Tableau Cloud Help

Bring Tableau Pulse metrics into dashboards with the Pulse dashboard object, and create recommended metrics based on the data used in a dashboard.

Add metrics to a dashboard

To show metrics alongside other content in a dashboard, add the Pulse Metric object. The metrics that are available to add to a dashboard are those that connect to the same published data sources that are used by the workbook. For more information about dashboard objects, see Add dashboard objects and set their options.

1. On a dashboard, from the Objects section, drag the Pulse Metric object to the dashboard.
2. Select a metric definition to see the list of metrics based on that definition. If there are no metric definitions shown, create one in Tableau Pulse.
3. Select a metric.
4. For the metric display, choose whether to display the full card or a compact card.
5. To style the metric like the cards on the Tableau Pulse homepage, toggle on Use Tableau Pulse style. Tableau Pulse style adds rounded corners and an elevated border. Without this style option, the metrics on a dashboard resemble other borderless dashboard objects.
6. To make it so the metric is filtered when users select dashboard filters, toggle on Respond to filter selection. To understand which filters apply to Pulse metrics, see How dashboard filters affect Pulse metrics.
7. To link the metric card to the Tableau Pulse insights exploration page, toggle on Link to Tableau Pulse. This link opens in a new tab.
8. Select Add to Dashboard.

After you’ve added a Pulse Metric object, you can change the metric or adjust the settings by selecting Configure from the object’s context menu.

How dashboard filters affect Pulse metrics

For a Pulse metric to respond to a dashboard filter, the filter must meet certain conditions.

• The filter is from the same data source that the metric definition connects to.
• The filter is an adjustable metric filter on the metric definition.
• The filter is a dimension. Time and measure filters from a dashboard don’t filter Pulse metrics.
• The filter is applied through an exposed filter (see Display interactive filters in the view) or by selecting keep only or exclude on a mark or header (see Select to keep or exclude data points in your view). Filter actions that send information between sheets (see Filter Actions) don’t filter Pulse metrics.

If there are multiple filters for the same dimension on a dashboard, Pulse metrics respond to the combination of filters based on these rules.

• If the set of filters either both include values or both exclude values, the combined set of selected values applies to the metric. So if filter 1 includes values A and B, and filter 2 includes values B and C, then filters for A, B, and C apply to the metric.
• If filter 1 includes a set of values, and filter 2 excludes that same set of values, the filters cancel out, and no filters are applied to the metric.
• If filter 1 includes values, and filter 2 excludes values, and the values aren’t the same, then the values that don’t cancel out apply to the metric. So if filter 1 includes A, B, and C, and filter 2 excludes A and B, then the only value included is C.
• If all of the values for filter 1 are selected, either to include or exclude, then that is treated the same as no filter. So only filter 2, where selections have been made, applies to the metric.

See recommended metrics for a dashboard

To get a head start when creating a metric definition, you can create one from the list of recommended metrics shown for dashboards.

1. While viewing the dashboard that you want to create a metric definition from, select the Data Guide button in the toolbar.

2. On the dashboard, select the viz with the data you want to use.

   Data guide shows recommended metrics for this viz. Depending on how well the data in the viz fits the requirements for a metric, you might not see recommended metrics. If data guide can't recommend a complete metric, it might show recommended measures or dimensions or the primary data source used for you to connect to.
   
   

3. Select a recommendation to configure it in Tableau Pulse.

4. The recommendation is pre-populated in the Tableau Pulse definition editor. To finish setting up your definition, see Configure the core definition.