20 minute Tableau Conference Keynote Roundup!

0:00Hey it's Toby here, in this video I want to

0:01do a quick roundup of all the things

0:03announced

0:03at the Tableau keynote.

0:04There was a lot covered and I want to try

0:06and keep this as brief as possible.

0:07So if you want to jump around be sure to

0:09look at the timestamps in the video and in

0:11the

0:11description below to jump around if there's

0:13a particular section you want to know more

0:15about but nonetheless let's get stuck in.

0:17Now if you missed it be sure to check out

0:19the live stream it's currently being

0:20uploaded

0:21to YouTube.

0:22Yesterday I did a live stream with Ravi we

0:24went through the whole entire conference in

0:26real time and so you can see our sort of

0:27honest reactions to a lot of the features

0:29that were

0:29announced and also see some of the comments

0:31and suggestions that were coming from the

0:33Tableau community at a wider level.

0:35So be sure to check out that live stream as

0:37well and of course if you haven't had a

0:38chance

0:39to watch the whole entire keynote of course

0:41please do try and watch that it's always

0:43valuable

0:43to sort of watch it for yourself and get

0:45your own opinions rather than just watching

0:46a summary

0:47like this but if you're pressed for time

0:49and your summary is all you need you're in

0:50the

0:50right place.

0:52Now at a high level what I did I went

0:53through the keynote twice I went through it

0:55in the

0:55live stream and I went through it again

0:57after the conference had sort of settled

0:59down a

1:00bit and people were into sessions they

1:01wanted to watch.

1:02I wrote down all the headline announcements

1:04you can kind of see them here in my

1:05notebook

1:06I don't often do this but I felt like I had

1:07to do this to just get a higher level

1:09perspective

1:10of what was going on and the best way I

1:12could summarize this keynote is that Table

1:14au were

1:14essentially in this keynote extending the

1:16boundaries of the Tableau platform

1:18essentially

1:19a lot of the key milestones the key

1:21features that the key groups they were

1:23talking about

1:24were essentially a statement in my opinion

1:27of how they're expanding the platform to

1:29include

1:30better products better capabilities and

1:32essentially serve more people those were

1:34sort of the three

1:35highlight messages and so what I want to do

1:37is go through some of those key areas

1:38essentially

1:39these four areas are as follows there's

1:41Tableau for Slack there's Tableau Business

1:43Science

1:44there's Data Management at Scale and lastly

1:47the Tableau Economy aka the Tableau

1:49Exchange

1:49which is a new service they're going to be

1:51launching and I think it's actually already

1:53live but nevertheless these were the four

1:54highlight moments you can hopefully see

1:56them

1:56up on screen let's go through each of them

1:58individually.

1:59So Tableau sort of started with the

2:00features here by talking about Tableau for

2:02Slack essentially

2:03a lot of these features are things that you

2:05should already be aware of they're

2:06announced

2:07in 21.3 and so for many people maybe you

2:09haven't had a chance to play with these

2:11features maybe

2:12you haven't upgraded to this version yet so

2:14you might not have seen these features and

2:16so Tableau always do a good job of

2:17reminding you of what's already available

2:20today and

2:20they sort of did that at the beginning of

2:22this announcement with Slack but what was

2:23really interesting about this announcement

2:25is that they also showed the additional

2:27ways

2:27they're going to be improving this

2:29capability over time bringing technologies

2:31like AskData,

2:32ExplainData being able to search Tableau

2:34Server or Tableau Online inside of Slack

2:36without

2:37having to leave Slack essentially keeping

2:39your work where you do your work so for

2:41people

2:41who use Slack that's predominantly going to

2:43be in Slack talking to people talking to

2:45colleagues and hooking into lots of

2:47different applications as Slack lets you do

2:50.

