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Tableau | Data prep | Analytics

The Right () and Left () Functions in Tableau

RIGHT and LEFT are great for clean, consistent data - but pair them with a parameter and they suddenly become dynamic.

Tim Ngwena •8 March 2021 •1 min read •9 min watch •3.7K

Part ofTableau Functions

Watch on YouTube

Right-click a field and choose Describe (then Load) to view its metadata and the first 20 or so values
RIGHT(string, number) returns characters from the end of a string and LEFT(string, number) from the start
Don't wrap an existing string field in quotation marks - Tableau adds quotes only to mark literal text, and adding them to a field name breaks the calculation
Hard-coded character counts only work on perfectly consistent data, so this technique has a limited use case on messy data
Swap the fixed number for a parameter to let users dynamically set how many characters are isolated

0:00Hey it's Tim here, in today's video we're

0:01going to be doing a video on the right and

0:04left functions

0:05inside of Tableau. Okay let's get stuck in.

0:07So we're here in Tableau, I'm just going to

0:09open up

0:09Superstore sales, I'm going to open up the

0:11American version which is the second

0:12version, and here we

0:14go. Now the field I'm going to be using in

0:15order to show you this feature is actually

0:17the order

0:18id field. If we just right click on it and

0:20then go down to describe, you actually get

0:22a description

0:23of this field which is essentially the

0:25metadata about this particular column

0:28inside of the

0:28database, in this case that's excel. If you

0:31scroll down you'll see a list of basically

0:34the first 20

0:35or so items, this is really really cool. If

0:37you don't see this you sometimes get this

0:39option to

0:39load the data, so that's a nice little tip

0:41there if you want to see what's in a in a

0:43particular

0:43column just hit the load button and it will

0:45load it or it will show you the first 20

0:47rows. Now I'm

0:49going to be using the right and left

0:51functions to essentially isolate certain

0:53bits of this text,

0:55that's essentially what this string

0:56function does, it lets you choose a certain

0:58number of characters

0:59from the right or the left and basically

1:01isolate them in a calculation. So let me

1:04show you how that

1:04works, I'm going to hit close, I'm just

1:06going to bring order id onto rows here so

1:08we can see it

1:09nice and clearly. Tableau gives me

1:11notifications to tell me there's a lot of

1:13rows here,

1:13I just clicked right through it because I'm

1:15fine, I've got enough resources on my

1:17computer to be

1:18looking at that. If you want to know how

1:19many rows exactly it's over down here on

1:21the left hand side,

1:225009 marks, that's essentially how many

1:25rows we've got. So I'm going to open up the

1:27calculation

1:28window, create calculated field and we're

1:30going to call this the right function just

1:32to start with.

