What is Normal Filter in Tableau?

Building a dashboard in Tableau often feels like trying to tell a story with your data, and filters are your most important storytelling tool. They let you zoom in on specific segments, compare periods, and focus your audience's attention on what truly matters. This article will walk you through the most common and fundamental filter type in Tableau: the normal filter.

Understanding the Basics of Tableau Filters

Before we delve into normal filters, let's have a quick recap. In Tableau, a filter is any control that limits the data shown in your visualization. When you drag a data field (what Tableau calls a "pill") onto the "Filters" shelf in your worksheet, you're telling Tableau to only include or exclude certain values from that field in your chart or table.

Tableau has several types of filters that are processed in a specific sequence, known as the Order of Operations. This order matters because a filter applied early on will affect the data available for subsequent filters. The main filter types you'll encounter are:

• Extract Filters: Filters data pulled from your data source into a Tableau extract.
• Data Source Filters: Filters data at the source level, before it enters any worksheet.
• Context Filters: A special type of filter that creates a temporary subset of your data for the rest of your view to work with.
• Dimension & Measure Filters: These are what are commonly referred to as "Normal" filters, and they're the focus of this article.
• Table Calculation Filters: Filters the view after calculations have already been computed.

For most of your day-to-day analysis, you'll be using normal filters on your dimensions and measures.

What is a Normal Filter?

A "Normal Filter" is the standard filter type you create when you drag a dimension (like Category or Region) or a measure (like Sales or Profit) to the Filters shelf. It operates independently and is processed after any Context, Data Source, or Extract filters have been applied.

Conceptually, it’s simple: you’re telling Tableau to show you results that meet certain criteria, like "only show me sales from the 'West' region" or "only show me orders where profit was above $0." It’s the workhorse of Tableau dashboards, used for everything from slicing data by category to setting a date range.

Normal filters can be either discrete or continuous, depending on the type of data field you are filtering.

• Discrete Filters (Blue Pills): These apply to fields whose values are distinct and separate, like product names, customer IDs, or a list of countries. When you create a filter on a discrete field, Tableau presents you with a list of items to either include or exclude.
• Continuous Filters (Green Pills): These apply to fields that represent a range of values, like sales figures, temperatures, or dates. When you filter a continuous field, Tableau gives you a slider or input boxes to define the minimum and maximum values for the range you want to see.

How to Create a Normal Dimension Filter (Step-by-Step)

Let's walk through creating a normal filter on a dimension, which is typically a text or categorical field. We'll use the 'Category' field from the Sample - Superstore dataset included with Tableau.

Step 1: Set Up a Basic View

First, create a simple bar chart to work with. Drag the 'Sales' measure to the Columns shelf and the 'Sub-Category' dimension to the Rows shelf. You'll now have a horizontal bar chart showing the total sales for each sub-category.

Step 2: Drag a Dimension to the 'Filters' Shelf

Find the 'Category' dimension in your data pane and drag it directly onto the 'Filters' shelf, which is located just above the 'Marks' card.

Step 3: Configure the Filter Dialog Box

As soon as you drop the field onto the shelf, a dialog box will appear. For a dimension, you'll see four tabs: General, Wildcard, Condition, and Top.

The 'General' Tab

This is where you'll make most of your configurations. It presents a list of all the values within the selected dimension ('Furniture', 'Office Supplies', 'Technology').

• Select from list (Default): You can check the boxes next to the values you want to include in your view. If you only check 'Furniture,' your bar chart will update to show only the sub-categories belonging to the 'Furniture' category.
• Custom value list: Allows you to type in values manually if you know exactly what you're looking for.
• Use all: This is the default state and keeps all values in the view until you make a selection.
• Exclude: By checking this box at the bottom, you reverse the logic. Instead of including checked items, Tableau will exclude them. For example, checking 'Furniture' and the 'Exclude' box would show you data for 'Office Supplies' and 'Technology'.

For now, just select 'Technology' and click 'OK'. Your view will update accordingly.

