How to Deselect in Tableau Dashboard

Creating an interactive Tableau dashboard is one thing, but making it truly intuitive for your audience is another. You’ve likely experienced the "sticky selection" issue: a user clicks a bar on a chart to filter the view, but the bar stays highlighted, leaving the dashboard feeling cluttered or "stuck." This article will show you several practical, step-by-step methods to control selections and create a seamless deselection experience for your users.

Understanding the "Sticky Selection" Problem

By default, when you click on a data point (or "mark") in a Tableau view, it remains selected to signal that it's actively filtering or highlighting other parts of your dashboard. To deselect it, you have to find an empty patch of white space to click on, click the same mark again, or hit the "Escape" key. While this makes sense to a Tableau developer, it often confuses business users who expect the dashboard to reset automatically.

An executive looking at a sales report might click on a region, analyze the filtered data, and then get distracted trying to figure out how to un-click it. This small point of friction can make an otherwise brilliant dashboard feel clunky and unprofessional. Fixing this is key to improving your dashboard's user experience.

Method 1: The Simple "Reset" Button

The most straightforward solution is to give your users an obvious way to clear all filters and selections. A dedicated "Reset" button is easy to create and instantly understood by anyone who has ever used a web application.

Step 1: Create a New Worksheet for the Button

First, we need to build the button itself on a separate worksheet.

1. Create a new worksheet and name it something clear, like "Reset Button."
2. Create a new Calculated Field. Name it Reset Label and in the formula box, simply type a string label for your button, like 'Reset Filters' or 'Clear Selections'. Click OK.
3. Drag the new Reset Label calculated field onto the Text card in the Marks shelf.
4. In the main view, you may want to hide the title of the sheet by right-clicking it and selecting "Hide Title."
5. Under the Marks card, change the visualization type from "Automatic" to "Square." This will give our button a more defined shape. You can click on "Color" to change its appearance.
6. Click on the dropdown for the worksheet fit and select "Entire View" to ensure the button fills the container we'll place it in later.

You should now have a simple, colored square with your text label inside. This is your button.

Step 2: Add the Button to Your Dashboard

Now, navigate to your main dashboard. Drag your new "Reset Button" worksheet from the Sheets list on the left and drop it onto a clear area of your dashboard layout. You can resize it as needed.

Step 3: Create the Dashboard Action

This is where the magic happens. We'll tell Tableau what to do when someone clicks our new button.

1. In the top menu, go to Dashboard > Actions...
2. In the popup window, click Add Action > Filter...
3. Give your action an intuitive name, like "Reset Action."
4. For Source Sheets, uncheck all sheets except your "Reset Button" sheet. Ensure Run action on is set to "Select."
5. For Target Sheets, select all the sheets on your dashboard that you want to reset when the button is clicked. Do not select your button sheet as a target.
6. Under Clearing the selection will, choose "Show all values." This is crucial, it’s what tells Tableau to revert the views to their original state.
7. Now for the trick. Under Target Filters, click "Selected Fields." Add a filter that maps a field from your "Reset Button" sheet to a field that doesn't exist in your target sheets. Since the fields won't match, this action forces a reset and deselects any marks on the target sheets. Often, you can simply click "Add Filter" and create a dummy mapping, for example, from Reset Label in the source sheet to a random, unrelated field in one of the target data sources.
8. Click OK twice to close the action windows.

Go back to your dashboard and test it. Click a data point on any chart to select it, then click your new "Reset Filters" button. Everything should immediately revert and deselect. It's a simple and effective solution.

Method 2: The Invisible Button Trick

What if you want users to deselect simply by clicking on the background of a chart, without needing a dedicated button? This advanced trick involves placing a transparent sheet over your dashboard that triggers the reset action.

Step 1: Create the Invisible Shape Worksheet

1. Create a new worksheet named "Invisible Deselect."
2. Create a simple Calculated Field named Deselect Trigger with the formula 'deselect'.
3. Change the Marks type from Automatic to "Shape."
4. Go to the Shapes folder in your "My Tableau Repository" folder on your computer. Add a completely transparent PNG file (you can easily create one or find one online). Don't forget to click "Reload Shapes" in Tableau afterward.
5. Drag the Deselect Trigger field onto the Shape card. Click the Shape card, find your transparent shape, and assign it.
6. Click on "Color" and turn the opacity all the way down to 0% and remove any border. Your shape should now be completely invisible in the view panel. Make sure to set the fit to "Entire View."

