LAYOUT CONTAINERS PART II

Since my first post on layout containers was so popular I decided it was necessary to do a follow up post.  Layout Containers Part II will include some additional tips and tricks about when to use layout containers and how.  Some topic will include floating layout containers, custom formatting using layout containers, and pop-up graphs using actions and layout containers.

Floating Layout Containers
Are you floating multiple objects such as quick filters, parameter, or sheets?  Use a floating layout container to make sure they are aligned and sized to your liking.

Custom Formatting
Using layout containers allows you to custom define heights or widths of objects depending on the type (vertical/horizontal) layout container.  By right clicking on the object in the container and hitting the carrot (drop-down) navigate to edit height where you will be prompted for an input in pixels.



In addition to setting custom heights or widths you can use layout containers to shade or define borders.  Do this by selecting the layout container, hit the carrot (drop-down), and select format layout container.  In the formatting screen (on the left) you will see options for shading and borders.

Pop-up Graphs Using Actions
What is a pop-up graph?  A pop-up graph is a graph that seemingly "pops-up" or appears when the user clicks on something in the dashboard and disappears when the user un-selects.

In order to cover pop-up graphs I will first need to talk about actions.  An action connects two object in a dashboard.  Most commonly actions are used to filter a sheet when you click on another.  In the example below when a user clicks on "Tables" in the source sheet the Target Sheet will be filtered to only show Table orders.  Here is the link to Tableau's website covering actions.

To create a pop-up version of the action shown above you need to edit your action so that clearing the selection will exclude all values.  Once you have adjusted the action simply put both sheets into a layout container.

In the example below the source sheet and target sheet were put into a layout container.  Since layout containers automatically size sheets to fit the best way possible the target sheet size is very small (just enough room for the title).  If you delete the title you wouldn't even know the sheet was there (that's the point).  Once you make a selection in the source sheet the layout container will re-size the sheets.  When this happens the target sheet will seemingly pop-up with a table of information even though the table was really there all along.