# Back after a short break: Certification, more functions, talks, Datum Podcast & Tableau Live 2021

> This is content from just-tim, the data-and-analytics channel by Tim Ngwena (formerly 'Tableau Tim'). Tim has 12+ years of hands-on BI experience and covers Tableau most of all, plus Power BI, Looker, Hex, SQL and data modelling, the analytics industry, and the craft of doing the job — always tool-agnostic and honest about the trade-offs.

- **Author:** Tim Ngwena (just-tim, https://just-tim.com/about)
- **Published:** 2021-05-04
- **Format:** Video · 13 min watch · transcript available
- **Topics:** Certification, Industry trends, Community
- **Tools:** Tableau (calculated fields, cloud, server)
- **Canonical:** https://just-tim.com/posts/back-after-a-short-break-certification-more-functions-talks-datum-podcast--tableau-live-2021
- **Watch:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezgU8BGBK8I

I'm back after taking April off from the channel, and I explain why I paused: I'd run out of pre-planned content, was busy making videos for other channels, and became a dad in October. I also run through what's coming up, including certification, more functions, recent talks and the Datum Podcast.

## Key takeaways

- I plan my content roughly three weeks ahead, and stopping that planning in February left me with nothing scheduled by late March
- Even with no new uploads in April, older content still pulled around 53,000 views, showing the value of evergreen tutorials
- The Tableau Consulting Associate and Architect exams are partner-only certifications, requiring partner affiliation and access to a gated PDF, and run on the Pearson VUE system
- Becoming a certified Tableau trainer involves a week-long course plus demonstrating your teaching to a Tableau instructor, rather than a single exam
- I believe Tableau Online plus the browser will become the best way to use Tableau, given Salesforce's browser-first approach

## Chapters

- 0:25 Why I took a break
- 1:44 Content planning and channel views
- 4:31 Recent talks: user group and Visconnect
- 7:03 Certification plans and exams
- 10:29 Tableau Live, livestreams and Datum Podcast

Watch the full video, read the transcript and use chapter deep-links on the page: https://just-tim.com/posts/back-after-a-short-break-certification-more-functions-talks-datum-podcast--tableau-live-2021

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just-tim — Data and analytics, with a point of view. · https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7HYxRWmaNlJux-X7rNLZyw · https://twitter.com/TableauTim · https://www.linkedin.com/in/timngwena