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Number and formatting options: New in 2021.4

WebEdit keeps catching up to Desktop, and now you can format parameters straight in the browser.

Part ofWhat's new in Tableau 2021.4
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  • You can now format parameter number and currency settings directly in WebEdit on Tableau Server and Online, bringing it closer to Desktop parity
  • The standard currency formatting includes a built-in list of countries and currencies, so you can pick one without manual customisation
  • The new Lightning colour palettes (default, colour safe, light, dark, blue grass, sunrise, water, watermelon) are designed to match Salesforce colours
  • Salesforce Lightning palettes are categorical, suited to distinct dimension values rather than continuous or diverging colour ranges

Tableau 2021.4 adds two quality-of-life features: you can now format parameter numbers and currencies directly in WebEdit on Server/Online, and there's a new set of Salesforce-aligned

The Breakdown
  • Open a dashboard in WebEdit 0:00

    To access either feature you first need to be in edit view on Tableau Server or Online rather than just viewing the dashboard, since both capabilities live inside WebEdit's editing tools.

  • Format a parameter's number settings 0:33

    Select a parameter, open its dropdown, and go into the editing capabilities to find formatting options for numbers and currency. This brings WebEdit formatting closer to parity with Desktop, so you no longer need to switch tools just to tweak a parameter's display format.

  • Use the built-in currency list 1:21

    The standard currency formatting option comes with a prebuilt list of countries and currencies, so you can pick the relevant one directly rather than manually customising the format yourself. You can still fully customise the format if none of the presets fit.

  • Apply Lightning palettes to categorical fields 2:02

    These palettes work as categorical colouring, where each distinct colour maps to one dimension value (for example, different shipping statuses) rather than to a range. Apply them when you want a Tableau view to visually align with how the same categories look inside Salesforce.

  • Don't use them for continuous or diverging data 2:21

    If your field is continuous, like a profit ratio needing a diverging colour range, the Lightning palettes don't apply since they're built for distinct dimension values, not a spectrum of values.

  • Find the Lightning colour palettes 3:01

    On any sheet, go to the colour shelf, click edit colours, open the palette dropdown and scroll to the bottom to find the new Lightning palettes: default, colour safe, light, dark, blue grass, sunrise, water and watermelon. These are designed to visually match Salesforce's own colour references.

Worth Knowing
  • The presenter notes the Lightning palettes are quite bright/garish colours, questioning whether Salesforce actually uses colours this vivid in practice.
  • This palette is only useful if you specifically need Tableau visuals to match Salesforce's colour scheme — it has no benefit otherwise.
Use It When

Reach for the parameter formatting update when you're maintaining dashboards on Server or Online and don't want to jump back to Desktop just to fix a number or currency format. Reach for the Lightning palettes when building Tableau content that needs to visually align with an existing Salesforce interface, and only for categorical dimension colouring.

How this Rollup was made provenance & method

A Rollup is drafted by AI from the video's transcript, then reviewed and edited by Tim. Everything used to produce this one is listed below — the model, the exact prompt, and the source video — so the process is transparent and reproducible.

Transcription
On-device — NVIDIA Parakeet v3 for recent videos, OpenAI Whisper large-v3 for earlier ones. The transcript never leaves the machine or gets published.
Drafting
Claude Sonnet 5 in the cloud, from that transcript.
Prompt
The exact Rollup prompt (v2) — the full system prompt, unedited.
Source video
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Drafted
5 July 2026 at 09:38
Reviewed & edited
5 July 2026 at 09:41 · by Tim Ngwena

Model + prompt + video is everything you'd need to recreate a Rollup like this yourself. The one thing we don't share is the transcript.

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