Replacing References for This Worksheet Only

"Replace References for This Worksheet Only" is a feature I have wished to have for a very long time in Tableau. Currently it's only fictional. I briefly mentioned the idea during a talk at the Tableau Conference 2025.

Why this Feature?

One might have noticed that in most dashboards, there are multiple KPI chart modules which are of the same design with different metrics. What I wished is as follows:

1. Duplicate the first KPI chart worksheet.
2. Replace the KPI metric by the desired one in the duplicate sheet only.

This would save a lot of effort and make us much more productive. It will serve Tableau the compounding power of design reuse. (The first KPI chart can be created or copied from somewhere else.)

Sure, this applies to reusing any other chart as a template for duplication besides KPI chart.

How to Implement this in Tableau

Initially I thought this may be easy to productize until someone asked how? I realize that replacing references in a single sheet can have unexpected consequences. Below are my thoughts about the potential implementation.

A reference is about a variable (dimension or measure) in the data source. We need to consider two cases where a variable is being referenced in a worksheet:

1. Direct reference: we can view the variable in the name of a pill.
2. Indirect reference: The variable is embedded in a calculated field.

The direct reference can be replaced as usual for this sheet only.

The indirect one needs to be done with some extra carefulness because the calculated field may be already being used in another sheet or somewhere else.

How to Replace Indirect Reference for this Worksheet only

Assume the indirect calculated field as Calculated_Field1. A possible solution could be 

- duplicating Calculated_Field1 as Calculated_Field2

- replace the reference within Calculated_Field2

- replace the Calculated_Field1 by Calculated_Field2 for this sheet only.

The above is a single layer of indirect reference.

Another issue could be that the variable is referenced through multiple nesting calculated fields like in Russian nesting dolls. I don't know how to resolve this case. But I believe it can be done by brilliant engineers at Tableau.

So, after replacing references for this sheet only, there could be a few new fields being created because of indirect references via calculated fields.

Postscript 

I could have created this as an idea in the Tableau community forum. It seems it stops from accepting new ideas because of migration to the Salesforce platform.