Cloud-based file connectors for Virtual Connections

0:00Hey, it's Tim here. In 22.3 Tableau

0:02continues to improve virtual connections.

0:04I've actually got all the updates from this

0:06version up on screen already because

0:08the first two are kind of small updates, so

0:09I'm just going to run over them. The first

0:12one is

0:12downstream feature compatibility.

0:13Essentially, when you use the virtual

0:15connection,

0:16it wasn't actually possible to create the

0:18related assets that typically

0:20get created downstream from a connection.

0:22So downstream is a terminology

0:24that Tableau uses when they talk about data

0:26management. Anything that gets

0:28connected to a data source is essentially

0:30downstream to the data source. The other

0:32thing is extract encryption. This is

0:33specifically for Tableau Server. Of course

0:35Tableau Cloud

0:36doesn't really have this option because

0:38that architecture works differently. And

0:40the very

0:40final one here is cloud-based file

0:41connectors for virtual connections. In

0:43essence,

0:44you can connect to Google Drive, Box,

0:46Dropbox, whilst using

0:48virtual connections. In this video, I'm

0:49going to show you how. Let's get started.

0:52So virtual connections are a really

0:53powerful feature. I talked previously at

0:56the

0:56London Tableau User Group and I actually

0:58said this was probably the most under

1:00appreciated feature because it's hidden

1:02behind a paywall. Not many people

1:04have the data management add-on and

1:05therefore don't realize the value that this

1:07feature presents.

1:08So if you can have a go at this feature and

1:10just try and understand how it can

1:12help your workflow, I highly encourage it.

1:14You can try it through the developer

1:16access that you get as part of the Data Dev

1:18community. If you just want to do that

1:20with one or two accounts, that is a great

1:21way to try this feature. Now, okay, so I'm

1:23here inside of

1:24Tableau Cloud. This is the beta instance of

1:26Tableau Cloud. I'll go ahead and create

1:28a new virtual connection. As soon as we do

1:30that, we get the pop-up for this

1:32particular interface. Now, one thing I didn

1:34't realize you could do before and

1:36I just discovered was this little grid view

1:38actually. Maybe this is new, but you can

1:40sort this as a grid. This just makes it

1:42easy to get everything on one screen. And

1:44I'm going to try and call out the specific

1:46connectors here. We've got Dropbox,

1:48Box, Google Drive, and I think there's

1:51another one called

1:52Azure Data Lake Storage Gen 2. That's a

1:56very long name.

1:56I don't even see it on this list. So maybe

2:00it's coming later.

2:00But those are the new cloud connectors that

2:02are now supported by virtual connections.

2:04Now, the really powerful thing is virtual

2:06connections also have capabilities such as

2:08data

2:08policies. And you can connect to multiple

2:12cloud storage

2:12solutions alongside your own connections to

2:14create a virtual connection.

2:16So something that people maybe didn't

2:17realize and I didn't emphasize in my

2:19previous video is that

2:20you can connect to multiple types of

2:22connectors when you're building your

2:24virtual connections

2:24and give people access to all of those

2:26things in one place.

2:28So I'm going to go ahead and do two

2:29connections. I'm going to use Google Drive

2:32and Dropbox. Those are the two things I use

2:34almost every day. And what I've done is

2:36I've just dropped Superstore into those

2:37folders so we can connect them. But with

2:38Google Drive, you can

2:40actually also connect to Google Sheets. So

2:42I'm actually going to show you a file that

2:44we can connect to.

2:44I'm going to connect to my company Google

2:46account. This is essentially the home of

2:48Tableau Tim. I'm going to head and click

2:51continue. And when we do that,

2:52we see everything that's available inside

2:54of my Google Drive folder. And you've got

2:56some high level

2:56sort of areas. Now, if I scroll down,

3:00you should see. Let's see what we can find

3:03here. There you go. You can see

3:04we have two Excel files here. Sample EU

3:07Store XLS

3:08Sample Superstore XLS.

3:12And we've also got a GSheets. Now, these G

3:15Sheets can be connected to

3:16two. There's a little bit of a quirk with

3:18this, but anyway, we'll go ahead and

3:20connect to this.

3:20Let's first start with Superstore. We're

3:21very familiar with that. Let's go ahead and

3:23bring that connection

3:24in. And as soon as we go ahead and connect

3:27to that, you'll see

3:28it just comes up on the left hand side and

3:29I can see all the tables I'm used to. I can

3:32go ahead

3:32bring them in and you can connect to those

3:36and

3:36people can start using them almost straight

3:38away. Now, the reason we may be seeing dupl

3:40ications

3:40of tables here is because of named ranges.

3:42And I think that's most likely

3:44the cause here. But you know what? Let's go

3:46ahead and put them all in. You can see

3:48Tableau

3:48renames the duplicates as well. We'll go

3:50ahead and get more from that

3:52same Google Drive connection. So let's go

3:54back in. I'll log in again

3:56and we'll go ahead and get our account. Now

3:58, the thing is you have to authenticate each

4:00time

4:00you add something to the connection. I

4:01think it creates essentially a key for that

4:03particular connection.

