Need Help with Dynamic Color Coding in Tableau Dashboard Headers

Question

Hello Tableau Community,

I'm currently developing a Tableau dashboard with enhanced drill-down functionality. The dashboard allows users to navigate through projects, categories, and tasks. I've implemented several calculated fields to facilitate this, but I'm encountering challenges with dynamic color coding header based on user selection.

Dashboard Setup:

Calculated Fields:
- [Dynamic Start Date]
- [2. Project Header]
- [3. Roadmap Category]
- [5. Task Level]
- [6. Current Level]
- [7. Roadmap Category Header]
- [Legend Category]
Set Actions:
- Update Project Name Set
- Update Roadmap Category Set

Goal:

I aim to dynamically adjust the colors of

[2. Project Header], [7. Roadmap Category Header] and [5. Task Level] based on the user's current selection in the drill-down process, example would be the red square in my image.

Current Configuration:

[2. Project Header] , [7. Roadmap Category Header] and [5. Task Level] are placed in the rows shelf without any marks.

I am using [Legend Category]

IF [6. Current Level] = 'Task' THEN 'Task Level' ELSEIF [6. Current Level] = 'Roadmap Category' THEN [Roadmap Category] ELSE 'Project Level' END

Challenge:

My research indicates that it might not be possible to dynamically color code headers in Tableau.

Looking for guidance or alternative solutions to enhance the interactivity and visual clarity of my dashboard, particularly in the context of these dynamic selections.

Any insights, suggestions, or workarounds from the community would be greatly appreciated. I'm looking forward to your expert advice on making this dashboard more interactive and visually appealing.

Thank you!

Need Help with Dynamic Color Coding in Tableau Dashboard Headers

Tableau Community Forums Member (Inactive) · Accepted Answer

Hi @Cristian Roman​ , We can't dynamically change the "header" colour in Tableau. We can only affect the colour (dynamically) in the drawing pane. As to be able to assign different colors for each Measures, you can place "Measure Values" on color marks and then right click on the "Measure Values" and select "Use Separate Legends". On the right side all the color legends will show up and you can then update the colors of your choice. Thanks.

Peter Fakan · Answer

Hi Cristian,   Responding seriously to your call for looking for guidance - have you tried dropping everything ?   I've worked in those agencies that require you to spend 5 minutes creating a dashboard and then well over an hour applying their custom formatting, and very often the hour of extra effort does very little towards the key objective of the visualisation which is getting eyes on the problem (that your viz exposes).   If you happen to have the big book of dashboards (and most Tableau related publications) you will note that they emphasize simple visualisations with less colouring versus what I term 'the rainbow'.   A good rule of thumb is if you have more than 5 data points on your screen, you should probably seriously consider switching your colour palette to allow the user to focus on what they are interested and hand over controls to them rather than configuring a new colour for each data point with the requisite colourblind issues that comes with selecting too many colours that some end up being indistinguishable from other data points.   A common method of achieving this is to have a single highlight colour in conjunction with an interactive widget to control which data point is coloured, and then make everything else a neutral tone.   Another repeating problem is when developers use colours to indicate something is happening - i.e. you are in the 'sales' area, or the 'returns' area, which we are going to distinguish by using blue for 'sales' and red for 'returns' - the problem here is in isolation the user at the other end does not know this code, and they have to learn it in addition to finding the analysis they came to your viz looking for.    A better way to deal with this is to rely on a title that is clear on what the user will find on that dashboard.   Now to your viz - I can see that you are emulating a Gantt chart. I can also see that you have overlapping non-sequential start dates which indicates to me that you are trying to visualise more than one collected effort - have you tried breaking this down so that users can view single projects, and have you tried sorting it in start date order so that users can easily identify activities that are concurrent ?   HTH   Peter

Need Help with Dynamic Color Coding in Tableau Dashboard Headers

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