Video |

Tableau | Data visualisation | Tool strategy

Ask Data Improvements - New in Tableau 2022.2

Ask Data finally comes to Desktop in 2022.2 — and it's a quality of life win that feels smaller than it actually is.

Tim Ngwena •13 July 2022 •1 min read •5 min watch •5.1K

Part ofWhat's new in Tableau 2022.2

Watch on YouTube

In Tableau 2022.2 you can select an existing lens, create a new one, or configure an Ask Data object entirely within Desktop instead of switching to the browser
The Ask Data object now presents a configuration interface showing existing lenses and their modification dates when you drag it onto a dashboard
Because the data source is published, the lens capability runs in the cloud while Desktop sends the request, so behaviour matches the browser experience
You can edit the fields available in a lens from Tableau Cloud's top-left panel and changes reflect for end users in the dashboard
Author-level options like adding visualisations, pinning, publishing as a workbook and sharing can be toggled directly from the Desktop configuration pane

0:00One of the most frustrating things as an

0:02author has been that with our data as an

0:04author you've

0:04had to sort of jump across so many hoops to

0:07get things to work nicely. In 22.2 Tableau

0:10is trying

0:10to make that considerably easier. Let's get

0:13stuck in and find out how. Okay so we're

0:15here in desktop

0:16we're going to go vanilla and connect to a

0:17data source right from the get-go. I'm

0:19going to go

0:20ahead and select this Tableau server. This

0:22should really say Tableau server Tableau

0:24cloud but in my

0:25case I'm already logged into my Tableau

0:26cloud instance and you can see that I've

0:28got a data

0:29source. Now this top one here I know for a

0:30fact already has an R-Stata lens and I'm

0:32going to start

0:33with that to show you the capability then

0:35we create a lens here in desktop. Let's go

0:37ahead and click

0:38on that and when we do you can see it's got

0:40a data quality warning to let me know that

0:41this is

0:42actually deprecated but we're going to go

0:44ahead and connect to it anyway. So let's go

0:45ahead and

0:46connect to it let's just hit connect if it

0:48actually works it will it will connect

0:50through and we'll

0:51see everything's working. When I hover over

0:53this little icon it does actually give me a

0:55deprecated

0:56warning just there but that's fine because

0:58I did that for a demo for this demo like

1:00this pretty

1:00much. But here we are now what I need to do

1:03is very quickly build a dashboard build

1:05something

1:06just to show you this working. So let me go

1:08ahead but profit quantity let's go ahead

1:10and put product

1:11name on detail and we'll get a nice scatter

1:13plot that allows us to see something very

1:16very quickly.

