to apply the filter to. Let's make a bar chart showing Sales by Sub-Category.

1. Connect to your data source.
2. Drag the Sub-Category dimension to the Columns shelf.
3. Drag the Sales measure to the Rows shelf.

You should now see a bar chart displaying the total sales for each product sub-category.

Step 2: Add the Measure to the Filters Shelf

To create a filter based on the total sales amount, drag the Sales measure from the Data pane to the Filters shelf.

A "Filter Field" dialog box will appear. You need to tell Tableau how you want to aggregate the sales data for filtering. Since our chart is showing the sum of sales for each sub-category, choose SUM (Sales) from the list and click Next.

Step 3: Define the Filter's Initial Range

Next, you’ll see a dialog box for setting the range. For now, you can leave the default setting, which includes all values from the minimum to the maximum sum of sales in your data. Click OK.

The filter is now active, but it's not yet visible on your dashboard for users to interact with.

Step 4: Show and Configure the Slider

To make the filter interactive, you need to display it on your view.

1. Find the SUM(Sales) pill on your Filters shelf.
2. Right-click the pill and select Show Filter.

A filter card will appear on the right side of your workspace. By default, it will likely be a "Range of Values" filter with two input boxes for a start and end value. To change this into a more user-friendly slider:

1. Click the small dropdown arrow at the top right of the filter card.
2. Select the slider style. The card will instantly transform into a dual-handled slider control.

Now you can drag the handles to filter the sub-categories based on their sales totals. For example, you can slide the bottom handle up to hide all sub-categories that made less than $100,000.

2. Creating a Slider for a Date Range

Sliders are also perfect for filtering by dates. The process is very similar to filtering a measure. Let's add a date slider to our view.

Step 1: Add a Date Field to Filters

Drag your date dimension (e.g., Order Date) onto the Filters shelf.

Step 2: Choose How to Filter the Date

A "Filter Field" dialog will appear, asking how you want to filter the date. For a continuous slider, select Range of Dates and click Next.

Click OK on the next dialog to accept the full date range.

Step 3: Show the Date Filter

Just like before, the filter is working in the background but is not yet visible.

1. Right-click the Order Date pill on the Filters shelf.
2. Select Show Filter.

A versatile date range filter card will appear. This card acts as a slider, allowing you to drag the start and end points along a timeline to narrow your visible date range. The chart will update in real-time to reflect the selected period.

3. Using a Parameter for Active Sliders

Sometimes, a standard filter doesn't offer enough flexibility. For example, what if you want to create a slider that lets a user see the "Top N" products by sales? You can't do this with a regular filter. This is where parameters shine.

A parameter is a dynamic value that an end-user can change. We can create an integer parameter and link it to a Top N filter.

Step 1: Create the Parameter

1. In the Data pane, right-click and select Create Parameter.
2. Configure the parameter settings:
3. Click OK.

Step 2: Show the Parameter Control

Your new parameter now appears in the bottom left of the Data pane. To make it interactive:

• Right-click the "Top N Sub-Categories" parameter and select Show Parameter.

A slider control for your parameter will now appear on the right side of the view. However, dragging it won't do anything yet because it hasn't been connected to your visualization.

Step 3: Connect the Parameter to a Filter

Finally, we need to tell our Sub-Category filter to use the value from our new parameter.

1. Drag the Sub-Category dimension to the Filters shelf.
2. In the dialog that appears, switch to the Top tab.
3. Select the option By field.
4. In the dropdowns, make sure it's set to filter the Top list by Sales and Sum.
5. Click the dropdown instead of entering a fixed number and select your parameter "Top N Sub-Categories".

Now, click OK. Your "Top N" slider is fully functional! When a user moves the slider to a value like "5," the view will dynamically update to show only the top 5 sub-categories by sales.

Tips for Effective Sliders

• Keep it Clean: Don't overwhelm your users with too many sliders. Use them selectively for the most important interactive filters.
• Provide Context: Always give your filter a clear, descriptive title. "Filter by Total Sales" is much better than just "SUM(Sales)." You can double-click the title on the filter card to edit it.
• Set Defaults: Configure your slider’s default range to show a meaningful and complete dataset when a user first opens the dashboard. Adjust the slider and save the workbook.
• Mind Performance: On extremely large datasets, live filters can cause performance lags as Tableau re-queries data with every micro-adjustment. Consider using a data extract to speed things up.

Final Thoughts

Mastering sliders in Tableau is a key step toward building dashboards that are not just informative, but truly interactive and user-friendly. By combining standard filters with parameter-driven controls, you can give your audience the power to slice, dice, and explore data on their own terms.

While creating interfaces like this in Tableau is powerful, setting up data sources, building visualizations, and configuring interactive filters still involves many manual steps. At Graphed, we're building a new way to analyze data. Instead of dragging and dropping to build charts and filters, we let you use simple prompts in plain English. Just ask for what you want to see - like "show me top 10 products by sales last quarter" - and watch a real-time dashboard get built for you in seconds. It connects to all your sources like Google Analytics and Salesforce, so you can skip the setup and get straight to the insights. You can start exploring your data for free today with Graphed.