Connect to AWS S3 with Tableau Connector | New in tableau 2023.2

0:00Hey, it's Tim here. In today's video we're

0:01checking out the new Amazon S3 connector

0:04that's currently out in beta straight off

0:06the back of conference.

0:07As ever, let's get started.

0:09Okay, so we're going to try this in two

0:10places. First we're going to try it in

0:12desktop. You can skip ahead to the all

0:14cloud version where we try it in Tableau

0:16cloud.

0:17But for this one, I'm starting off in

0:18desktop because I just want to show you how

0:20to install the connector when working off

0:23Tableau desktop.

0:24So if you go to the tour service section,

0:26you can see there's a list here. This is

0:28normally the most recent connections, but

0:30you can see I've already used the S3

0:32connector.

0:33So it's available. But if it's not there,

0:34if you select more, you can go down to this

0:36list and you can see that I actually have

0:38it here.

0:39And if you're opening Tableau and you don't

0:41have the Amazon S3 connector, that's

0:43because it's not installed by default.

0:45To install it, what you want to do is you

0:46want to head to the Tableau exchange and

0:48this works for Tableau prep, Tableau server

0:50and Tableau desktop.

0:52You go to the connector section of the

0:53Tableau exchange. The Tableau exchange is

0:56just the marketplace for connectors,

0:58extensions and templates for Tableau.

1:00And then you can see the S3 connectors

1:02right here. You download it. And what this

1:04does is it downloads a file to your

1:06downloads folder or your desktop, wherever

1:08you tell it to go.

1:09And then once you've got that file, you're

1:10not done. What you need to do is you need

1:12to put it in one of these directories.

1:15It's super important you do this because

1:17Tableau looks in these folders to see

1:20additional connectors. And so you can see

1:22here it's pretty consistent.

1:23In fact, in desktop and prep, it's

1:24virtually the same place. So I actually

1:26have those locations open here on my

1:29computer.

1:30You can see my Tableau prep repository. If

1:32I go to the connectors, I have two TACO

1:33files. This is the file extension that adds

1:36additional connectors.

1:38So Google Analytics is one I've just done a

1:39video on just literally a couple of days

1:41ago.

1:42And then here you've got the S3 connector.

1:43And you notice that these have versions. I

1:45'll come back to that in one second.

1:47And the same is true with Tableau. So Table

1:49au desktop has the exact same folder

1:50structure.

1:51If you go to connectors, you can see I have

1:53the two files. And so once you've put it

1:55there, you open Tableau.

1:57If you've already got it open, close it,

1:59open it again, it will load these

2:00connectors and you'll see it in this list

2:03that loads up here along with the other

2:05data connectors, even though it lives on

2:06the Tableau exchange.

2:08So this is how you get this file on here.

2:12Now before I hop into the product, it's

2:13just worth noting that this is a beta.

2:14And obviously what that means is Tableau

2:15will keep updating this. I'm not aware of a

2:18mechanism that can update these TACO files

2:21as these get updated.

2:23So I think what you have to do is you

2:24bookmark this page and come back and you

2:25have to check the version you're running

2:27versus the version that's on here.

2:29I hope in the future Tableau does roll out

2:31some sort of update capability.

2:33So when you're updating desktop, are you

2:35doing any patches? It checks these

2:37connectors and downloads the latest version

2:39for you.

2:40But because you're typically putting a file

2:41on a very sensitive place, this is probably

2:43going to have to be a manual operation or

2:45there is a sort of command line

2:48installation mechanism for Tableau.

2:50And if you're working in enterprise, it

2:51should be possible for your IT admins to

2:53put a specific file in this directory.

2:56So have it done that way if that's going to

2:57be something that you're going to use

2:58across the organization.

3:00Now, once you've got everything set up, you

3:02can go ahead to Tableau prep or Tableau

3:04desktop. I'll show you Tableau prep briefly

3:05.

3:06If I go to the plus sign, you'll see that

3:08if I actually just type in S3, you see that

3:10it comes up right there.

3:11And if I click on that, it opens up the

3:12connector. I'm going to show you how to

3:14connect here in desktop because that's what

3:15most people are using.

3:17So we'll go ahead and click on the

3:18connector and I'll show you how to set this

3:20up.

3:21When it loads for the first time, it

3:22actually loads a web window.

