0:00Hey, it's Tim here. In today's video 2021.2
0:03is out and I'm going to be covering the new
0:05feature, the very top of the page about ARS
0:08data.
0:09Now, when you start to unpick ARS data in
0:11this release, there's actually a couple of
0:13things that are sort of worth breaking out
0:15into separate videos.
0:16And so that's what I'm going to do in this
0:17one. The thing I'm going to touch on today
0:19is this specific thing here called ARS data
0:21lenses.
0:22Now, ARS data lenses have been added to
0:24essentially make it easier for viewers to
0:26engage with ARS data content.
0:29Essentially, the problem that you used to
0:31have before is as an editor or creator, you
0:33'd publish up a data source to ARS data.
0:35But sometimes some data sources just have
0:37so many fields.
0:39So you had to do a lot of your work on
0:40desktop before you publish the data source
0:42up to make that work.
0:44Now, the problem then is that your
0:45published data source couldn't be used for
0:47anything else.
0:48So you ended up with this sort of really
0:49weird economy of data sources.
0:51And so what they've done is they've
0:52essentially separated those two things out.
0:55You can go ahead and publish your full data
0:57source with all the fields that you want.
0:59And then you do something called creating a
1:00lens, which basically allows you to narrow
1:03in on the questions that a viewer might ask
1:04of that data source into just a few fields
1:07with some synonyms and some obviously, you
1:09know, some prep done in advance to make it
1:11easier for the user, even down to things
1:13like recommended chart types.
1:15So in this video, I'm going to show you how
1:17that works.
1:18And in other videos, I'll obviously talk
1:20about ARS data.
1:21But if you're sort of really keen on ARS
1:22data, I've already made lots of videos
1:24about how it works.
1:26And there's obviously some nuance to that.
1:28Some of it has been improved and updated
1:29over time.
1:30So again, we'll cover that in future videos
1:31.
1:32But today, we're just going to be creating
1:34an ARS data lens.
1:35And so if you're a creator, this is
1:36essentially a video for you.
1:37I'm going to go right from the beginning.
1:39I'm going to create a data source in
1:40desktop, publish it up, and then we're
1:41going to go from there.
1:43OK, let's get stuck in.
1:45OK, so I'm obviously on the Tableau
1:46homepage.
1:47I'm just going to switch over to Tableau.
1:49I am actually indeed running.
1:50I need to make sure I'm running the right
1:51version of Tableau here.
1:53So let's go and make sure. Yes, there you
1:54go.
1:55You got 2021.2.
1:57Now, I'm going to connect to Superstore.
1:59I'm going to connect to the American one,
2:00which is the second data source here.
2:02Sometimes you have one, sometimes you have
2:03two.
2:04But essentially, I'm going to create to
2:05connect to this one because it's a little
2:07bit simpler.
2:08OK, now what I want to do is before I
2:09publish this data source up to my Tableau
2:12online or Tableau server,
2:14I just want to do some work to create some
2:16fields that people would commonly need.
2:19So I'm going to create two lenses and these
2:21think of these as two perspectives.
2:23I'm going to create a profitability
2:24perspective and a shipping perspective so
2:26we can sort of make it easy.
2:28So I need to do the pre-work to make sure
2:29that those fields and calculations are
2:32already done and embedded in the published
2:35data source before I publish it up.
2:36So we've already got a profit ratio
2:38calculation.
2:40But what I don't see if I go to ship date,
2:42we've got the ship date and we've got the
2:44order date.
2:45And so what I'd like to do is create a new
2:46metric, which is essentially just a date
2:48difference between those two.
2:50So let's go ahead and create a calculated
2:52field.
2:53I'll just bring the dates and now I've got
2:55my little emoji keyboard that's fired up
2:57here and the globe key.
2:59So let's go and create dates here.
3:02And oh, it doesn't doesn't want to know
3:03about that. So let's just let's type an
3:05order date and let's type in ship date.
3:09OK, so we've got those two in.
3:11I'm just trying to think which is the best
3:12way to do this.
3:13I think it's normally a good idea to do
3:15that this way around.
3:18And so I'm not done here yet. I'm just
3:19bringing the field so that I know what I
3:21need to do.
3:22And if I then just type date diff here, you
3:25'll see that this is the function that comes
3:26up and it shows you how it works.
3:28Date diff, the part, start date, end date,
3:30start of the week.
3:32So essentially what I can do is I can just
3:35put here in days and I can just say start
3:39date, which is the ship date and end date.
