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Tableau | Data visualisation

How to create sets in web edit with

Sets finally arrive in Web Edit, but there's a little workaround you need to know to actually use them.

Tim Ngwena •12 August 2020 •1 min read •3 min watch •3.8K

Tableau 2020.3 adds the ability to create sets in Web Edit via right-click then Create, closing a gap with desktop
In Web Edit you can't edit or show a set directly from the data pane like you can in desktop
Drag the set onto the marks card (such as detail) to unlock the dropdown option to show the set control
Use the set control on the right to add members, then place the set on colour to see it filter dynamically
When demoing, drag your dimension to rows before columns to avoid the confusing ABC placeholder in the view

0:00Hey, it's Tim here. And in 2020.3, Tableau

0:05continues to push forward its advances to

0:08create feature parity between WebEdit and

0:10desktop by adding the ability to create

0:13sets

0:13in the browser. Let me show you how that

0:15works. You can see here that I'm in the Ask

0:18Data

0:18interface. And what I'm going to do is

0:20instead of going to Ask Data, I'm going to

0:21hit this

0:22option to create a new workbook. That hops

0:25me straight into the WebEdit instance. Now,

0:28in this setup, I've pretty much got most of

0:30the interface that I'd expect to see in

0:31desktop,

0:32but it's always lagged a little bit behind

0:34its desktop counterpart. And so what you

0:36can

0:36now do is if you right click any particular

0:38field and go to the Create option, you'll

0:40see here that there's a new option to

0:42create a set. Let me just highlight that

0:45for you.

0:45Now that lets you create a set. And when we

0:47click on that, Tableau goes ahead and

0:49creates

0:49the set right here in the data pane. But

0:52unlike in desktop, you don't have the

0:54ability to

0:55edit the set just yet. If I right click on

0:56it, you'll see that there's no option here

0:58to edit the set whatsoever. The other thing

1:01I could do is show the set, but you can

1:02also

1:02see that that's also hidden. So in order to

1:05get this to work, we're going to need to do

1:07something a little bit different compared

1:09to desktop. To show you, I'm going to go

1:11ahead

1:11and build the view. I'm going to drag

1:13region onto columns, and I'm going to drag

1:15cells

1:16onto rows. Now, one little tip. If you're

1:18demoing Tableau, they always teach you not

1:20to bring in dimension first. They actually

1:22always say to bring in the rows first so

1:24that

1:24you don't get this funny instance where you

1:26get ABC in the view because that sort of

1:28confuses

1:28a lot of new users. So that's just a little

1:30tip. I fell there myself. So let's drag

1:33cells

1:33onto rows and then region onto columns. And

1:37then what we're going to do is we're going

1:38to bring the set onto the canvas. And by

1:40doing this, it allows us to enable the

1:42option to

1:43show the set. So let's drag region set onto

1:45detail. This is my default place to go to

1:48whenever. I'm not sure where to put

1:49something. I put it on detail, and then I

1:51start working

1:52with it from there. If I hit this little

1:54dropdown, you'll see here that I now have

1:57the ability

1:58to show the set. Let me just highlight that

2:00for you. So you can see here I have the

2:01ability

2:02to show the set. So let's hit that. And on

2:06the right-hand side, you can now see that

2:08I'm moving over here to the right-hand side

2:10of my screen. I now have the set controls.

2:12So now I can add items to my set. So let's

2:15hit central and east. Now we've added them

2:17to our set. It's pretty much enabled. But

2:20because we haven't put our set onto

2:22anything

2:23in the marks pane, we just put it onto

2:25detail, it's not actually changing the

2:27context. So

2:28if we drag it onto color or add it to the

2:30color pane, now we get to see our control

2:33working in real time. And now you can see

2:36we're now creating the set dynamically. So

2:38the set control allows us to basically

2:40control what's in the set. And once that's

2:43done, you

2:43can now work with it in Web Edit. So this

2:45is a nice little feature because sets is

2:47such

2:47a basic feature that we use in Tableau

2:49Desktop a lot of the time. And to not have

2:51it in Web

2:51Edit makes it sort of a lesser citizen in

2:55some sense. It's great to finally see this.

2:58It's not quite got the same power and

3:00capabilities you have with things like set

3:02actions, but

3:03I figure Tableau is getting there. And

3:05eventually, they'll be pretty much one for

3:08one. If you've

3:08enjoyed this video, be sure to check out

3:10some of the other videos in the 2020.3

3:13playlist.

3:14Check out some of the other videos on the

3:15channel as well. There's lots of Tableau

3:17content

3:17being constantly produced. And if there's

3:19something you think we can do or there's

3:21content

3:21that's missing, let us know what that

3:23content is in the comments below. Subscribe

3:24to the

3:25channel as well, and we'll catch you in the

3:26next video. Thank you for watching.

Tableau release Note: For the first time on Tableau Server and Tableau Online, you can create Sets directly in web authoring. In 2020.3 you can only create one type of set, a Dynamic General set. During the set creation process, we do not present you with a set dialog, as we do on Tableau Desktop today. Tableau automatically creates the set based on the field’s caption and shows it as selected in the data pane.This video is part of a larger playlist on Tableau 2020.3. Be sure to check out other videos in the playlist and subscribe for more content.https://tableautim.com -------Join my Discord Server. https://discord.gg/shBuxXr it’s a little sparse at the moment but hang in there.