Visualizations & Dashboards15% of the exam

Dashboard widgets, filter inputs and query cache

How Tableau Next dashboard widgets receive filters and parameters, start from dynamic defaults, narrate and embed metrics, apply conditional formatting and reuse cached queries, plus exploring, re-pointing and predicting with the visualizations they show.

Official exam objective
Apply visualization and dashboarding best practices to design user-friendly Tableau Next assets.

~8 min read · 11 practice questions

What the exam expects

  • Choose between Clone and Edit Source when a user explores a dashboard visualization, and know what a custom dashboard view saves.
  • Re-point a visualization to an extended semantic model and predict which fields map automatically.
  • Set Receive Dashboard Filters and Receive Dashboard Parameters (All, Include, Exclude, None) per widget, and give a filter a static or dynamic default value.
  • Pick the Summary widget, a Text widget with a Metric element or a Metric widget for a narrative requirement, and predict how conditional formatting rules combine.
  • Recommend Query Cache for frequently opened dashboards, use prediction fields in visual analysis, and open a metric's setup from the dashboard.

Key terms:

  • Widget: a dashboard building block such as a visualization, metric, filter, parameter, text or summary.
  • Receive Dashboard Filters / Parameters: the per-widget setting that decides which dashboard inputs the widget applies.
  • Dynamic default value: a filter's starting selection computed by a calculated field when the dashboard opens.
  • Extended semantic model: a model built from an existing one with extra calculations, objects or relationships.
  • Query Cache: a dashboard setting that reuses stored query results instead of running live queries on every visit.

Key facts

Default receive setting
Detail
All, which applies every dashboard input
Filters vs parameters
Detail
Two separate settings, each with All, Include, Exclude, None
Dynamic default path
Detail
Select Values, Dynamic (Calculated Field), Choose Field
Clone from Explore
Detail
New visualization with current dashboard filters; original unchanged
Model swap mapping keys
Detail
API name, object name and data type
Summary widget input
Detail
A data model and at least two metrics; metrics only
Text widget metric
Detail
Insert Data, Metric, then a single metric element
Conditional format target
Detail
Measures only; format comes from the same measure
Query Cache lifetime
Detail
30 minutes, then automatic refresh
Prediction field uses
Detail
Calculated fields, filters and aggregations
Permission to edit dashboards
Detail
Tableau Unmetered Platform Analyst or Tableau Next Platform Analyst
Sources for this section (10)
  • When a Summary widget should describe only a recent period, which options constrain its data?
  • When an author clicks Explore on a dashboard visualization, what can they review before choosing a next step?
  • Which control extends an existing conditional-format rule with another condition, and on which tab is the rule created?
  • Where does an author start swapping a visualization's model for its extended version?

The questions are free to read. Answers with their sources and self-grading are included with the pack.

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