2:50Now one of the things that was interesting

2:51in the live stream is that quite a few of

2:53our users use Microsoft Teams and the

2:55interesting thing there is a lot of this

2:57capability seems

2:58native to Slack and seems to work better in

3:00Slack and so the question was always is

3:02this

3:02stuff going to support Microsoft Teams as

3:04well as it could and at least initially we

3:07got a response from Francois in the live

3:09stream that essentially yes these features

3:11will come

3:11to other platforms soon probably via APIs

3:14that's me assuming that not exactly what

3:17Francois

3:18said but nonetheless it should be expected

3:20that these sorts of capabilities should be

3:23capable in other platforms because not

3:25everyone uses Slack not everyone uses Sales

3:27force and

3:27so for a lot of organizations Teams is sort

3:30of the incumbent chat messaging system that

3:32they use and so I'm looking forward to the

3:34day that we can finally say those things

3:36are

3:37coming but alongside those we also have

3:39other things like Einstein Analytics coming

3:41to Slack

3:41and so essentially expect Slack to become

3:44the conversational platform for Tableau

3:46this

3:46is where most of the ad hoc sort of query

3:50natural language based analytics is going

3:54to be happening

3:54for Tableau of course you can do this stuff

3:56inside of the Tableau platform ask data

3:58explain

3:59data already exists in the core product but

4:01essentially this is bringing that

4:02capability

4:03to all analysts in every organization so

4:05that's pretty much a summary of that I

4:07haven't covered

4:08every detail of course go check out the

4:09keynote to find out more but that's pretty

4:11much the

4:12first one Tableau for Slack. The next thing

4:14to cover is Tableau business science

4:15essentially

4:16this is Tableau's attempt, Tableau's first

4:18attempt I should say at trying to enable

4:21business

4:21users with AI and machine learning and

4:23modeling capabilities now this is always a

4:26bold move

4:27because I always think that in some

4:29respects there is a huge gap between the

4:31data sets

4:32that we work with every single day in an

4:34organization and being able to sort of

4:36capitalize on machine

4:38learning and AI with those data sets as you

4:41will know lots of data sets require things

4:44like data prep sometimes the data quantity

4:46is just not there to be doing things like

4:47modeling and of course this capability

4:51requires some inherent awareness of

4:53traditional data

4:55sets and so a lot of the business science

4:57capabilities we were seeing I think lean

4:59heavily

4:59on Salesforce it's not exactly clear if

5:01these technologies are going to work beyond

5:04the

5:04Salesforce platform in other data sets in

5:06other databases as such but you should

5:08expect

5:08it to work very heavily inside of the Sales

5:10force platform because of course that's

5:12where Tableau

5:13is present today and of course that is

5:15Tableau's parent company so the modeling

5:18capabilities

5:19were really interesting they very much

5:21borrow the interface from Tableau prep they

5:23live

5:23in the browser in something like Tableau

5:25online or Tableau server but they are not

5:28necessarily

5:28a part of Tableau prep it's just an

5:30interface from Tableau prep and some of

5:32those capabilities

5:33do find themselves in Tableau prep through

5:35things like calculations so it looks like

5:38a familiar interface it looks like a

5:39familiar thing that Tableau have built it's

5:41borrowing

5:42a lot of thoughts and innovation from the

5:44existing products but in essence it's its

5:46own standalone environment you'll go online

5:48you'll get a model you'll start to set it

5:50up and as you can see here on the

5:52screenshots it's a fairly sort of

5:53straightforward process

5:55what I always say with these things is that

5:57it takes a lot to understand what each of

5:59these steps is doing so you can't just

6:01assume that every business user can open up

6:03this

6:03browser tab and start clicking things and

6:05get some AI insights I think you have to

6:07know

6:07your data set very well you have to know

6:09the weaknesses and strengths of your data

6:11set

6:12and this is always not easy to sort of

6:14figure out just by looking at metadata or

6:16just by

6:17you know processing the data and finding

6:19out a couple of sort of statistical

6:21variables

6:21for that data set I think you always have

6:23to have some sort of innate understanding

6:25of how the data has been collected and that

6:27's not always available to the business user

6:29so it's going to be interesting to see how

6:30Tableau expands this out but Tableau

6:32business

6:32science is very much here to say one thing

6:34I did say on the live stream is that

6:35essentially

6:36look Tableau has to start somewhere they

6:38have to put the markers in the ground

6:40because of

6:41course if they wait for this to become a

6:43mature product they'll be late to the game

6:45so yes

6:46people like you and me who are really sort

6:47of on the bleeding edge of Tableau this

6:49doesn't

6:50feel like a mature product but the point

6:52here is is that by starting now over the

6:53next few

6:54years I think Tableau can develop something

6:56really useful and really hone in on what

6:58works

6:58and what doesn't work and they kind of have

7:00to do that in public so the features here

7:02let's start using it and let's start crit

7:04iquing it as much as we can so we can make

7:05it a better

7:06product and hopefully Tableau can find the

7:08niche that it's going to do very well in

7:10this

7:10particular capability.