Step 2: Add and Configure the Dashboard Action

1. On your dashboard, drag a Floating container over the chart (or entire dashboard) where you want this behavior. Drag your "Invisible Deselect" sheet into this floating container.
2. Set up a Dashboard Filter Action precisely as you did in Method 1. The only difference is your Source Sheet will now be the "Invisible Deselect" worksheet.

When a user clicks on what they perceive as the background of your chart, they're actually clicking this invisible sheet floating on top. This action triggers the filter reset, clearing all selections and providing a beautifully clean user experience.

Method 3: The "Self-Deselecting" Action Filter

This method is for a specific user experience: you want a mark to deselect itself immediately after the user has clicked it and the dashboard has filtered. It’s perfect for guiding users through a single-selection analysis path, though not ideal for scenarios requiring multi-select.

This trick works by creating a conflicting action filter that is impossible to satisfy, thereby forcing Tableau to immediately clear the selection.

Step 1: Create Two Boolean Calculated Fields

In the Data pane for the data source of the sheet you want to self-deselect (e.g., your "Sales by Region" map), create two new calculated fields:

• Name one True_Calc and give it the formula: TRUE
• Name the other False_Calc and give it the formula: FALSE

You don't need to add these fields to the view itself, they just need to exist in the data source.

Step 2: Create a Conflicting Filter Action

1. Navigate to Dashboard > Actions... and click Add Action > Filter.... This action will be in addition to your regular dashboard actions.
2. Give it a descriptive name like "Self-Deselect Map Marks."
3. Under Source Sheets, select just the sheet you want this behavior to apply to (e.g., your "Sales by Region" map).
4. Under Target Sheets, select the same exact sheet. We are creating an action that targets itself.
5. Keep Run action on as "Select," and set Clearing the selection will to "Show all values."
6. This is the critical step. Under Target Filters, choose "Selected Fields." Click "Add Filter..."
7. In the dialog box:
8. Click OK all the way out.

Now, when a user clicks a region on your map, two things happen instantly. First, your primary dashboard actions fire, filtering the other charts as intended. Immediately after, this new self-targeting action fires. It tries to filter the map by targeting marks where TRUE equals FALSE. Since this condition can never be met, the action fails and executes its "clearing" behavior - showing all values and immediately deselecting the mark the user just clicked.

Best Practices for a Better User Experience

Implementing these technical solutions is only half the battle. To truly enhance your dashboard, keep these principles in mind:

• Be Consistent: Whichever method you choose, try to use it consistently across your organization's dashboards. Users learn how to interact with your reports, and consistency builds confidence and reduces confusion.
• Provide Instructions: A small, simple text box on the dashboard that says, "Click a bar to filter results. Click this button to reset," can eliminate all guesswork for new users.
• Match the Method to the Need: The auto-deselecting method is fantastic for a streamlined, clean look. However, if your users need to select multiple items at once (by holding Ctrl/Cmd), a dedicated reset button is a much better choice, as it doesn't interfere with their workflow.
• Remember the Escape Key: Don't forget to teach your users that hitting the "Esc" key is Tableau's built-in universal deselect command. In some cases, a little user education is the simplest solution of all.

Final Thoughts

Mastering deselection behaviors transforms a functional Tableau dashboard into an elegant and professional reporting tool. By using techniques like a dedicated reset button, invisible overlays, or self-deselecting action filters, you can eliminate common user frustrations and create an experience that feels intuitive and fluid.

While perfecting these small but significant interactions in Tableau is a rewarding part of building great analytics, we believe getting insights shouldn't be held back by complex configurations. We created Graphed to dramatically simplify this entire process. Instead of manually setting up actions and calculated fields, you can just describe the dashboard you want in plain English, and Graphed builds a live, interactive report for you in seconds, letting you focus entirely on the story your data is telling.