3:24And you can see here it has a timer saying

3:26elapsed time, eight seconds executing query

3:29. And then for me, a few seconds later, a

3:31web window shows up.

3:33Now, when this was happening in those eight

3:34seconds, the first time I run this, I was

3:36actually clicking around thinking, hey,

3:38what's going on?

3:39And the simple act of clicking on Tableau

3:41actually sent that window to the background

3:44.

3:45So you might be looking at a screen like

3:46this. The time is going up and you're

3:48wondering why is this taking so long?

3:50Well, it's because it's behind the window.

3:52So just make sure you look out for that.

3:55That caught me out for about a couple of

3:56minutes and I realized, oh, wait, this is

3:57probably behind the window.

3:59Anyway, now we're here. It wants four

4:01things. The essentially the details around

4:04your Amazon S3 bucket.

4:05If you're not familiar with Amazon S3, it

4:07stands for S3 stands for simple storage

4:10system, essentially simple storage system.

4:12I hope it's simple storage system. If it's

4:14not correct me in the notes below.

4:15I used to be certified in AWS. I need to

4:17get back on that, obviously. But it wants

4:20four things.

4:21The bucket region, the bucket name. These

4:23are two pretty standard things to get if

4:24you're working with S3.

4:26Then it has access key ID and a secret

4:28access key. These are things to authent

4:30icate you so it knows that you have access

4:32to look at this.

4:33So you should have this already set up and

4:34you should know these details if you need

4:36to use this connector.

4:38If you don't know these details, find them

4:40first, then you can use this connector.

4:42So I'm going to set this up and then we're

4:43going to skip past this because I don't

4:44want to share my details so you can all go

4:47and use up my AWS credit.

4:49So let's go ahead and copy my details. OK,

4:52so I've got all my details entered.

4:53You simply go ahead and hit sign in. And

4:55what this should do is it should load up

4:57the next step.

4:58Now, the next step shows you what's in your

5:00bucket. Essentially, the first step is it

5:02scans your bucket.

5:03And you can see here it says it found 60

5:05files.

5:06You can actually dismiss that if you know

5:07what you're going to find. You can actually

5:09get rid of it just here on the top right.

5:11And all you have left is essentially

5:12directory structure.

5:14And the reason I've got a few files here is

5:15because I wanted to see what this connector

5:17could do, because you can upload virtually

5:19anything to S3.

5:20So I wanted to see, hey, can this S3

5:21connector connect to a range of different

5:23files?

5:24And so the two things I know it can connect

5:26to are CSV and Excel files.

5:29It can't connect to hypers. So this is not

5:30going to be a way to upload a hyper to S3

5:33and then have this connector read that

5:35hyper in a sort of consistent way.

5:37And that's not currently possible. You're

5:38still going to be better off publishing the

5:40hyper to Tableau Cloud or Tableau Server to

5:42use that in a more sort of flexible way.

5:45That said, I've had a few bugs opening

5:47Excel files. I actually haven't been able

5:49to get it to work.

5:50It might be that my version of Tableau is

5:52not actually supported on my version of Mac

5:54OS.

5:55I'm using Mac OS Ventura. 23.1 does not

5:58support that. 23.2 will support that. So

6:01hopefully this will be more stable.

6:03So I'll go ahead and I'm actually going to

6:04use a CSV file. This file I'm going to use

6:06is actually this one, London Fire Brigade

6:09incident data for the last three years.

6:12And so we'll go ahead and connect that. You

6:13'll see something really interesting with

6:15CSV files.

6:16When you do that, it goes and queries the

6:17whole bucket. And just like on desktop, you

6:20can see that it's not only just brought

6:21back the file we selected, but it's

6:23actually brought back all the CSV's in the

6:26whole directory, including the ones that

6:29were inside of this other directory.

6:31So if you have an S3 bucket where lots of

6:33people are putting files, maybe every

6:35single day there's a transaction or maybe

6:37every single day there is something going

6:38on, you should be able to use that set up

6:41to sort of bring them all in.

6:44I'm not sure you can tell this connector to

6:46continuously scan the entire bucket for

6:48everything and bring it all in.

6:50It doesn't seem to support some way of

6:52saying that. And I'd be interested to know

6:54if there maybe there's a secret sort of

6:55back end where you can query this with SQL.

