Recently I created a dashboard visualising the specifications of certain cars which can be seen here on my Tableau Public account. In this dashboard, I wanted to have the functionality to implement a simple dynamic URL action where when you click the generated car title, it would take you to the relevant Wikipedia page.

When I implemented this action on Tableau Desktop, it worked perfectly as I wanted it. I only realised it was not working properly when I posted it on my Public account and server as well. After some help, I did find the solution to the problem in which I will be explaining next.

The following is how I set up the URL action in the first place:

As it can be seen, I am using the URL: www.wikipedia.org/wiki/<Make>_<Model>

When I test the link with Tableau Desktop, it was working perfectly. A new tab would open with the following view:

It can be noticed that in this URL, the “www” is switched with “en” automatically in the example above. After I have posted the dashboard on Public and server with this configuration, the following screenshots is what I was greeted with when I used the URL action:

It can be seen from both examples, the Wikipedia link is added to the existing link and not replaced. This results in the following errors. I am not sure why this problem occurs. However, the solution for this problem is fairly simple. It requires you to change the URL in the URL actions configuration window to the following:

Instead of “www“, swap it for “http://en“, after I fixed this, the URL action was working exactly as I intended.

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