The time saving “Drop Field” method when working with Fields/Pills in Tableau Desktop
In Tableau the conventional method of adding fields/pills to a view is by dragging and dropping the field into the required area of the Tableau Workspace e.g: cards, shelves etc.
There is an alternate time saving method called the Drop Field Method.
We need do a right-click, drag and drop and select the required aggregation option in the Drop Field menu.
By using this method we can avoid the additional step of separately right-clicking and selecting the required aggregation option after placing the field in the view.
When working with measure pills this method helps in selecting any aggregation apart from the default aggregation e.g: SUM for any standard measure.
Working with Measure pills:
Select the field e.g: Sales in the Data pane and press Right-click (for Windows) / Option (for Mac) and drag the field into any part of the view e.g: Rows Shelf
In the Drop Field dialog box we will be asked the question -Which field do you want to drop?
We can select the required aggregation e.g: AVG(Sales)
The field is now displayed as a Green pill on Rows shelf.
Working with Dimension pills:
This Drop Field method can also be used on Dimensions. The aggregation options may be limited based on the type of dimension.
Select the field e.g: Customer ID in the Data pane and press Right-click (for Windows) / Option (for Mac) and drag the field into any part of the view e.g: Rows Shelf
In the Drop Field dialog box we can select the required aggregation e.g: CNTD(Customer ID)
The field is now displayed as a Green pill on Rows shelf.
Working with Date pills:
This Drop Field method can also be used to select either a discrete or continuous type of a Date field.
Select the field e.g: Order Date in the Data pane and press Right-click (for Windows) / Option (for Mac) and drag the field into any part of the view e.g: Rows Shelf
In the Drop Field dialog box we can select the required option i.e., either discrete or continuous e.g: continuous option for month i.e. MONTH(Order Date)
The field is now displayed as a Green pill on Rows shelf.
This method will help in reducing the number of clicks required as compared to conventional method of first dropping the field and then right-clicking. Thus we have effectively saved a single click per field/pill.
The time saving in terms of total number of clicks reduced while creating complicated dashboards will be quite significant.
I hope this article is useful for all Tableau users especially for anyone just starting their Tableau journey!!!
