Tableau | Data visualisation | Tool strategy Excel like Tables in Tableau Supported in 2024.2 and later | New in 2024.3
Tableau finally ships an Excel-like table, and it's built right into the product as a viz extension.
- The Tableau Table viz extension is backwards compatible to Tableau 2024.2, not just the newest release
- Each column has independent formatting, sorting, and filter controls accessed through a per-column toolbar
- Conditional formatting supports multiple stacked rules with adjustable priority order
- Built-in search highlights matches across the whole table rather than filtering rows like column filters do
- The table exports directly to Excel with formatting intact, but renders blank in email subscriptions
- Adding the Tableau Table viz extension0:17
- Building the basic table structure1:40
- Column toolbar, sorting and formatting basics2:24
- Enabling column filters and table settings4:09
- Filtering, searching and numeric sliders4:51
- Data bars, colour scales and conditional formatting6:30
- Search highlighting across the table9:49
- Tooltips and toolbar formatting options10:29
- Exporting to Excel with formatting intact11:08
- Dashboard filtering and security concerns discussed13:01
0:00There's a new way to build tables in Tableau.
0:02It's a Viz extension that has Excel-like capabilities in Tableau natively and it works much much better than some of the hacks we've been building for the last decade in Tableau
0:13To show you how it works, as ever, let's get stuck it.
0:16Okay, so we're here inside of Tableau Desktop, but one thing to note is I'm not in the newest version.
0:21I'm actually in 24.
0:222.
0:23Because this feature is backwards compatible with all capabilities that support Viz extension.
0:28So you can go back to 24.
0:302 and still use this even if you have that already today.
0:32So that's actually quite a nice touch
0:34Nevertheless, let's go ahead and show you how to add this Viz Extension to your chart.
0:39It's simply here under Viz Extensions.
0:42If you don't see it here, just go to add extension.
0:44You can go to the extension gallery that launches in product, select build by tableau, and you'll see a shortened list, and there you can see Tableau Table.
0:53It gives you some information about this.
0:55This is a network-enabled extension, which means it does send data back and forth on the internet.
1:00It's hosted over here, and for that reason, a few companies will obviously have concerns about security.
1:05I believe sandbox extensions have been something that've worked in the past, but I do not know when they'll come back if that makes sense.
1:12So that's going to be an interesting point of detail.
1:14But nevertheless, hit open and when you hit open
1:17It opens up the extension.
1:19It asks you if you want to allow the extensions, gives you some detail about who it is, who's developed it.
1:24You can obviously click through to any of this information.
1:26Hit OK.
1:27And then once you do that, the extension loads up in this little box.
1:31So this box here is essentially loading a web window that actually renders the visualization.
1:35That's how most of these work.
1:37So the way these work is actually quite simple.
1:40This tableau table is probably the simplest chart up I've ever seen in Tableau.
1:45You just go ahead and drag anything you want onto region.
1:48And actually had that sort of descriptor at the very beginning.
1:51So we can go ahead maybe drag cities, we'll drag manufacture on there just to give us a little bit more variety.
1:57And I think that is good.
1:58We've got manufacturer, city, state, province, and so on and so forth.
2:02Now to change the order of these, you can just do what you used to in Tableau.
2:05You can just move these around so it works however you really you want.
2:10I don't think we have the category.
2:12We'll put the region at the front so we can kind of get a bit of a hierarchy going here.
2:16Let's put all the numerical values at the end because I think that makes the most sense.
2:20So there we have it.
2:20We've set up our table
2:22This is all it is.
2:23Now, the next thing to think about is what can you do with each of these columns?
2:27Because this is quite a bland table, and I'm sure you've seen the examples of what this feature can do.
2:31So how do you get there?
2:32Well
2:33There's a couple of things to note.
2:34At the top here, you have what's called the toolbar.
2:37This toolbar has a couple of things, has some formatting and a search bar
2:41The formatting becomes active when you click a column.
2:43So that means that each column has its own formatting control.
2:46So yes, you can make one column specifically stand out by changing the font, maybe underlining it
2:52and then have another column behave in a completely different way, maybe smaller text in bold uh in a completely different font.
2:59I don't know why you'd ever want to do that.
3:01But that's something that's possible in terms of formatting real fine grain control, but it means you can kind of have visual hierarchies in the table, which is kind of nice.
3:09The other thing is you'll see some sorting capability natively inside of the table.
3:13So you can just click on these and it's actually sorting all the rows on that table using this sort.
3:18And it does a standard tableau thing of three clicks
3:21and it will cycle through all the options descending, ascending, and obviously no sorting.
