When you filter using a discrete field, you will be given options for selecting individual values to keep or exclude. For example, when you drop the discrete Department dimension onto the Filters shelf, Tableau will give you the following options:
The Filter options include General, Wildcard, Condition, and Top tabs. Your Filter can include options from each tab. The Summary section on the General tab will show all options selected:
- The General tab allows you to select items from a list (you can use the custom list add items manually if the dimension contains a large number of values that takes a long time to load.) You may use the Exclude option to exclude the selected items.
- The Wildcard tab allows you to match string values that contain, start with, end with, or exactly match a given value.
- The Condition tab allows you to specify conditions based on aggregations of other fields that meet conditions (for example, a condition to keep any Department where the sum of sales was greater than $1,000,000). Additionally, you can write a custom calculation to form complex conditions. We'll cover calculations more in Chapter 4, Starting and Adventure with Calculations, and Chapter 5, Diving Deep with Table Calculations.
- The Top tab allows you to limit the filter to only the top or bottom items. For example, you might decide to keep only the top five items by the sum of sales.
Discrete measures (except for calculated fields using table calculations) cannot be added to the Filters shelf. If the field holds a date or numeric value, you can convert it to a continuous field before filtering. Other data types will require the creation of a calculated field to convert values you wish to filter into continuous numeric values.