7:11The next one was data management at scale

7:13now the data management add-on has been

7:15sort

7:15of one of those things that's been a little

7:17bit difficult to swallow for some Tableau

7:19customers because essentially it's an add-

7:21on and you have to pay on top of your Table

7:22au

7:23licensing and also the pricing has made

7:24some people a little bit upset because

7:26essentially

7:27it's not priced based on the number of

7:29users that are actually using the data

7:31management

7:32capabilities it's priced based on the

7:33number of users on the entire platform that

7:35you've

7:36deployed so it's a little bit tricky and of

7:38course the pricing and of course the

7:40pricing

7:41does change from time to time so it's also

7:42a moving target sometimes you think you

7:44understand

7:44the pricing and then over time the pricing

7:46changes and things move around and it gets

7:48a little bit hard to follow but Tableau's

7:50continued to show that it's serious about

7:52investing into this platform by adding yet

7:54more capabilities of course the first one

7:56is virtualized connections these

7:58essentially allow you to create data

8:00sources and data

8:01connections in a central place on Tableau

8:03server and then democratize those

8:05connections

8:05widely across the organization this is

8:07useful in two respects number one it means

8:10you don't

8:10have all these data connections replicated

8:12inside of workbooks and only living inside

8:14of workbooks you have them in a central

8:16place and people can use those to

8:17essentially connect

8:19to data it also enables something else

8:20which they talked about today which is a

8:22centralized

8:23row level security essentially using Table

8:25au server and Tableau Online as a

8:27centralized

8:28platform for controlling row level security

8:30at the point that the user queries data

8:33essentially

8:33they demoed this capability of having

8:36security policies and I sort of think of

8:38this in a

8:38similar way to AWS security policies which

8:41are quite an advanced capability I don't

8:43think this is quite there yet but

8:44nonetheless it sort of shows a lot of

8:46promise and if they

8:47continue to develop this over the years I

8:48think this is going to prove to be a really

8:50really powerful feature because row level

8:52security is always one of those things

8:53where

8:54you have to go out and get that white paper

8:56on the topic and then try and figure out

8:58how

8:58to do it best and if you can just come up

9:00with a set of row or column based policies

9:02based on a particular capability or

9:04particular groups in Tableau server or even

9:06particular

9:07variables inside of your data set it's

9:09going to make it really dynamic and

9:10flexible and

9:11the best thing about this is you don't have

9:13to go and redeploy them every time you

9:14build

9:15a new workbook you can just simply take the

9:17policy that applies to a particular data

9:19set

9:19and maybe even replicate it across data

9:21sets I think that's going to be really

9:22really

9:22powerful. The other thing they talked about

9:25is the capability to synchronize metadata

9:28to the Tableau catalog if you're not

9:29familiar the Tableau catalog is essentially

9:31Tableau's

9:32metadata store it goes around Tableau

9:34server and Tableau online capturing the

9:36metadata

9:36from lots of different data sources all the

9:38way down to calculations and how they're

9:40written in the comments put inside of those

9:43calculations all the way up to databases

9:45and

9:45tables that are connected in those

9:46databases and what they essentially

9:48announced is this