6:58But you don't have that option here to

7:00create custom SQL that reads the S3 bucket.

7:03There's nothing like that. But you've just

7:05got a basic set up here.

7:07And you know what you could do is if you

7:08wanted to, you could actually select

7:10multiple files and you can go ahead and

7:12select new union.

7:14And if you drag that in, you then get the

7:15option to essentially specify what you want

7:17. And you can drag all these files in and it

7:19's capable of reading that as well.

7:21But for that, this is still in beta and I

7:23've not been able to sort of consistently

7:26get that to work. So I'm just going to show

7:28you one file type so we can keep this video

7:30nice and snappy.

7:31We'll bring in the London Fire Brigade

7:34incident data.

7:36And, you know, I'm constantly sort of

7:38having to battle me being on a Mac and also

7:41using a beta product to unstable things.

7:44And sometimes you experience sort of

7:45interface issues. Sometimes you experience

7:48bugs.

7:49Now, the thing to note about this file is

7:50180 megabytes. And don't forget, I'm using

7:53this on my desktop machine.

7:55So if we think about the network journey,

7:57my desktop machine is sending off a query

7:59to Amazon S3 in US East one.

8:01That's the region that my bucket is in. It

8:04's querying that data. And don't forget, it

8:06's doing it live. It's doing this live to

8:08the data set.

8:09So if you were to add, you know, update

8:12that file, I'm assuming it should be able

8:14to read that update in almost real time.

8:18And it's able to sort of go and access that

8:20data could take an extract.

8:22So it's local. But when we go ahead and

8:23connect to sheet one, we get everything

8:25that was in that file.

8:27Now, this is an annoying file because it's

8:29a CSV had no column headers.

8:31But I can reassure you that all the data is

8:33indeed here. And you can pretty much see

8:36that everything is working.

8:38There's a few. There's a lot of metadata

8:39missing from this. Everything is coming as

8:41text.

8:42It's clearly not. But you know, the way

8:44this was working, you'd hope that over time

8:48,

8:48this S3 connector gets a little bit smarter

8:50and can automatically identify some of

8:51these column types.

8:53There's definitely a column or two here

8:54that you'd hope Tableau would be able to

8:56identify.

8:57For example, you've got the cities. The

9:00London is a city here.

9:01You've got some towns here that it should

9:02be able to identify as geographical fields.

9:05But it might be that the way the S3

9:06connector is querying the file, it's just

9:08not able to deduce that metadata

9:10automatically.

9:11Like desktop does sometimes with CSPs. So

9:13that's something to watch out for.

9:15But this is in beta. This is not done. So

9:17that's still yet to come. And hopefully

9:18Tableau resolves that.

9:20So now here I am connected to a file live

9:22in S3. You can actually just look at this.

9:24That's going ahead. Let's go ahead and just

9:26do a basic chart. Just say this is working

9:28live.

9:29So we'll go ahead and get column 12. S

9:32column 12 is the postcode, the outcode.

9:35So we can go ahead and bring that in. And

9:37if we do that, we can then also go get the

9:40column.

9:41Sorry, the row count, which is just down

9:44here. And we can see how many rows for each

9:46data set.

9:47And that should give us an idea of the

9:49spread. So it seems that most of the Fire

9:51Brigade incidents were in Croydon.

9:54Again, I'm reading this in real time from

9:55Amazon S3 just here in Tableau Desktop. So

9:58this works really, really nicely.

10:00You can sort of get this to work and get it

10:02to work. In fact, let's just try and do

10:05something.

10:05Let's just try and say to Tableau that this

10:07has a geographic role. It's a postcode and

10:11it's probably going to complain.

10:13I'm not going to I'm not going to lie to

10:14you. I think it's going to complain because

10:16it doesn't have any country information,

10:18but it's actually been able to handle it.

10:19You can see it's actually been able to sort

10:20of generate that.

10:22So we can let's look at the locations. It's

10:26got a yeah, that is UK Kingdom.

10:30It doesn't know these four postcodes, so

10:32that's fine. You know, you could probably

10:35correct these.

10:37There's probably something wrong with these

10:38particular postcodes. I think it's probably

10:40just easy to and easy 3P.

10:45This this looks like a typo. So we could we

10:46could probably sort of do some data

10:48cleansing to these to make them work.

