Enhanced Parameters in Tableau Prep: New in Tableau 2022.1

0:00In Tableau 22.1 Tableau have enhanced

0:02parameters even more.

0:04The first thing I'm going to show you here

0:06is you can now add parameters to the output

0:08of a file.

0:09So here I'll go to this particular output,

0:11I just clicked out of it by mistake there.

0:12And you could already previously use the

0:14parameter to control the destination folder

0:18,

0:18and that's what we've essentially got here.

0:20But now you've also got the ability to

0:22change the name of the file based on the

0:24region.

0:25In this case I'm saying region because that

0:26's the parameter that I've set up.

0:28But if I go in here and I just select that

0:30you'll see that my region parameter that I

0:32've set up

0:33is actually an optional parameter there,

0:35and I can append that to the file or I can

0:37add it as a prefix, suffix, whatever you

0:38want to do.

0:39You can move it around in that file name

0:41area and you're now going to be able to

0:43output a file based on that region that you

0:45've selected.

0:46This is handy if you're giving a parameter

0:48to users to be able to change something,

0:50and you want that file to be marked with

0:52that particular sort of signifier that it's

0:54been changed in some way or form.

0:56And that's a really nice sort of touch.

0:58The other thing you can do is also just add

0:59the parameter location.

1:01That doesn't really make sense. Normally

1:02you'd use one or the other.

1:03But that's sort of the first thing. You can

1:05now add that in.

1:06Now the second thing is when you go to

1:07delete a parameter you can now do this

1:09centrally.

1:10So let's take a look here. I've actually

1:11got the parameter in two places.

1:13You'll know that I've added it here, but I

1:15've also added it here as a filter.

1:17And so what we're going to do is try and

1:18delete the parameter and see how that comes

1:20up.

1:21So we'll go up here to the very top and you

1:23can see that I can do a couple of things.

1:25I can edit the parameter. The delete option

1:27isn't here.

1:28You actually have to go into the edit

1:29parameter options and right at the bottom

1:32over here you've got the delete capability.

1:34So if we go ahead and delete that it pops

1:36up a really nice interface that shows me,

1:38"Hey look, if you're going to delete this

1:39we're going to have to replace it with

1:41something."

1:42And at the moment the default value is LAT

1:44AM.

1:45So we're going to leave LATAM in place of

1:46that parameter.

1:48That's the first thing. But you can also

1:49view where in the flow you've got the

1:51parameter.

1:52So as you can see it's correctly identified

1:54the two places where I have the parameter

1:57invoked.

1:58And it's highlighted in blue. It's faint.

2:01It's like a selection essentially on the

2:02canvas.

2:03But it's really easy to see. And then when

2:05you go ahead and delete that, we'll go

2:06ahead and do that in here.

2:08It will go ahead and remove those items. So

2:10let's just go ahead and do that.

2:12And now that it's done that, let's check

2:13there's no parameter.

2:15You can see there's no parameter here on

2:16the top left.

2:17And if I go to the output you'll see that

2:19it inserted the term LATAM into the region

2:25space that we had before.

2:26So it says LATAM annual original

2:27performance.

2:28But more importantly if we go to the filter

2:30here that we'd actually set up,

2:32we'd actually set up the parameter in a

2:34very specific way.

2:36So what we had here, if I go to this

2:37particular step,

2:39you'll see that I actually set up this

2:41calculation.

2:42And previously the calculation was checking

2:43against the parameter.

2:45But because that's been removed, it's

2:47replaced it with LATAM.

2:49So the flow is still going to work.

2:51But if you're using this in a slightly

2:53different setup,

2:54you might need to go back in here and

2:56remove a couple of steps that maybe now no

2:58longer make sense.

2:59Because of course you might not want to

3:01filter the data because the parameter has

3:03now been removed.

3:04So now that's been restored, we'll go back

3:05to the output here.

3:06We'll restore this file name.

3:08And we're pretty much good to go.

3:10I wish that was a little bit smarter, but I

3:11appreciate it's a hard problem to solve

3:13because they can't anticipate what you're

3:15going to want to do when the parameter's

3:16not there.

3:17So those are the two really obvious

3:18enhancements.

3:20The other enhancement that is difficult to

3:22show you is that you can now invoke these

3:24parameters using the REST API.

3:27So when you use the REST API to run the

3:28flows, you can actually pass an argument to

3:31the parameter,

3:32which will mean that flow will run with a

3:33specific parameter in mind.

3:35That's really nice. It's a really nice

3:36touch if you need to do any automation with

3:39Tableau in general.

3:41So that's a really nice touch to this set

3:43of capabilities.

3:45And yeah, parameters keep on getting better

3:46. This is always what happens.

3:49Tableau introduced something new and they

3:50supplemented it over time just to give us

3:52the slight edge that we want out of these

3:53features.

3:54So absolutely brilliant set of features.

3:56That's pretty much it for this video. Check

3:58out some of the other 22.1 features that I

4:00've already announced.

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4:11.

4:11Thank you.