Tableau Cloud Help

Tableau Pulse lets you track important metrics and receive updates right where you’re working–in email or Slack. And when you set a goal in Tableau Pulse, you can track a metric’s progress toward that goal.

When a goal is created, it’s visible to anyone who views that metric. And all users can create, edit, or delete a goal for a metric, if they have permission. You can restrict permissions for goals by editing the metric definition.

Before you set a goal, you must first create a metric definition. When you create a goal, it’s based on the filters that are applied to the current metric. For example, a month-to-date metric has a monthly goal value.

Create a goal

1. Click into a metric from your email or Slack digest, or from the Tableau Pulse home page.
2. From the Insights Exploration page, choose Filter to adjust the filter values and create a custom metric that you can follow.
3. From the top-right corner, choose the Menu icon (...).
4. Choose Set Goal.
5. Enter the goal value. You can enter positive numbers, negative numbers, or 0 as a goal value.
6. Choose Save.

After a goal is created, you’ll see your progress toward that goal in your Tableau Pulse digests and on your Tableau Pulse home page.

To change the goal value, return to the Insights Exploration page, choose the Menu icon (...), and select Edit Goal. You can also choose Delete Goal from this modal. Editing a goal or deleting a goal changes the goal for all users who follow that metric.

Manage who can edit or delete a goal

By default, all users can create, edit, or delete a goal. If you have access to edit the metric definition, you can set permissions that restrict which users and groups can edit a goal. Site admins can always edit or delete the goal. To set permissions and choose who can edit a goal:

1. From your Slack digest, email digest, or the Tableau Pulse home page, click into the metric that you want to set goal permissions for.
2. This takes you to the Insights Exploration page. From the Menu icon (...), choose Edit Definition.
3. From the Definition tab of the left pane, under Goal editing permissions, choose Anyone Can Edit.
4. Turn on Restrict editing, and enter the users or groups whom you want to have access to edit the goal.
5. After you’ve added editors, close the Manage Goals Editors modal.
6. Click Save Definition.

Understand limitations

You can set goals for only metrics that use Sum, Count, and Count Distinct. If a metric definition that uses Sum is edited to instead use Avg, then all goals for all metrics based on that definition are hidden. However, if you revert that change and return to using Sum, then the goals reappear.

If a metric definition is edited, all the metrics based on that definition are also updated. For example, if a definition is edited to use different fields or a different time period, then existing goals remain. And goals should be reviewed to confirm that the goal still measures the desired metrics over the desired period. There are several ways to see when a definition was last updated on the Insights Exploration page:

• Review the text and time stamp under the metric name.
• Click the info (i) icon next to the metric name to see when the definition was updated.
• Click Edit Goal to see when the definition was updated.