3:42Is that really the right way around?
3:45I'll go along with it. So what I'll do is I
3:46'll grab this. I'll grab this and put this
3:49here.
3:50I never really know how it's just calculate
3:52the answer and then figure things out.
3:54So days to ship. And what we can do is we
3:55can actually grab an order and check this
3:57and make sure this works.
3:59Let's just create that. It should be a
4:00numerical field, which is correct.
4:03And let's just grab an order ID and we can
4:05add all of them.
4:07This is totally fine on my machine. So I
4:09was going to bring in the order date.
4:11Let's just bring in the exact order date
4:13and that will take a bit of time.
4:15I'm obviously not building a very optimized
4:17view here and this is going to compute that
4:20a little bit.
4:21And then I'm going to drag the ship date. I
4:23'm going to actually I could have just gone
4:25for a discrete date to be honest.
4:26I didn't need the exact date.
4:28And it's being really sort of I was being
4:30really not smart in that instance.
4:32I can tell I'm a bit rusty. So let's let's
4:35just wait for this to load.
4:37OK, there we go. So let's let's just choose
4:41day in this case.
4:43And what we'll do is we'll keep that
4:44discrete in both instances. I could have
4:46just right click, drag this out and then
4:47chosen the exact date.
4:49I don't know why I didn't do that.
4:51Sometimes you have these habits and they
4:53kind of stick with you and you end up just
4:56being a little bit slow.
4:59And also I'm doing this to 5000 marks. So
5:01it's trying to draw this every single time.
5:04You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to
5:06be smarter and just keep only the first
5:08three orders.
5:10That will make everything a lot, lot
5:12smoother. And we can just go in here and do
5:15this so we can see the the order date.
5:19Now, what I should really do is do this,
5:20then I can better see what's going on.
5:23So here we go. OK, so we've got the two
5:25dates and if I just bring those to ship as
5:28a number, you can see that this is all
5:30negative.
5:31And it's because of the way we've done it.
5:32We've done the start date minus the end
5:34date, which obviously gives you a negative
5:36number.
5:37So if we just switch these around. So if
5:39you actually if we actually do this, let's
5:43do this so you can see the order in which I
5:44'm doing the math.
5:45So that's the start date and that's the
5:47date it ships. So it says minus six because
5:49that minus that is is is six less.
5:52So let's just go in here and just switch
5:54these around so we don't have to.
5:57The other thing we could do is we could
5:59just put a minus in front of this. We don't
6:01have to switch those around.
6:02I could be lazy and do that. And because of
6:03that, you know, amazing things happen. So
6:07seven to six, that's six days.
6:10So now we have that calculation there. That
6:12's really, really good to go. And I have a
6:14profit number, have days to ship.
6:16And the key thing to understand is
6:18obviously, you know, we need to be able to
6:21make sure that everything is set up.
6:24The other thing I'd love to know is the
6:26average order size. So for this one, I'm
6:29actually going to use an LOD.
6:30If you haven't used an LOD or you're not
6:32sure what they are, I've actually done a
6:34series of LODs.
6:36Go check it out. I'll put a link in the
6:37description or pop up on the screen for
6:39this for you to see.
6:41So anyway, for this one, we're going to do
6:43fix the order ID. I would love to know the
6:47average sales.
6:49This one, essentially, I want to just know
6:51the average value of items in the order.
6:54That gives me sort of an inclination about
6:55how big the order is.
6:57OK, so or I could just do I could just do
7:00the size of the order. Actually, that's a
7:03much better proxy.
7:04Let's just do some of sales in that case.
7:07So this just tells me the size of the order
7:10.
7:11And there we go. So size of the order as a
7:14LOD and we hit apply. And now we've got
7:17those two fills.
7:19So size of order, days to ship. We've got
7:21profit to profit ratio and profitability
7:23also.
7:24You could call it that as well. And now we
7:25're pretty much good to go. I'm not going to
7:26do much more.
7:28I'm going to go ahead and publish this to
7:29server. So I'm actually already connected
7:32to the Tableau Online instance that I use
7:34for demos.
7:35You'll see that it just pops up here. The
7:36way you know that, for example, is if you
7:39go up to the server and you just select
7:41this little little arrow here,
7:43just go to server there at the top, and
7:45then you'll see that it says you're signed
7:47in and even tells you which server you're
7:49signed into.
7:49If you're signed into the wrong site, then
7:51you're also able to go in and change that
7:53just by going to the arrow section that's
7:55up there.