1:16Let's see if we can put profit ratio on

1:18color that is almost the standard speed

1:21speed build

1:22challenge as it were. So let's go ahead put

1:24that in the dashboard let's put sheet two

1:25over there

1:26and there we go we've got a very simple

1:28dashboard but I actually want to give users

1:30the ability to

1:31ask their own data so I'll create another

1:33dashboard and for this one I'm going to go

1:35ahead and go over

1:36here to the bottom left hand side there's a

1:38little ask data object we can go ahead and

1:40drag that into

1:42the canvas and when we do this time around

1:44unlike before it actually gives you this

1:46interface and

1:47this interface shows you the existing

1:49lenses and you can go ahead and choose one

1:51that was created

1:52before and you can see that this is

1:54actually modified it was modified a while

1:56ago but I

1:57actually just created it before this demo

1:59to make sure that this works. So we'll

2:00first go ahead and

2:01select this one 21.4 lens and we'll go

2:04ahead and click ok and we'll come back to

2:06that configuration

2:07pane in a second once you see that the ask

2:09data lens is actually working without me

2:12having to go

2:12to the browser or do anything so a nice big

2:14quality of life improvement it's just a lot

2:17more

2:17seamless before you'd get bugs and sort of

2:19weird quirks having to do it in different

2:21places. Now

2:22let's say you want to change this maybe you

2:23want to change the lens you can go over

2:25here to the

2:25little drop down select configure and it

2:27brings that interface back in you can of

2:29course go

2:30somewhere else you can go connect to

2:31another data source I've only got this one

2:33data source with the

2:34lens so this is all you're going to see but

2:36I've also got this little icon here what

2:38this allows me

2:39to do is to go and see the lens in tableau

2:41server so let's go ahead and click on that

2:44I said tableau

2:44server I meant tableau cloud or tableau

2:46online if you're using old terminology and

2:49when you get here

2:49you see the lens and you're probably

2:51thinking well how do I edit this well you

2:52just go over here to

2:53the very top left hand side and you can

2:55edit the field that are available in this

2:58particular lens

2:59add them submit that change and then that's

3:01all done and it's going to reflect when the

3:03user uses

3:04our data in the dashboard now if we go back

3:07to the dashboard here you can see that I've

3:09obviously got

3:10the ability to create a new lens that's

3:12just right here at the bottom left hand

3:14side and what this

3:15will do is it will just grab all the fields

3:17you've got at the moment and use that in

3:19the lens remember

3:20this is a published data source so the lens

3:22capability is technically being done in the

3:24cloud

3:25and because desktop is essentially sending

3:27this request up it's essentially the same

3:29as doing the

3:30request over in the tableau cloud so now

3:32when you do that you saw very briefly that

3:35created a new

3:36lens and then it drops you right back into

3:38the ask data experience as you'd expect

3:40once that gets

3:41going it can sort of take a while because

3:42it's just working through the browser but

3:44when it gets

3:45going it loads up absolutely fine and you

3:47're pretty much good to go if you want to

3:49configure

3:49that again go over to the configure tab and

3:52you can go ahead and select that particular

3:54source

3:55go over to the browser and you're pretty

3:57much good to go so everything is sort of

3:59nicely contained

4:00inside a desktop you can make changes you

4:02can save these changes it's all going to be

4:04absolutely

4:04fantastic now if I go back to this

4:07configuration pane again there's a couple

4:09more options just down

4:11here that I can actually configure here

4:13from desktop so I can give users the

4:15ability to add

4:16visualizations to pin pins publish as a

4:18workbook or share the visualization I can

4:21tick or untick

4:22those options as I wish as an author

4:23without having to go to the browser so this

4:26is a really

4:26nice quality of life improvement because it

4:28just means that I don't have to leave this

4:30workspace

4:30and this is where I spend my time and this

4:32is where I do my work so that's a nice

4:34improvement

4:35to our state it feels a lot smaller than it

4:37actually is but it's actually a really big

4:40quality of life improvement I think to the

4:42way that our state works so yeah let me

4:44know what

4:44you think in the comments do you think this

4:46is a good enhancement is there something

4:47missing from

4:48this am I bigging it up more than I should

4:50be let me know in the comments and yeah

4:52catch you

4:52in the next video thanks for watching

4:56[ Pause ]

Rollup

Tableau 2022.2 lets you select, configure or create Ask Data lenses entirely within Desktop, removing the old workflow of jumping into the browser to manage them. It's a quality-of-life change that makes authoring Ask Data dashboards much more seamless.

Tim connects Desktop to a published data source on Tableau Cloud that already has an existing lens, then builds a quick scatter plot dashboard to demonstrate the new Ask Data object behaviour.

The Breakdown

Connect to a published cloud data source 0:14

You start by connecting Desktop to a data source published on Tableau Cloud (shown in the connect dialog as 'Tableau server'). This is a prerequisite for the rest of the workflow, since lens capability depends on the data source being published rather than local.
Build a quick dashboard to host Ask Data 1:01

Put together any simple visualisation — here a scatter plot with profit, quantity and profit ratio on colour — just to give yourself something to test the Ask Data object against on a second dashboard.
Drag on the Ask Data object and pick a lens 1:31

Dragging the Ask Data object onto the canvas now opens a configuration interface listing existing lenses with their last-modified dates, so you can select one without leaving Desktop. This is the core new capability: previously this step required the browser.
Reconfigure or switch lens later 2:23

From the object's dropdown you can reopen the configuration pane at any time to change data source or lens, or jump straight to viewing the lens on Tableau Cloud via a shortcut icon.
Edit lens fields from Tableau Cloud 2:42

Editing which fields are available in a lens still happens in Tableau Cloud's top-left panel — add or remove fields and submit, and the change reflects immediately for anyone using that lens in the dashboard.
Create a brand new lens from Desktop 3:05

You can also create a new lens directly from the object's configuration pane; it pulls in all fields currently available and builds the lens in the cloud (since the request runs against the published source), then drops you back into the Ask Data experience. This can take a little longer to load the first time since it's working through the browser behind the scenes.
Toggle author-level sharing options 4:05

In the same configuration pane you can tick or untick whether end users get to add visualisations, pin results, publish as a workbook, or share — all without leaving Desktop.

Worth Knowing

A deprecated data source still connects and works fine for demo purposes, but watch for the deprecation warning icon on older connections.
Creating a new lens can take a noticeable moment to load since the process still runs through the browser under the hood, even though it's triggered from Desktop.
Lens field edits are still only possible in Tableau Cloud, not Desktop — Desktop covers selection, creation and configuration, not field-level editing.

Use It When

Reach for this whenever you're building dashboards with Ask Data and want to select, create or reconfigure lenses without breaking your authoring flow by switching to the browser.

How this Rollup was made provenance & method

A Rollup is drafted by AI from the video's transcript, then reviewed and edited by Tim. Everything used to produce this one is listed below — the model, the exact prompt, and the source video — so the process is transparent and reproducible.

Transcription: On-device — NVIDIA Parakeet v3 for recent videos, OpenAI Whisper large-v3 for earlier ones. The transcript never leaves the machine or gets published.
Drafting: Claude Sonnet 5 in the cloud, from that transcript.
Prompt: The exact Rollup prompt (v2) — the full system prompt, unedited.
Source video: Watch on YouTube
Drafted: 5 July 2026 at 09:38
Reviewed & edited: 5 July 2026 at 09:41 · by Tim Ngwena

Model + prompt + video is everything you'd need to recreate a Rollup like this yourself. The one thing we don't share is the transcript.

Rights. The video and its transcript are the property of TN Media Ltd. Unauthorised use or download is prohibited. © TN Media Ltd.