4:04So we've added Superstore. Now, what I'm

4:06going to do is I'm going to add a Google

4:08Sheets

4:08this time. Go ahead and select connect. And

4:10when we add the Google Sheets,

4:12you'll see that it comes in as an Excel

4:14file almost. I'll go ahead and drag that in

4:16.

4:16And one of the nice things with virtual

4:18connections is as you're creating the

4:20connection

4:20you can obviously preview those files. So

4:22if I just move this up, I click on this

4:24little

4:24table icon here on the bottom left. It's

4:25similar to the icon you see in Tableau prep

4:28.

4:28It gives us a little bit of a preview. In

4:30fact, if I actually connect to this, you

4:32can see

4:32that it works fairly well. I think I

4:34actually clicked on the wrong thing here.

4:36So we've got the... here we go. We've got

4:40Google

4:40Analytics. We've got a bunch

4:44of information. Oh, I connected to the

4:46wrong table in this particular case.

4:48What this data is essentially showing me,

4:50these are tables that I

4:52was using in a service called Fivetran. And

4:54I created a Google Sheet of

4:56all the tables and how I'm using them in

4:57Fivetran so that I can remember should I

5:00forget.

5:00It's not actually what I was looking to

5:01connect to. So let's go back in and try and

5:04find

5:04the right file again. Let's go ahead and

5:06grab this connection again. We're going to

5:08connect

5:08this a few times. Go ahead. I'm sort of

5:11just trying to

5:12emphasize the point here that essentially

5:14you can do this as many times until

5:16you've got everything you need in your

5:17virtual connection. Now here, what this

5:19data

5:20source is, is essentially a table

5:24of information every time Google... Sorry,

5:28it's a

5:28table of information which shows every time

5:30Tableau Cloud has an issue across

5:32all instances around the world. So what I'm

5:34doing is I'm collecting this data to see

5:36how

5:36often does Tableau Cloud have issues and

5:38what kind of issues are they for a video

5:40that I'll do at some point in the future.

5:42Anyway, you'll see here that this table

5:44is already in the virtual connection.

5:46Adding a duplicate table enables you

5:48to, for example, use the duplicate in

5:50another data policy. So

5:52that's actually quite a good hint. You can

5:55add a duplicate

5:56table and use the table in a different data

5:59policy.

6:00Although, it's a bit of a confusing one

6:01because I think you then have to name the

6:03table to

6:04say use this table in this policy and use

6:06that table in that policy. It's

6:08probably not clear, but I'll go ahead and

6:10put it in anyway. So now we have a lot of

6:12tables and things added to our

6:16virtual connections. These will say live,

6:18which is super interesting. I don't know if

6:20it's

6:20actually connecting to all of these files

6:22in all these different locations live.

6:24I'll go ahead and select Dropbox this time.

6:26I'm already logged in on Dropbox, so it

6:28just

6:28skipped right in. You can see here at the

6:30top I'm logged in with my personal email.

6:32The thing I want to look for here is

6:33another superstore file. I must have

6:35someone in here.

6:36I've just uploaded that today. We'll grab

6:39an EU file, hit connect,

6:40and you can see we're getting a pretty busy

6:43list of

6:44information. We'll go ahead and include

6:46everything just so we can push this

6:48to its limits. I don't think there's an

6:49actual, there probably is a limit of how

6:51many tables

6:52you can add. Let's add one more and see if

6:53anything comes up. No, it's not a logical

6:56number

6:56like 10. But as you can see, you can add

6:58all of these in. And now I'm connected to

7:00Google Drive, Dropbox. I'm actually

7:02connected to Google Drive three times.

7:04And you can do this with other connections

7:05as well. The great thing here is that of

7:08course

7:08all of these are available to you when you

7:10start to build a data policy. So you can go

7:12ahead

7:12and drag them in if you want to. Actually

7:14what I need to do is create a policy, then

7:16drag

7:16what I need in. And again, as I start to

7:18build these things out, I can actually

7:20start proving them as well. So that is the

7:22feature in a nutshell. Very small change

7:24but actually quite useful for companies

7:26that are using cloud data storage for

7:28their main workflow. I think a lot of

7:29companies are actually in that sort of

7:31setup at the moment. Even

7:32corporate companies that have been sort of

7:35slow to catch up

7:36have finally cottoned on that many of these

7:38cloud services now offer enterprise

7:40level security so they can use them

7:42securely with their employees.

7:44And now Tableau can connect to them. That's

7:46pretty much it for this video.

7:48Thanks for watching. If you've got any

7:49feedback, leave them in the comments below

7:50and I'll catch you in the next video.

7:52[silence]

8:00<uan early>