Labels with Custom Categories

Tableau offers several data labels – certification, quality warnings, and sensitivity labels – that cover a wide variety of ways to classify data. Still, there may be times that users need other labels and categories that match other use cases. Starting in Tableau Cloud October 2023 and Tableau Server 2023.3, users can classify assets using labels with custom categories that an administrator has defined. For example, an administrator could create a category called "Department" with labels for the sales, service, and operations departments ready to be applied to assets.

Labels with custom categories require a Data Management license with Tableau Catalog enabled, and can be attached to the same kinds of assets that other data labels can. However, labels with custom categories don't show on downstream assets the way that data quality warnings and sensitivity labels do.

Note: If you're an administrator who wants to create custom categories and labels, see Manage Data Labels.

Attach labels with custom categories to an asset

To attach a label with a custom category to an asset:

1. Open the More Data Labels dialog for the asset you want to attach the label to. To do this, select the actions menu (. . .) next to the asset, and select Data Labels > More Data Labels….
2. Select the Labels dropdown. The label names are arranged by label category, and you can scroll through them.
   
3. Select the label to attach, then select Add next to to the Labels dropdown. The label appears in the Applied Labels list on the right side of the dialog.
4. To add an optional label message on this specific asset, select the pencil in the Messages (Optional) column, then select Save.
   
5. Repeat steps 2 through 5 for each label you want to add.
6. When you're finished adding labels, close the dialog. (Select the X in the dialog box's upper right corner or select something outside of the dialog box to close it.)
   
   

Remove labels with custom categories from an asset

To remove a label with a custom category from an asset:

1. Open the More Data Labels dialog for the asset you want to attach the label to. To do this, select the actions menu (. . .) next to the asset, and select Data Labels > More Data Labels….
2. In the Applied Labels section of the dialog, select the trash icon in the row for the label you'd like to remove.
   
3. Repeat step 2 for each label you want to remove.
4. When you're finished removing labels, close the dialog. (Select the X in the dialog box's upper right corner or select something outside of the dialog box to close it.)

Where labels with custom categories appear

Custom labels appear on assets when navigating Tableau Cloud and Tableau Server.

Unlike quality warnings and sensitivity labels, labels with custom categories do not appear downstream from assets they're attached to. For example, suppose your organization has a custom label category named "Department" to which a custom label named "Sales" belongs. If you attach the "Sales" label to a table called "Orders", the label only appears on the "Orders" table and not on workbooks downstream from it.

Who can do this

To add a label with a custom category to an asset (or to remove one from an asset), you must either

• be a server or site administrator, or
• have the Overwrite capability for the asset.

Customize a label with a custom category

For information on how administrators can create or edit custom categories and labels that appear in the More Data Labels dialog, see Manage Data Labels.