9:49capability to do a two-way sync between

9:51other metadata stores in businesses they

9:54had an

9:54example on screen I'll put it up here syn

9:57cing to Tableau and vice versa so

9:59essentially you

10:00don't have to do this work twice if you

10:01already have a system that does this this

10:03is really

10:03useful because you could essentially

10:05centrally now control your metadata using

10:08some of the

10:08more dedicated metadata stores that exist

10:10already in the market so this was really

10:12really

10:13cool they finished off this section by

10:15talking a bit about Tableau prep and they

10:17talked about

10:17prep flows being published to Tableau

10:20Public now this is an interesting move this

10:22isn't

10:22quite the ability to use Tableau prep in

10:25Tableau Public you still need to have a

10:27creator license

10:28to be able to do this where this comes in

10:29handy is when we start talking about the

10:31next

10:31announcement when we talk about the Tableau

10:33economy and the Tableau exchange but just

10:35sticking to Tableau prep it was really

10:37interesting to see them now start to expand

10:39Tableau prep

10:39beyond their creators that we see today by

10:42putting it on public you're now given

10:44creators

10:44essentially the ability to showcase

10:47solutions to common problems and it also

10:49makes it very

10:50easy for people to share solutions using a

10:52public platform essentially you can build

10:54an example in Tableau prep and then post it

10:56up to public and then share it with others

10:58rather than having to package these work

11:00flows and send them around in Dropbox and so

11:01on

11:02and so forth so it makes Tableau Public

11:04more of a home for the Tableau product and

11:06it sort

11:06of saves this activity happening elsewhere

11:08I think it also gives Tableau some insights

11:11into how we're using Tableau prep you've

11:13got to remember Tableau Public is

11:14essentially

11:15their test bed it's always been a test bed

11:17they've always deployed features on there

11:19to see how they work and they've used it to

11:21learn about what we're building they can go

11:23into some of these workbooks and look at

11:25the metadata so this ability of being able

11:27to

11:27publish things up to Tableau Public is

11:29actually a really clever move because it

11:31allows Tableau

11:32to start to see what problems are we

11:34solving and how are we solving them and how

11:37can Tableau

11:38make those features better and so this is a

11:39smart move in lots of different ways but

11:41you know for the typical user it's going to

11:43make it easier to work with Tableau prep

11:44more

11:45generally and share things as we go on now

11:47the other thing they announce is prep

11:49extensions

11:50much like you have extensions for desktop

11:51we are now going to have the capability to

11:53build extensions for Tableau prep so this

11:56will allow us to I think hopefully bring in

11:58data sources that maybe are difficult to

12:00work with extensions that do specific

12:02things using

12:03R and Python capabilities that of course

12:05Tableau prep does support and so I think

12:07this is going

12:08to be interesting I'm not going to talk too

12:09much about this because I don't know what

12:10people are thinking and what they're going

12:12to build so be sure to check out some of

12:14the

12:14news about this I'm sure they'll be covered

12:16in Tableau conference sessions as well so

12:18be sure to check that out if you'd like to

12:19see a video on it of course you know what

12:20to do let me know in the comments and we'll

12:22make something on that very soon.