7:56So anyway, we're back here in Tableau and I
7:57'm going to publish this to the 2021.2
8:00folder.
8:01I'm going to call this sample superstore
8:03data source.
8:05OK. And this is this is a prerequisite of
8:09lenses.
8:10You can't create a lens from a data source
8:12that's embedded inside of a workbook.
8:15It's really, really important to be aware
8:16of. OK, so just call this test lens data
8:20source.
8:21Data source. Great, great, great.
8:24Everything looks good.
8:25So now when we publish that, this is going
8:27to send up this data source up to Tableau
8:30online in this case.
8:32And we're pretty much going to be ready to
8:34go.
8:35So now that we're here, we're ready for the
8:37next step in terms of creating this lens.
8:39Now, we can obviously schedule an extract
8:40here. We don't need to do that.
8:42If you're connected to a database, you
8:44might be able to do that and do whatever
8:46you need to do.
8:47Now, previously with our state, this was
8:49actually the place you started to ask.
8:52Our state just sort of dropped you hot into
8:53all of these fields and you could do some
8:55customizations.
8:56But even so, it kind of meant you had to
8:58publish separate data sources for our state
9:01to compare to the other data sources.
9:02So what you can now do if I just go over
9:05here, if you just see where it says new, if
9:07I go to this dropdown,
9:09you'll see that I now have a new option
9:10here, which is the ability to create a lens
9:11.
9:12Now, this is really interesting because it
9:13's like a perspective.
9:15It's like a window into your data. And what
9:17you're doing is you're creating these sort
9:19of perspectives in these windows.
9:21So people can have very focused set of
9:22questions and actually also makes it easier
9:25for people to sort of contextualize the
9:26kind of topic they have in mind when you
9:28create a lens.
9:29And these lenses can be saved and they're
9:30just like any other asset in Tableau.
9:33So permissions and everything work
9:34alongside them.
9:36And yeah, they're just this nice sort of
9:37way of focusing people's attention.
9:40I think that's always something that's
9:41lacked.
9:42You've just had a world of data source in a
9:43world of workbooks, but it's always been
9:46hard to really narrow in on a specific sort
9:48of problem.
9:50You know, we build dashboard sometimes for
9:51that, but sometimes you don't need a
9:53dashboard.
9:54You just need like a sort of a filter on a
9:56set of rows and lenses on that.
9:59But you'll see what you see what they can
10:00do with them in a second. So I'm going to
10:02go ahead and create a lens.
10:04In this case, I'm going to call this twenty
10:07twenty contact twenty twenty one hyphen to
10:10the lens example.
10:12And actually, no, what I'm not going to
10:15call it, I'm going to call this twenty
10:18twenty one to shipping lens.
10:21Let's just call this shipping lens.
10:23And now that we've done that, we're going
10:25to put that in this folder and say for
10:28shipping inquiries.
10:30OK, great. And I'm going to publish the
10:34lens now.
10:35When you publish this lens, it's obviously
10:37going to go and send you off to a page.
10:40It's almost like you've published a work
10:41book. And now here we have our shipping lens
10:44and notice that it's different to last day
10:46because you have this sort of icon.
10:47And this icon is sort of consistent across
10:49all of Tableau.
10:51OK, so you can see that this is now a new
10:53asset type that you can work with now.
10:56Now that I'm in my lens, I can do a bunch
10:57of different things. I can obviously
10:59minimize and close this window.
11:01You see the fields that we sort of saw
11:03before. You can obviously go in here and
11:05start typing questions.
11:07So average duration to ship and you'll see
11:10that it guesses that I'm talking about the
11:14days to ship number.
11:18And so if I just do that and then enter, it
11:22will obviously think about it and go off
11:25and hopefully build a visualization or
11:27return a number.
11:29And you see that the average days to ship
11:30is three point nine five eight.
11:32Now, what I've just done there was
11:33basically the old experience with last data
11:35.
11:36I just used that type to question. I didn't
11:37look for a lens. I haven't even customized
11:39anything here.
11:40So let's go ahead and actually I'm going to
11:42go back to my lens and we're not going to
11:44use this just yet, but you can start to see
11:45some of the benefit here.
11:47So now now we have our lens. You can see
11:50that it has all the same capabilities so
11:52you can move them, you can manage their
11:53permissions.
11:54When you go into the permissions, you've
11:56got all the same capability that you used
11:57to have with permissions in Tableau.
