Visualizations in tooltips, affectionately know as “Viz in tooltip” is a handy feature available in Tableau that enables “details on demand” functionality. As the user hovers over a specific mark or data point, additional details are revealed that are filtered specifically for that mark from another worksheet.

In the example above, as the user hovers over a bar, they obtain additional details about the three most profitable products associated with the respective bar.

As I learned in a very informative Tableau presentation for tooltip wonks (myself included), the underlying architecture is built upon action commands and shares many commonalities with action filters. For viz in tooltip performance considerations, use smaller and fewer visualizations. Also try to avoid maps and other complex visualizations that have significant mark density.

If your tooltip responsiveness is greater than 2 seconds or the height and or width is greater than 600 pixels, then consider rethinking your approach. According to Tableau best practice, users are not willing to wait more than 2 seconds hovering over a mark for a reveal.

Since the viz in tool tip passes filters between worksheets, this means we can make use of context filters (click this link for a fantastic overview) to limit the number of marks returned and help improve performance.

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Context filters also help solve the problem of returning the Top N records associated with a mark. When you assign a viz in tooltip on your source sheet, a set filter is applied on the target (i.e., viz in tooltip) worksheet. If you’re a frequent watcher of my videos you know that the Tableau order of operations prevents the default set filter from returning a proper Top N.

By adding the set filter to the context on the Order of Operations skyscraper, the data is pre-filtered by your dimension first (e.g., State) and then the Top N filter is applied. When the set filter turns gray, you know it’s working.

Notice that the Context Filter box is above the Sets entry; which means that the Context filter is evaluated BEFORE the set. Make sure to watch the video to learn how to limit to the Top 10 cities based upon a hovered state.

Check out the video for details and may all your viz in tooltips be context appropriate!

All views and opinions are solely my own and do NOT necessarily reflect those of my employer.

Do Great Things With Your Data

-Anthony B. Smoak