12:24Now I've deliberately saved the last and I

12:26think the best announcement till last Table

12:29au

12:29announced something called the Tableau

12:30exchange and in the process of talking

12:32about the Tableau

12:33exchange they were generally talking about

12:35something called the Tableau economy now

12:37the

12:37Tableau economy is a super interesting move

12:40I think it's a genius move because

12:42essentially

12:43in one file sweep they've essentially found

12:45a way to monetize the Tableau community

12:48Tableau

12:48public and all the energy that happens in

12:50the community and bring it inside of their

12:52platform while still enabling people I hope

12:55to be able to benefit from this and so at

12:58the moment today what happens is people

13:00create Tableau public visits they might

13:02create prep

13:03flows that are published there's extensions

13:05over there there's data connectors over

13:06there

13:07there's an extension gallery somewhere else

13:09the world of Tableau is just spread across

13:11so many different places and the problem

13:12with that is it makes it hard to find

13:14people who

13:15are doing great things and so what Tableau

13:17have done here is they've started by

13:18thinking

13:19of this as an economy of people you've got

13:22authors you've got Tableau partners and

13:24then

13:24you've got consumers people who want to

13:26find this stuff and just get their work

13:28done and

13:28essentially what they're trying to do is to

13:30create a marketplace essentially they're

13:32calling

13:32it the exchange and this is where they're

13:34going to hopefully in the future give

13:36creators

13:36and authors and partners the ability to

13:38create assets that people can deploy they

13:41're starting

13:42off with very simple examples they're

13:43taking things that you've maybe seen before

13:45dashboard

13:46starters they're renaming those to Tableau

13:48accelerators accelerators being a dashboard

13:51template essentially that you can deploy it

13:53's kind of confusing because there's a

13:54feature

13:54in development at the moment called

13:56dashboard acceleration which is a

13:58completely different

13:59thing so hopefully they try and fix that by

14:02renaming the acceleration to something else

14:04but nonetheless it's super interesting to

14:06see how this is sort of developing and I

14:08think

14:09this is going to be a really really

14:10interesting move in years to come I don't

14:12think this is

14:12going to be something where you know today

14:14you need to drop what you're doing and

14:16build

14:16something for the exchange but I do think

14:18as they start to build out parts of this

14:20ecosystem

14:21and things start to gain momentum you'll

14:23start to see new and innovative use cases

14:25for Tableau

14:26only exist in this exchange because

14:28essentially the exchange is how they're

14:30going to try and

14:31incentivize I think partners and people in

14:33the community who maybe have great ideas

14:36and

14:36want to be able to benefit by maybe sharing

14:38those ideas or even selling those ideas who

14:40knows if you're the kind of person who's a

14:43creator in you know in typical economies

14:45and

14:45most economies even content creator

14:47economies you do get rewarded in some small

14:50way for

14:50your effort whether it's recognition

14:52whether it's the ability to find a job all

14:54of these

14:54things are sort of really really important

14:56and so that links to something else they

14:58announced

14:58which is a hire me button for Tableau

15:00Public this actually came earlier on in the

15:02announcement

15:03but I've put it here because I think this

15:04is the most meaningful place to do it and

15:06Tableau is essentially bringing all of this

15:08under one platform so in my view I think

15:10the

15:10Tableau Public profile is going to become a

15:12super important place to make sure you

15:14focus

15:14energy on not now but maybe in the next

15:16year or two I think start building up your

15:18Tableau

15:19Public profile because I'm fairly certain

15:21the Tableau exchange is going to want to

15:23see

15:23your Tableau Public profile and your Public

15:26profile might become your global identity

15:28for all things Tableau and I think it's

15:30going to be a really really powerful way to

15:32work

15:33in the Tableau ecosystem.

15:34Now the other thing that I think they snuck

15:36into this section that had no right to be

15:38here was the ability to embed the whole

15:40entire web altering experience anywhere you

15:43want

15:43and this is interesting because this is

15:45essentially an expansion of the embedding

15:46capabilities

15:47you can already do today but they

15:49essentially said this you don't need to

15:52install Tableau

15:53in order to use Tableau and you can embed

15:55Tableau inside of your application just

15:57think

15:57about that for one second typically all you

16:00've been able to do today is embed dash

16:02boards

16:03in particular places this requires an

16:05author to have already built them.

16:07What they said in this keynote is

16:09essentially that you don't even need to

16:11install Tableau

16:12to build a dashboard in the first place you

16:14can essentially create an application that

16:16includes Tableau as the analytical platform

16:18when you build all these things and when

16:20you're

16:21done boom there you have it whatever you've

16:23built there and then is embedded inside of

16:25your application and I thought that was

16:26super interesting.

16:27Now the details for this need to be sort of

16:30fleshed out I'm not a developer at all I

16:32have

16:32a good friend of mine Andre I'll put a link

16:34to his profile in the description check him

16:36out because he does work with all this kind

16:38of stuff and so once the APIs are out and

16:40once things have started working really

16:42really well I'm sure he'll be sort of

16:44trying to find

16:44out what the boundaries of this capability

16:47are but nonetheless I think this is a super

16:49interesting move because I also think this

16:51means that we are very very close to the

16:53world

16:53which I think Tableau have been talking

16:55about before where you can do Tableau

16:57entirely in

16:57the browser this to me feels like a

16:59statement that they are getting closer to

17:01that finish

17:02line so hopefully by the end of next year I

17:04'm gonna say it now by the end of next year

17:06we should be in a place where Tableau is

17:08entirely in the browser and you no longer

17:11need to install

17:12Tableau to use Tableau you can use it on

17:14Tableau server you can use it on Tableau

17:16online but

17:16I think they'll still persist installers

17:18because in some organizations that's just

17:20how these

17:21things are done so that's going to be an

17:22interesting transition I think next year we

17:24're going to

17:25see that sort of play out we'll see

17:26companies sort of battle with this

17:28challenge as well

17:29and so let's wait and see what happens

17:31there.