1:33Let's make this bigger by hitting command

1:35plus just so that it's big enough for you

1:38to see and

1:38as ever you can go over here to the right

1:41hand side, go to the string selection and

1:43just look

1:44for the function that says right, it's not

1:45right here in the list so I'm just going to

1:47type in

1:47right and it will search it for me and

1:49there we go. On the right hand side it says

1:52returns a

1:52specified number of characters from the end

1:54of the given string, that's pretty cool so

1:56let's double

1:57click on that and that will bring it into

1:59the field. Now the field we want to do this

2:01is on

2:01order id so I'm just going to go ahead and

2:03type that in there so that's our first bit

2:06of the

2:06calculation, we need to have a piece of

2:09string, a piece of string, we need to have

2:11a string inside

2:12of this data section okay. Then we have a

2:14comma after our string to basically tell

2:17Tableau that

2:17we're now moving on to declare the number

2:19of characters we want from the right hand

2:21side

2:22and if I just move this to the right I know

2:24that this data is very consistent, it's

2:26lovely and

2:26clean, Superstore always is. If we count

2:29this one, two, three, four, five, six, the

2:32last six characters

2:34are basically what we're interested in so

2:36let me hit six and that's pretty much our

2:38function. Now

2:40it's going to go on a new line here, this

2:41is a mistake sometimes people make,

2:43I don't know what I'm doing here but if I

2:45just hit double forward slash here,

2:46sometimes people will do this although I

2:49write the function like so and this should

2:51be in a capitals

2:52okay so this is pretty much exactly the

2:54same as we just did and then what they'll

2:55do is they'll look

2:56at this documentation and they'll use the

2:58double quote mark so they'll do this and

3:00then they'll say

3:02let's just pretend that I actually

3:05automatically entered this order id okay so

3:09this is what they'll

3:11do and then they'll write the function like

3:13this and they'll write it like this because

3:15that's what

3:15the documentation here says. What's not

3:17clear is that Tableau is only putting those

3:19quotation marks

3:21in there because that is a way of adding a

3:23string to this calculation. Let me just

3:26show you if I take

3:27this and put it up here what will actually

3:30happen is it will treat this as a piece of

3:34text okay so

3:35what I'll do is I'll hit enter on this put

3:38it on a new line and then comment it out

3:41and then what

3:41we'll do is we'll get rid of these and then

3:44we'll switch it over to show you that it

3:46works properly

3:47if you don't include them. I'm only showing

3:49this because I see it all the time people

3:51follow the

3:51instructions to the letter let's hit apply

3:54drag right onto order id I did that without

3:56you know doing anything and you can see it

3:59literally just took the right six most

4:02items

4:02so if we count backwards we have one here

4:05with the letter d two in the letter i a

4:07space I think

4:08I've got two spaces here no one space and

4:11then that's what how many now so let me

4:14just start

4:15again one two three four five six okay so

4:19it returns everything after the letter d

4:23pretty

4:23much okay and I think because of the way

4:26computers work um six actually means it

4:28starts counting from

4:29zero and essentially I think what's

4:31actually going on here is that there is an

4:34additional

4:34character here that I'm not oh of course I

4:37forgot this little um bracket so one two

4:40three four five

4:42six and that's why we start with the e in

4:45there I do sometimes get confused because

4:47when you count

4:48in computing terms sometimes six means

4:51seven because you start counting from zero

4:54one two

4:54three but that's programming language that

4:56's not tabular so there you go you can see

4:58it's

4:58taking the right more six and it's not

5:00working as we expected because the order id

5:03field is actually

5:04a field so in order to do that we just need

5:06to just remove this because that's actually

5:09the

5:10string in itself we don't need to put

5:12speech marks around it to make it a string

5:14it already is a

5:15string we know that by just going to the

5:17data type here you can see it says abc that

5:19means it's a

5:19string so now let's hit apply and now you

5:21'll see that that's doing the right thing so

5:23that's pretty

5:24much it for these functions right goes from

5:26the right hand side left goes from the left

5:29hand side

5:29let's just switch things up and let me just

5:32show you that very very quickly so if I

5:34just search

5:34for this field we have right here I'm gonna

5:37right click and duplicate it so I get

5:38another copy

5:40then I'm gonna rename it and call it left

5:42it's gonna disappear because I've got this

5:45search

5:46going on right now and so only looking for

5:47things that start with right so then let's

5:50go here right

5:50click on it and edit and it loads up the

5:53left and we can just change this now so we

5:57'll just hit this

5:58one here and I'll just type in left okay

6:01just to make that simple it auto completes

6:04now you can see

6:05it's exactly the same function hit apply

6:07and we're going to drag it in and you'll

6:10see that it takes

6:11the left six items so in this case ca201 is

6:15basically what it's going to pick up I can

6:19actually change it to seven because that

6:22would give me the first part of the order

6:24id and it

6:24keeps it in a nice consistent format so

6:26this is great because this works when you

6:29know the field

6:30or the information is going to be

6:31consistent every single time however most

6:34data isn't actually

6:35ever that clean so this has a very limited

6:37use case you can do something which is to

6:40dynamically

6:40find the position of something and then

6:43dynamically create this number over here

6:45and then use that to

6:47do the left function so if you think of it

6:49this way whatever you put in here can be

6:52anything it