12:00Now, when you go to each individual field,
12:02you can start to be a little bit more
12:05specific.
12:06So, for example, you can see here that I
12:08have customer names and I can just say this
12:10another synonym for this could be a
12:12customer.
12:13And I can click like that and I can go in
12:15here and you see location here as obviously
12:18a hierarchy and it tells you what it is.
12:21You can go in and see the location. That's
12:22kind of important for shipping the order
12:24date, the order ID, the product.
12:27I don't need to know much about the
12:28profitability, if I'm honest.
12:30So what I could decide to do in this lens
12:32is sort of hide this particular field.
12:35So what I'm going to go and do is click on
12:37this data field and you'll see that I get
12:39this ability to select fields.
12:42Now, there's a little bit of sort of weird
12:43ness with the tablet documentation that
12:45calls it fields here, but there it says
12:48data.
12:49So it's sort of not obvious that that's
12:50where you go.
12:51You might think you're going to edit the
12:52data, but actually it should be filled.
12:54I think this is probably just a hangover or
12:55bug or something that hasn't been sort of
12:57cleaned up.
12:58And this is actually a modal window so you
12:59can move it around, do whatever you want.
13:02And now you can actually choose what you
13:03want to focus in on.
13:05I don't need anything to do with
13:06profitability in this particular data
13:09source.
13:10I've obviously got the ship date and the
13:11ship mode.
13:12I don't need anything about discount,
13:14profit.
13:15I would like to know the quantity. I would
13:17like to know the sales and size of order.
13:20And then I need to know whether the I don't
13:21really need to know where the items return
13:23because that's for the returns department.
13:25OK, I don't need to know about profit ratio
13:27or the top customers by profit.
13:30Now, when I do that and I submit, you'll
13:32notice that my list on the left hand side
13:34is now a lot more narrow.
13:36I don't have anything to do with profit and
13:37that's ready to go.
13:39And now I can start using this to sort of
13:41gain some sort of insight.
13:43Now, as more people use this, as more
13:45people ask questions, you will see that you
13:48have recommended visualizations.
13:50And these are sort of semi smart.
13:52So the most obvious ones appear once our
13:54status analyze your data.
13:56You can obviously go in and it will change
13:58those.
13:59You've obviously got some day and time
14:00questions.
14:01You've got some filters here and you can
14:03essentially create these and edit these as
14:05you like.
14:06So, for example, if I want to maybe change
14:08the this type.
14:09So let's say I want to get rid of pie
14:10charts because I don't like pie charts.
14:12So I can go ahead and remove that and you
14:13'll see that that sort of disappears
14:15straight away.
14:16If I go ahead and collapse that, that's all
14:18fine.
14:19If I click on this edit title, you can
14:20obviously change this sort of group of
14:22recommendation types.
14:24This is sort of just sort of it's just a
14:26way of nicely grouping the questions.
14:30They're not the sort of although Tableau is
14:32giving you a suggestion that these are
14:34filtered, these are date and time.
14:36You could actually rename these groups and
14:38put your own set of questions sort of into
14:40these areas.
14:41Now, the way this actually works is when
14:43asked data is used by someone and someone
14:45actually clicks on it.
14:47It's like they validated that that's a
14:48valid question to ask.
14:50And then the visualization that sort of
14:51captured there is sort of captured with
14:53that.
14:54Now, the list of visualization that that
14:55comes from, I'll show you where that is.
14:58So let's just say let's just go back to our
15:00average days to ship question and let's
15:03just hit that.
15:05And if we go and just hit submit on this
15:07particular lens, another thing you'll
15:10notice when I do that is now the context of
15:14where I started my question is actually the
15:16shipping lens.
15:17So in terms of just browsing, it also makes
15:19it a lot easier.
15:20Notice my fields are still the same reduced
15:22set of fields.
15:23Just focus on shipping.
15:24Now, the list of visualizations you can
15:25choose from depend on what you build.
15:28So you can see here that I've asked a very
15:29basic sort of question here.
15:31So you get bar chart, text table and hist
15:33ogram.
15:34However, if I was to say average days to
15:39ship by location.
15:42OK, and I can obviously add some context to
15:44this because you'll see that it suggests as
15:46a map because it thinks locations and maps
15:48that sort of go together.
15:50So let's do that and let's hit that.
15:53And to now your search can't be applied to
15:54this visualization because, of course, it's
15:57in this sort of particular context.
15:59So let's just clear everything.
16:01Let's try this again. Average days to ship
16:07by city.