17:31The last thing Tableau actions and Sales

17:34force flows so this was sort of a weird one

17:36because

17:37they started talking off they started

17:39talking by talking about actions that we

17:41use in Tableau

17:42dashboard actions you know asset actions

17:45parameter actions and then it sort of

17:46really quickly

17:47pivoted into a completely different

17:49capability which is actions that extend

17:51beyond Tableau

17:52itself the best way to think of this is let

17:55's say you're looking at a dashboard and you

17:57see that there's a problem in a particular

17:59part of the business let's say you found a

18:00product and it's showing you that the

18:02supply issues for this product are you know

18:05prevalent

18:05you need to sort them out Tableau are demo

18:07ing a capability where you can essentially

18:09click

18:10on that particular product and you can take

18:12action on that problem as you see it so

18:15essentially

18:15being able to trigger other workflows

18:18outside of Tableau just by building integ

18:20rations into

18:21your dashboard this is important because

18:23one of the biggest problems with dashboards

18:24has

18:25always been you go to the dashboard to

18:27learn what's happening you find a problem

18:29by exploring

18:30the data but that last bit taking action

18:32has always been really really tough and in

18:34the

18:34past the simplest way to sort of fix that

18:36has been right back to database that's sort

18:38of been the generic request from the Table

18:40au community can we write back to the

18:42database

18:42that's very sort of that's not really doing

18:45what we want it to do because sometimes

18:47actions

18:47require more than just a row in a database

18:49sometimes action require triggering whole

18:52processes and some of those processes

18:54already exist in automation capabilities if

18:56you look

18:57at something like Zapier imagine being able

18:59to trigger a Zapier workflow to do a bunch

19:02of different things when you see a problem

19:04inside of a Tableau dashboard those are the

19:06kind of hooks and integrations that Tableau

19:08are thinking of integrating and so they

19:10talked

19:11about actions but generally they then

19:12focused it right back down to something

19:14called Salesforce

19:15flows so of course the first thing that's

19:17going to get this capability is Salesforce

19:20and essentially what I think you'll be able

19:22to do again it's not entirely clear but

19:23what

19:24I think you'll be able to and what they

19:25showed is that you'll be able to trigger

19:27Salesforce

19:27flows from dashboard actions and then

19:30hopefully in the future this will trigger

19:32other actions

19:33in other ecosystems as well so super

19:35exciting super interesting but that's

19:37pretty much it

19:38from this particular section.

19:40That's pretty much everything from the

19:41conference keynote I've just bunged

19:42everything on screen

19:43here as a review so you can see everything

19:45in one place it's super interesting now the

19:47additional context here is that we still

19:49haven't had devs on stage and the way to

19:51think of

19:52this is I think the keynote is about

19:54expanding the boundaries of what Tableau

19:56can do and

19:56then devs on stage is about filling the

19:58gaps of what's essentially left when you

20:00expand

20:01the boundaries so devs on stage I think is

20:03going to be the place where people like you

20:05and me traditionally go to find out what's

20:07going to make my workflow faster next year

20:10what is Tableau working on in 21.4, 22.1

20:14all of those features and how are those

20:16going

20:16to help me do my work better and so

20:18essentially what you should always think of

20:21this keynote

20:22and devs on stage is this is what Tableau

20:24is working on in the next year there's

20:26always

20:26a caveat that stuff doesn't turn up that

20:28has happened in the past we've seen stuff

20:29at conference

20:30and it's not turned up so don't take any of

20:32this as word that this is going to happen

20:34but nonetheless and this is how it's all

20:36set up.

20:37Listen thanks for watching I'm going to cut

20:38this video here because I think I could go

20:39on for days about each and every one of

20:41these features if you'd be interested in

20:42seeing

20:42a video about a particular thing I've

20:44mentioned today let me know there's

20:45obviously links

20:46in the description and the comments below

20:48so be sure to check those out and let me

20:49know

20:50if there's a particular topic you'd like me

20:51to cover in the future as well.