10:51W1A you don't normally in UK don't normally

10:54have an outcode that ends with a letter.

10:57Normally they end in a number. So these are

10:58definitely issues.

11:00And BF1 might just be another typo from a

11:01different sort of set up. So at least that

11:04we know is working.

11:06So we can go ahead, get a background. Let's

11:09see what we're going to do here. Let's get

11:10let's do streets.

11:13Let's do this one. This is a nice map. So

11:15it kind of looks a little bit more familiar

11:16.

11:17Give that a bit of time to load. And there

11:19we go. We can kind of start to see what's

11:21going on.

11:22And then what we can do to give us a sense

11:24of what the London Fire Brigade is facing,

11:28we can put that on size.

11:30We can make it red and we can just make it

11:33sort of stand out a little bit.

11:36Let's get my face out of the way here. Let

11:40's just make this a little bit larger and

11:42then bump this up a little bit.

11:45Yeah, there we go. So that's starting to

11:46look nice. Now we can start to see where

11:49the London Fire Brigade is getting called

11:50out in London.

11:51Very quick, nice and easy file in Amazon S3

11:52. Perfect.

11:54Now, Tableau also talk about this connector

11:56working in a cloud only set up.

11:58And so you've kind of seen the pace and the

12:00speed that we've had going here.

12:02Now we're going to do the exact same thing

12:03in Tableau Cloud.

12:05So give me one second to open up Tableau

12:07Cloud and we can set that up and we can

12:09almost start in exactly the same place with

12:11a new connector.

12:12Let's take a look. OK, we're here in Table

12:14au Cloud through the magic of production.

12:17We're going to go straight into this. Let's

12:19go ahead, select a new workbook in Tableau

12:21Cloud.

12:23For clarity, my Tableau Cloud instance is

12:2610 AX.

12:27I think this is the Arizona Amazon instance

12:29that Tableau Cloud runs in.

12:3210 AX is Arizona. My AWS region is US East.

12:38So although this might not be in the exact

12:40same region, it will definitely be

12:43traveling inside of what they call the AWS

12:45backbone network.

12:46So rather than traversing the Internet, it

12:48's going to be traversing the special stuff

12:51that exists between Amazon data centers.

12:54So we'll go ahead to the connectors tab, we

12:56'll select Amazon S3 and we'll go ahead and

12:59hop in.

13:00And you'll notice you get the same web

13:01window.

13:02And one thing I found super interesting

13:03with all the new connectors, it's

13:05definitely clear that Tableau is building

13:07sort of unified interfaces that work both

13:09on the web and inside of the desktop setup.

13:13So it feels to me like desktop is heading

13:15towards the web more and more to the point

13:17where I think what we'll have in the end is

13:19essentially a container which contains the

13:21web experience, but allows you to go

13:23offline.

13:24So let's go ahead and put the same

13:26information we need to put in here.

13:29So let's go ahead and fill this out.

13:32So we fill this out, we're going to hit

13:35sign in.

13:36And we get the same window. So we've got

13:37this window. I don't know if it's possible

13:39to resize. It doesn't seem like that's the

13:41case.

13:42If I do a browser resize, it doesn't help

13:44either. So I wish I could sort of resize

13:46this.

13:47It feels a bit constrained, but I'll get

13:48rid of that notification. We can get it all

13:50in one screen.

13:52Now you can see the exact same setup. And I

13:53have to say, this experience is already

13:55smoother because I had a Mac version that

13:57was all very weird and smooth.

13:59Because I'm using a browser and everything

14:01supported, it just works.

14:03So dare I say the web experience is

14:04actually slightly better than the Mac

14:07experience.

14:08And so if we go ahead and hit connect, what

14:11I'm hoping to get a sense of is the speed.

14:13And it's definitely faster. It's definitely

14:15zippier.

14:16And this is sort of the power of the cloud

14:17if you borrow sort of Tableau's terminology

14:20here, because everything is basically

14:22happening in the same place.

14:24There's virtually no real transfer of

14:25anything. And all I'm really doing in the

14:27browser is just getting a window into what

14:29's happening, which requires considerably

14:31less information to sort of operate.

14:33In fact, it probably takes longer for my

14:35click to register between my mouse and the

14:37server in America than it does to process

14:40the request and do all the stuff required.

