Tableau Server URL Parameterization and

Limits
Background
This short set of material covers how Tableau Server Views can be invoked
via URLs while passing values for filters along on the URL.

This capability is particularly useful when using the Tableau Server embedded
views capability. Embedded views allow you to place a Tableau View inside
any other web application you have a portal, a wiki page, or any other web-
based application. In these scenarios, you may want the view to be displayed
and have filters for the data be passed to it from other aspects of your web
application.

Whether you embed the views, or just create links directly to the standard
Tableau Server interface, the ability to pass filter values along with the URL to
open the view is a powerful technique to provide a more customized
experience for the person working with the view.
The basic URL pattern

The basic URL pattern to open views is:

http://servername/views/workbook/sheet

The examples in the rest of the document will open a workbook named Coffee
Sales, which was published with a sheet named Sales Performance. The base url
for this document is:
http://servername/views/CoffeeSales/SalesPerformance

Spaces and many special characters are removed from workbook and sheet names,
for example, the Tableau sample workbook named Wow! becomes just Wow in
the URL, and a sheet named
Sales Attainment By Geo becomes SalesAttainment-ByGeo.

The best way to see the precise URL for a specific view is to simply open it from the
Tableau Server and examine the URL in your browser.
The original view
This is the base view that we will use in all the rest of our examples. This view
was built using the Sample Coffee Chain data, and has the structure:
Column Shelf: Market and Sales
Row Shelf: Product Type, Type, and Product
Color Shelf: Profit
Your first filter!
To limit the view to just show the West, use the URL:
http://servername/views/CoffeeSales/SalesPerformance?Market=West

Only the West is displayed, as

we passed that value as a
filter on our URL.
 What about field names with spaces?
To limit the view to just show Espresso drinks, use the URL:
http://servername/views/CoffeeSales/SalesPerformance?Product%20Type=Espresso

To use fields with spaces in

the names, replace the space
with a %20. This is the URL
encoding value for a space.

It is a best practice to URL

encode the entire string to
ensure special characters are Only Espresso drinks are
passed correctly. displayed, as we passed that
value as a filter on our URL.
 And if I want to pass multiple values?
To pass multiple values to the filter, just separate the values with commas:
http://servername/views/CoffeeSales/SalesPerformance?Product%20Type=Coffee,Espresso

Coffee & Espresso!

Just comma separate the

values on the limit.
 If my filter values have spaces in them?
To limit the view to just show Decaf Espresso and Caffe Latte, use the URL:
http://servername/views/CoffeeSales/SalesPerformance?Product=Decaf%20Espresso,Caffe%20Latte

Same trick as with

the field names, just
replace the spaces
with a %20.
Limits on multiple fields at a time
The basic pattern is to just string the parameters together on the URL, using & as the
separator between fields=value pairs:
http://servername/views/CoffeeSales/SalesPerformance?Product%20Type=Espresso&Market=East

Only Espresso drinks in the

East are displayed, as we
passed both filter values along
on the URL.
Now it gets interesting
To pass multiple values to multiple limits on one URL is where the syntax gets a bit more
involved, but allows for tremendous flexibility in the resulting view you ask for.

The interesting way the filters work is when passing multiple values for a specific filter is
that all other filters passed in need to have the same number of values specified. In
essence, it is building a matrix of the cells you would like to see in the resulting view.

For example, if you want to see Coffee and Espresso sales in just the West, you would
specify:
?Product%20Type=Coffee,Espresso&Market=West,West

Which is instructing the view to get coffee in the west and espresso in the west.
Simply having Market=West will result in an error on the server and not return a view.

Lets look at the next example

 Multiple values, multiple limits
The power in this format is it allows you to request specific combinations of items to include
in your view, for example, you may want Coffee in the West and Espresso in the East:
http://servername/views/CoffeeSales/SalesPerformance?Product%20Type=Coffee,Espresso&Market=East,West

The resulting view

matches up the
sequence of the values
passed on each filter to
specify the combinations
of data desired, in this
case the 1st value for
Product Type is Coffee
which is matched with the
1st value for Market which We didnt get any data for Espresso
is East, and the 2nd in the East (or Coffee in the West),
values are matched for since we didnt ask for it. The filter
Espresso & West. passing allows for very precise views
to be returned.
 More on multiple values, multiple limits
To extend the prior example, if I want to retrieve Coffee and Espresso for both the East and
the West, I would use the URL:
http://servername/views/CoffeeSales/SalesPerformance ?Product%20Type=Coffee,Coffee,Espresso,Espresso&Market=East,West,East,West
Adding limits on new fields
In all the examples so far we have set filters on items that are displayed in the view. No filter
or quick filter is required to be pre-created by the original author; you can pass a filter value
of any value.

You can even pass filters for items that are not included in the current view, and Tableau will
automatically add that item to the level of detail and set the filter.

Extending our example, the database also has a State column in it, which was not included
in the original view that we constructed. Passing State= as one of the filter values will add
State to the Level of Detail and set the filter. The view will be restricted to just the state(s)
specified.
 Adding limits on new fields
Passing a filter for State, even though that field isnt used in the view:
http://servername/views/CoffeeSales/SalesPerformance?State=California,Wisconsin

Be careful when using

this technique, as there
wont be any visual
indicators in the view that
the data has been
limited, since the State
field is never actually
displayed on the page.
Date values
Two important points when working with dates. The first is that all date (and time) values
passed on the filter need to match the Tableau default format, which is not necessarily the
display format used in your view.

The Tableau internal format is:

yyyy-mm-dd hh:mm:ss
Where the timepart uses a 24 hour clock, so 10:18 pm would be specified as 22:18:00,
remember that many database actually store dates as datetime values, so you may need to
include a time part to the value you provide on the filter.

The second thing to remember is that many databases store all date values as datetime
fields, so you may need to pass a time value along with your date.

If you data is just a date field (with no time), the URL would look like:
http://servername/views/CoffeeSales/SalesPerformance?Date=1999-07-01

If you have a database with datetime values, the URL would look like:
http://servername/views/CoffeeSales/SalesPerformance?Date=1999-07-01%2022:18:00
 Date values
In this example, we are asking for the display from our Coffee Sales/Sales Performance
view to be filtered to only show data from July 1, 1999.

http://servername/views/CoffeeSales/SalesPerformance ?Date=1999-07-01%2000%3A00%3A00

(the value is URL encoded, which converts the space to %20, and the colons in the timepart
to %3A)

Selecting to View Underlying

Data confirms this view only
has values for the specific
date we provided on the filter.
 Multiple date values
To set the filter to specify multiple date values, just comma separate the list of values:

http://servername/views/CoffeeSales/SalesPerformance ?Date=1999-07-01,1999-09-01,1999-10-01
 What about measures?
All the examples up to this point have been setting filters on dimensions. You can also set
filters on measures via the URL. All limit values are equality limits. There is no current
support for greater than or less than, or shortcuts for ranges. If you have multiple values,
just comma separate them.

http://servername/views/CoffeeSales/SalesPerformance ?Profit=0,100,250