6:53can be a calculation it can be a parameter

6:55in fact if I just go ahead and do that let

6:58's just create a

6:59parameter in this white space we'll call it

7:02number of characters okay and now that's

7:05ready to go we're

7:07going to keep it as a float click okay

7:09right click on it show the parameter it's

7:11going to come up here

7:12on the right hand side okay now I'm going

7:14to go back in my left calculation and I'm

7:16going to

7:17replace this let's just make this larger so

7:19you can see I'm going to replace this with

7:22my parameter

7:22and the parameter is called number of

7:25characters you see it comes up here as a

7:27numerical

7:29field but it actually says source

7:30parameters so let's click on that and

7:32parameters end up being

7:34purple inside of a calculation window so

7:36now hit apply you'll see that it just has

7:38one character

7:39but I can now close this and now in here on

7:41the right hand side I can just simply type

7:43whatever

7:43I want let's say I hit 8 hit enter boom it

7:46goes and finds the eight characters hit 7

7:49boom so

7:50parameters are basically user variable

7:52fields and you can enter whatever you want

7:54into them they're

7:54not stored with the data source they're

7:56stored in a separate table that sits inside

7:58of the workbook

7:59and it's loaded dynamically on onto the

8:01data set when you need it but it allows you

8:03to do really

8:03cool things like this give users a way of

8:05changing the context of the question being

8:08asked and you

8:08can build them into your calculation to

8:10make things like this really really dynamic

8:13okay so

8:13that's pretty much it for the video hope

8:15you enjoyed it in the next video we're

8:16going to be

8:17actually looking at the find function

8:19specifically find and the find nth function

8:22and we're going to

8:23be combining it a bit with these functions

8:24as well so be sure to look out for that

8:26video

8:26and when I upload it very soon all right

8:28take care if you've enjoyed the video you

8:30know what to do if

8:31you haven't let me know in the comments

8:33below a lot of you have been telling me

8:35what kind of videos

8:35you want to see on Tableau server I

8:37actually have a new way of making sure that

8:39people can submit

8:40those and we can get a bit of a community

8:42involvement in terms of choosing which

8:44videos

8:45I actually record next these functions are

8:47going to be a staple this year but we're

8:48going to try

8:49and do new videos on a Friday that are

8:51basically community voted so look out for

8:54the link to that

8:55in the description I'm going to sort of

8:57create a bit of a challenge to find the

8:58link to do that

8:59because a lot of people spam the comments

9:01so I'm going to make it a little bit hard

9:02for people to

9:03find but if you look in the description you

9:05'll know what to do and yeah suggest some

9:07videos

9:07you'd like to see I'll catch you in the

9:09next video

Rollup

RIGHT and LEFT let you pull a fixed number of characters from either end of a text string, which is handy for splitting consistent, structured fields like IDs or codes into meaningful parts.

Tim works with an Order ID field made up of consistent, clean text codes. He uses it to isolate parts of the string and to flag a common mistake people make when following the documentation literally.

The Breakdown

Check the field's values first 0:14

Right-click any field and choose Describe (or Load if prompted) to see its metadata and roughly the first 20 values. Do this before writing a string calculation so you know the data is consistent enough for a fixed-character approach to work.
Build the RIGHT function 1:26

RIGHT(string, number) returns a set number of characters counting from the end of the string. You supply the field as the string and count how many characters from the right you actually need.
Don't wrap a field name in quotation marks 2:40

A common mistake is copying the syntax from documentation literally and putting quote marks around the field name. Quotes tell Tableau to treat the contents as literal text, not a field, so wrapping an existing string field in quotes breaks the calculation - only use them for actual typed-in text, and only if the field isn't already a string type.
Duplicate to build LEFT the same way 5:30

LEFT works identically to RIGHT but counts characters from the start of the string. Once you've built one, you can duplicate it, rename it, and swap the function name rather than writing it from scratch.
Know the limits of a hard-coded count 6:22

A fixed character count only works reliably when every value in the field follows exactly the same structure and length. As soon as data is inconsistent, this approach breaks, so it has a fairly narrow use case on real-world messy data.
Swap the fixed number for a parameter 6:38

Replace the hard-coded character count with a parameter so users can change how many characters are isolated on the fly. This turns a static calculation into a dynamic one, since parameters are user-editable variables stored in the workbook rather than the data source.

Worth Knowing

Quotation marks in Tableau calculations mark literal text, not fields - adding them around a field that's already a string will break the calculation
Describe (or Load) only shows roughly the first 20 rows, so it's a quick sanity check rather than a full data profile
Hard-coded RIGHT/LEFT counts assume every value has the same structure and length, so they're unreliable on inconsistent data
Parameters aren't stored with the data source - they live in a separate table inside the workbook and load dynamically when needed

Use It When

Reach for RIGHT and LEFT when you need to split out a consistent, structured text field, like a code or ID with a fixed format, and pair them with a parameter when you want users to control how much of the string gets extracted.

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: Watch on YouTube
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.

Rights. The video and its transcript are the property of TN Media Ltd. Unauthorised use or download is prohibited. © TN Media Ltd.