14:43So let's go ahead and bring that into the

14:45view. It's doing exactly the same thing.

14:48You'll notice that Tableau web interface

14:50has a slightly different setup.

14:52But this is kind of nice that we're able to

14:53do all of this in the browser. We'll wait

14:55for this to load. I want to see if it's

14:56actually faster. I don't get a sense of it

14:59feeling faster.

15:01So it might just be that, hey, my internet

15:03connection and the one between the data

15:05centers are actually not that different.

15:08But it's hard to believe that.

15:09So what we'll do is we go ahead and get

15:10column 12. Now, can I change the geographic

15:13role to postcode? Yes, we can.

15:17And in this, we double clicked and we built

15:19a map. Now, the difference here is, let's

15:23set that as postcode.

15:25And what's not going on here is it's not

15:28because this Tableau cloud instance is in

15:31America.

15:32I think it's defaulting the geography here

15:37to a different country. And so what I can I

15:41can't really change it.

15:43I think it thinks these are zip codes

15:45rather than postcodes. But if I go to map,

15:50I'm not really able to specify the country.

15:52And I'm not also seeing the information I

15:54need to see down here. It is on the map.

15:57We can see here that it's all detailed out,

15:59but I'm just not seeing anything that I

16:01need to.

16:02So let's go down and see if we can force it

16:04to render something, putting the count of

16:07items on size.

16:09And yeah, we don't see sort of the null

16:10indicator here. You can just see that there

16:13are.

16:14It says this. It's weird. There's a legend,

16:16but there's just nothing to select. So I

16:19don't know what I'm doing wrong.

16:21It might be me. It might be the product.

16:23But just to sort of clarify that we are

16:25doing the right thing.

16:27We're going to column 12. We're getting all

16:29the outcodes. We're going to the count.

16:32We're getting all the columns. And what we

16:34're going to do is we're going to sort this.

16:36And this is essentially what I drew in

16:38desktop. In fact, I still have that

16:40available.

16:41Yes, we do. That's basically what I drew.

16:43And the difference is here.

16:46I'm not able to see this little message

16:47that says for unknown. Get this window to

16:50pop up and just that's just not what I'm

16:52getting here.

16:53So if I go to shoot one here, you'll see

16:55that, you know, it's just not loading that

16:58screen up now.

17:00I wonder this is one of the things you have

17:02to be sort of careful with if there is a

17:05way to get it to show.

17:07And I'm just not getting it. And one thing

17:10I will triple check.

17:12And this is something you do have to check.

17:14Let me just disable the ad blocker because

17:17the Tableau cloud setup is really smart.

17:20Even though the page refreshed, it just

17:21caught the session again so I can carry on

17:23as I am.

17:24And if I whatever reason, close this

17:25browser and came back, it would actually

17:28sort of save a draft for me and it would

17:30open up this instance.

17:31I don't have to worry about losing my work.

17:34But yeah, I can't get the exact same same

17:36thing drawn.

17:37But I am using the exact same data. So, you

17:39know, that's the sort of cloud experience

17:42sometimes.

17:43There's still a little bit of work to do in

17:44terms of feature parity. Things are getting

17:46there, but they're not quite there.

17:49And some of those small things you need to

17:50kind of get you across the finish line

17:51haven't quite made it over.

17:53But the connection experience was, I think,

17:55much faster. The interface was a little bit

17:58zippier.

17:59I just shame about that final mile. Right.

18:02So, yeah, that's pretty much it for the

18:04Amazon S3 connector.

18:05It's probably worth, you know, following

18:07this connector out of beta and then maybe

18:10maybe in a few months time once it's out of

18:11beta and it's got its final sort of feature

18:14set.

18:14And we've got some instructions on how it

18:15works. We can actually try and have a look

18:17at that.

18:18But I thought I'd do this video just now

18:19just to highlight to people that it's

18:20available. You should be using it because

18:22it's in beta.

18:24I would say probably not great for

18:25production. I've had issues with Excel

18:27files, for example.

18:28It might just be my Mac and the fact that

18:30that's not supported in Mac OS Ventura. But

18:33nonetheless, you should try it. Do your own

18:35testing and come to your own conclusion.

18:37Thanks for watching and I'll see you in the

18:38next one.

18:39Thanks for watching.

18:40You

18:50[ Silence ]