Step 4: Make the Filter Interactive on Your Dashboard

A static filter is useful, but an interactive filter empowers your audience to explore the data themselves. To do this, right-click the 'Category' pill on your Filters shelf and select 'Show Filter'. A filter control box will now appear on the right side of your worksheet, allowing you or your end-users to change the selection without going into the worksheet editor.

How to Create a Normal Measure Filter (Step-by-Step)

Filtering a measure, like 'Sales', is a bit different because you're usually applying a condition based on a range of numbers rather than a list of categories.

Step 1: Drag a Measure to the 'Filters' Shelf

Drag the 'Sales' measure from your data pane and drop it onto the Filters shelf.

Step 2: Choose an Aggregation

Since a view can contain many rows of data, Tableau needs to know how you want to aggregate the measure for filtering. For example, are you filtering based on the SUM() of sales for each sub-category or the Average sale price?

A dialog box will appear asking you to choose an aggregation. Select 'SUM' and click 'Next'.

Step 3: Set the Filter Condition

Now, the main filter dialog box appears. Since 'Sales' is a continuous measure, the options are different from a dimension filter:

• Range of Values: This is the default and most common option. It provides a slider with a minimum and maximum value, allowing you to filter for anything within that range. For example, you could set it to only show sub-categories with total sales between $100,000 and $250,000.
• At Least: Lets you set a minimum value. Any data point below this value will be filtered out.
• At Most: Lets you set a maximum value. Any data point above this value is removed.
• Special: Here you can choose to filter based on 'Null values' or 'Non-null values'.

Select 'Range of values', leave the default range as is, and click 'OK'. Then, right-click the 'SUM(Sales)' pill on the Filters shelf and click 'Show Filter' to see the interactive slider.

Customizing Your Filter Control

Once you've added a Normal Filter to your view using "Show Filter," Tableau offers many ways to customize its appearance and behavior. Simply click the small dropdown arrow on the top right corner of the filter card.

For a dimensional filter like 'Category', you can change its style to:

• Single Value (List): Radio buttons for selecting one item.
• Single Value (Dropdown): A compact dropdown for selecting one item.
• Multiple Values (List): The default, with checkboxes for selecting many items.
• Multiple Values (Dropdown): A compact dropdown that supports multiple selections.
• Wildcard Match: Allows users to type text to find matching values (e.g., typing "furn" would find "Furniture").

The Big Exception: When to Use a Context Filter Instead

Normal filters are powerful, but their place in the Order of Operations creates a common challenge. Normal dimension filters are processed after Context filters and 'Top N' filters. This can lead to unexpected results if you're not careful.

Imagine this common scenario: "I want to see the top 5 sub-categories by sales, but only within the 'Technology' category."

Here’s the step-by-step trap many new users fall into:

1. They create a Top 5 filter on 'Sub-Category' based on 'Sales'.
2. They create a normal filter on 'Category' and select 'Technology'.

What happens? Tableau first finds the top 5 sub-categories across all categories ('Chairs', 'Phones', 'Storage', etc.). Then, it applies the normal filter for 'Technology' to that result. If only 'Phones' and 'Machines' from the overall top 5 are in the 'Technology' category, you'll only see those two items, not the top 5 within technology.

The Solution: Promote the dimension filter to 'Context'. To do this, right-click the 'Category' pill on your Filters shelf and select 'Add to Context.' The pill will turn grey, indicating it's now a context filter. By doing this, you've told Tableau: "First, filter my entire dataset to only include the 'Technology' category. Then, out of that smaller dataset, find the top 5 sub-categories." Now you'll get the correct result.

Final Thoughts

The normal filter, whether applied to a dimension or a measure, is the foundational building block of interactive analysis in Tableau. It provides the core functionality needed to slice, dice, and investigate your data, transforming a static chart into an exploratory tool. Understanding how to create, customize, and apply these filters is the first major step toward mastering dashboard development.

While mastering Tableau is rewarding, sometimes you just need to get fast answers without spending hours building reports and configuring filters. We developed Graphed for exactly that situation. Instead of dragging pills onto shelves, you can simply ask a question in plain English like, “what were our top 5 sub-categories by sales in the technology category last quarter?” Graphed instantly builds the interactive chart for you, connecting directly to your live data so you can get insights in seconds, not hours.