16:09I think that's a valid question you would
16:11ask.
16:12And this time it's worked.
16:14I think the problem was is that I was
16:15trying to do it having already asked the
16:16question.
16:17I needed to clear it first.
16:18Maybe that wasn't as obvious to me.
16:20But you can see here that it's drawn a map.
16:22And obviously, when I go to do the dropdown
16:23now, you can see the thing I was trying to
16:25show you a few minutes ago is that this
16:28question is now up to date.
16:30And you can see the chart types have sort
16:32of popped up.
16:33So if I then choose a chart type here, let
16:35's say a heat map doesn't really make sense
16:38in this context.
16:40A map is really the best one.
16:42And if I do a tree map, it's going to be
16:43basically all going to be generally the
16:45same because the size of the box represents
16:47the average days to ships.
16:49That's not really that interesting.
16:51But what I'll do is I click a few of these
16:52anyway so you can sort of see the output.
16:55And then what we're going to do is actually
16:56clear all of this and go back to our
16:58shipping lens.
16:59And when we go back to our shipping lens,
17:02essentially what's happened is I've given
17:03Tableau some information so it knows, OK,
17:06someone's asked some questions here and
17:08they've asked for these specific chart
17:09types.
17:10So you can start to see that if I go to the
17:13vis types, you can see it's all it keeps it
17:16keeps defaulting to some.
17:19But you can see that it's obviously
17:20starting to look at the questions I'm
17:22asking and it's sort of bringing those in,
17:23which is quite nice.
17:25So that's essentially a lens in a nutshell.
17:27It's very, very simple.
17:28Now, the great thing is you can create
17:29multiple lenses.
17:31So what I can do is I can go back to my
17:33data source and I can go ahead and create
17:35another lens.
17:37And this time I'm going to call this 2021-2
17:42Profitability Lens.
17:44OK, and I go ahead and publish that lens.
17:48And now that it's published, you sort of
17:50have to create the lens before you can do
17:52stuff with it.
17:53Right. So now that you've created the lens,
17:55you've now sort of jumped into your little
17:57sort of spot of focus.
17:59Go ahead, hit the pencil icon.
18:01If you're wondering where that was, it was
18:03just I brought the wrong thing in there.
18:05Let's grab the arrow and just point it out
18:07there so you can see that there it is.
18:10Now, what I can do is I'm obviously still
18:12interested in things like location, the
18:14order.
18:15I might be more interested in the customer,
18:17but I definitely don't need the shipping
18:18mode and the shipping date,
18:21because that's sort of not really relevant
18:23for me.
18:24The discount, profitability, quantity and
18:26size of order are all useful and I don't
18:28need to know whether it's returned or not.
18:30So let's just hit submit.
18:32And now you'll see that my list updates
18:34have now got no information there about
18:36shipping and it's all been driven off the
18:38one data source.
18:39So if I go back to my 2021-2 folder, you'll
18:43see that I have my data source.
18:45I have two lenses, profitability lens and
18:47shipping lens, and you're now ready to go.
18:50OK, so that's a very simple video on how to
18:51create the lenses.
18:53Now, what I've actually been having over
18:54here on the right hand left hand side of my
18:56screen, sorry, actually, you're you're
18:58probably right hand side.
19:00So if I actually open this table, I have a
19:01nice guide. I'll put this in the
19:03description below about creating lenses,
19:05everything you can do, everything you can
19:06create. And I think it's a really good
19:08place to go.
19:09And then the next video I'm about to record
19:11now, which is about our data and adding
19:14that lens to a dashboard.
19:16The really important thing, I can't stress
19:18this enough, is that you can't use this
19:20lens feature on a data source that's
19:22embedded inside of a workbook.
19:24So if you want to use as data lens to a
19:26dashboard, you have to start with a
19:27published data source in your workbook in
19:30the first place.
19:31You can't just connect to a data source and
19:32only have that embedded in the workbook.
19:35It has to come from Tableau server. And
19:37that is a big sort of workflow change.
19:39So that's just something to be aware of and
19:41make sure that you sort of get into.
19:43So that's pretty much it. I'm going to stop
19:45this video here and then the next one, I'll
19:47talk about adding an ask data window into
19:50your dashboard.
19:51So you can obviously let viewers and
19:52everyone else use this amazing feature
19:54because in this release, viewers now have
19:57access to it.
19:58Catch you in the next one.
Tableau | Data visualisation | Analytics | Data prep