MailScheduler allows the use of ‘Filters’. These Filters allow you to send PDF file(s) of a filtered dashboard to a specific user; for example if you want to send a financial dashboard of a single store to a store owner, while the Tableau Dashboard has Financial information on all stores. The use of filters in the PDF scheduler is similar to the use of regular url parameters supported by Tableau Server (Check the Tableau Community for more information on URL parameters).
The use of filters in the PDF scheduler is bound to certain rules affecting your dashboard design:
- All filters you want to apply in the MailScheduler have to be present in the view you specify in the Task. When you set a filter and/or filter value in the MailScheduler that is not present in the view specified in the task, the filter will be neglected on the dashboard and the recipient will receive the unfiltered dashboard.
- The filter name and filter values have to correspond exactly with the names and values in the dashboard, respect Case Sensitivity and the use of spaces!
- When working with confidential data in your Dashboards, it is best to set all filters to all unselected. In case of filter mismatching the recipient will receive an empty dashboard instead of ‘all’ confidential information.
example
URL: https://mytableauserver.com/#/site/demo/views/mysupermarkt/distance
Filters: Zip code=7575BB&Radius=2
Resulting URL to use as view in your task: https://mytableauserver.com/#/site/demo/views/mysupermarkt/distance?Zip code=7575BB&Radius=2
This will result in a one page PDF dashboard showing all supermarkets in a radius of 2 km around the ZIP code 7575BB. Notice the space and Capitalization in the filter name ‘Zip code’. The filters/parameters ‘Zip code’ and ‘Radius’ have to be present in the Tableau Workbook dashboard ‘distance’.