Stretch is a date-range picker for Tableau dashboards. Presets like Last 7 days or Quarter to date, a calendar and two date fields set a start and an end parameter – and, with two more parameters, a comparison range such as the previous period or the previous year.
The setup is easy – the possibilities endless (almost).
Why Stretch
Tableau’s own date controls are a slider or two separate parameter boxes. Picking “last month versus the month before” means typing four dates. People know a better picker from apps and every booking site: presets on the left, a calendar on the right, done in one click.
Stretch is that picker, inside the dashboard. It writes plain date parameters, so your calculations, filters and reference lines keep working the way you built them.
What it does
The free version handles
- Presets you choose. Today, yesterday, this week, the last 7, 28, 30 or 90 days, this and last month, quarter to date, the last 12 months, this year – offer the ones your audience needs.
- A comparison range. Previous period or previous year, optionally matched on the day of the week, or any range you pick. A True/False parameter can switch it on and off – handy with dynamic zone visibility.
- Opens on a fresh range every day. Choose a preset for when the dashboard opens, and it is worked out from today – no more dashboards stuck on the dates they were saved with.
- Complete days only, if you like. Rolling ranges and the to-date ranges can end yesterday instead of today.
- In your viewers’ language. English, Dutch, German, French, Spanish, Japanese, Korean and Chinese – fixed, or following each viewer’s Tableau language.
- A panel or a button. Put the whole picker on the dashboard, or just a small button that shows the chosen range and opens the picker in a pop-up – no room needed for a calendar.
- Your colors, a scrolling or a paged calendar, and Apply or instant changes.
Free and Pro
Free
- The complete picker: every preset, the comparison range, the on-open range, languages, colors, panel or pop-up button
- A small “Stretch by antichaos” line under the presets
Pro
Everything in Free, plus:
- Fiscal years. Set the month your fiscal year starts and the picker offers FY2027 to date, Last fiscal year, and this and last fiscal quarter. “Previous period” follows your fiscal calendar, and you choose whether a fiscal year is named after the year it starts or ends in.
- Ranges of your own. Fixed ones like Season 2026 or Since launch, and rolling ones like Last 13 weeks or Last 3 full months. Offer only your own ranges if that is all your audience needs.
- A range label. Stretch writes the chosen range in words – Last 30 days (4 Sep – 3 Oct 2026) vs Previous year – to a text parameter for your dashboard title or tooltips.
- Automatic granularity. Day, Week, Month or Quarter, depending on how long the range is, in a parameter your trend charts use – a week shows days, a year shows months.
- Limits. A longest range and an earliest date, so nobody asks a slow data source for ten years.
- Remembers each viewer’s last pick, in their browser – and a preset like Last 7 days stays the last 7 days.
- No “Stretch by antichaos” line.
Pro is free to try in Tableau Desktop. On Tableau Server and Cloud it needs a license: EUR 149 per organization per year (excl. VAT). Without one, the Pro features switch off quietly – nothing breaks, and they come back with a license. Get Stretch Pro.
Adding it to a dashboard
- Create two date parameters, for example Start date and End date, and use them in a filter or calculation. Two more give you a comparison range.
- Download the manifest: stretch.trex.
- Drag an Extension object onto the dashboard, choose Access Local Extensions and open the file.
- Click Configure and pick the parameters. Give the picker about 400 pixels of height – or choose the button layout, which needs only a small strip.
Important to know
- Your data stays in the browser. Stretch reads and sets parameters only – it never reads your data and needs no full data access. More in security and trust.
- It does not show in exports. Extensions run live in the browser: in image exports from Tableau Cloud it is a grey box, and PDFs leave it out.
- It does not run on Tableau Public, which allows only a curated set of extensions.
- Tableau Server and Cloud need it allowlisted by an administrator. That takes about a minute – here are the steps to send them. On Desktop it just works.
Try it first
The live demo is the real extension driving a sample dashboard – no Tableau needed.
Using Stretch, or missing something in it? Let me know! – I am very curious about what you think of it.