3:25No sorting is technically data source order, but in this particular case because we've got a hierarchy,
3:31It's kind of alphabetical order because we've got region on the left.
3:34Anyway, that's that's um that's sort of a a a quirk of tableau we'll go into some other time.
3:39So those are the two functions you get with this particular table.
3:42So you click on the column, you've got the toolbar at the top, you've got the sorting on the left, and then on the right of each one, you've got some additional capabilities.
3:49So you can clear the filters if you've set any up
3:52Sort ascending, sort descending, reset sorting, format, clear formatting and renamed.
3:56You're probably thinking, well, what filters have I set?
4:00I see nothing in the filters pane.
4:01Well
4:01In this particular case, the formatting actually comes from a slightly different place.
4:06So let me show you how to enable those options.
4:08Let's just uh clear the filter so you can see that I've clicked that and nothing's happened
4:12And what we can do is if we click on this toolbar, okay, and we open up this option, table settings, it loads up this um this uh window.
4:22This takes a little bit of a sec
4:24a bit a bit of time to load up and um you can see there's some additional options so the toolbar we're seeing is what we actually clicked to enable and show this.
4:31If you select show column filters this is where you can start to do filtering and this is the Excel like filtering that we've seen before
4:37You've got some other options, the search bars on the top right over here.
4:41You've got the ability to do the Excel download, that's over here on the top right.
4:44And so these are all the options for the entire table that are available.
4:48So we'll open all of them up so we can go through it
4:51And now in here I can just start typing.
4:53And as I type, it dynamically searches.
4:56So I don't need to type all of it, it just does it in real time.
4:59And you can see it's super sharp.
5:00It's really, really quite fast.
5:02Let's say I wanted to find all the sales in Boston.
5:04You can see that it's it's got sort of um uh capitalization sensitivity there, so it just searches the
5:10the texturing regardless of whether there's any capitals or not and you can find everything there.
5:14Um you can then additionally pair up these filters with each other.
5:18So let's say I want Boston
5:20There and then I want France as well in this column and then I want to do it in um uh let's see let's see something I can type.
5:29I can't type any of these.
5:31Normandy, let's go Normandy.
5:32I can type that.
5:33There we go.
5:33So there you go.
5:34I found that sort of three-item combination.
5:37And then additionally, you do have sliders for numerical fields essentially.
5:42continuous felt so let's go ahead and clear normally we can do that by clicking that X and that will clear that up and then now you can see that
5:49I can actually filter.
5:50Now the interesting thing here is as I'm filtering, you're not you're not really seeing anything because it's actually filtering kind of from the bottom up.
5:56It's kind of like a weird one, but
5:58If I just bring this in, you'll see that there you can see that as I filter this, it's really quite fast.
6:04It's so zippy.
6:05It's not like, you know, a native chart where everything stays
6:09um you know selected and done it does the spinner and then you see what you're seeing you actually get real fast interactivity here which is which is kind of really good so
6:18This is a nice touch.
6:19Now, you'll have also seen this feature show that you can actually visualize each of these columns as well.
6:26And the way to do that is back in that formatting capability.
6:30So when you click on this drop-down, you'll see some filters.
6:32We've talked about the sorting already.
6:34These are just the same options.
6:35But then if we select formatting, it opens up a specific formatting pane for this specific column you selected
6:42And that in itself has a couple of options.
6:44So the first one is formatting type, so you can choose the default, which is just numerical values and text, data bars, which starts to do some visual analysis in here.
6:53And color scale, which kind of puts a color to the uh number, so you can kind of get a context of the intensity of that number in the context of the entire table.
7:02And so
7:04In most things you maybe have seen something like this.
7:06Now additionally to that you can change the formatting, the bar colour, all of the things you'd expect to change.
7:11But for this, I'm just going to keep it nice and simple
7:14I'm going to keep it black to match the rest of my items.
7:16I'm going to keep it with no shading in the back of the table.
7:19We're just going to keep it completely vanilla.
7:21You can show mark text as well.
7:23That kind of I think breaks things a little bit.
7:25I've seen a few people talk about bugs in this specific setup.
7:28So
7:28We'll just keep this simple for now.
7:30And then additionally you can do conditional formatting.
7:33And the nice thing about this is you add rules to the conditional formatting.
7:37So it's not just one rule.
7:38You can add many.
7:39So you can say, hey, um, show me all the values.
7:42Let me just actually show a mark text so I can see some sort of values and get an idea of how big the numbers are.
7:47So we can say here, show me items, uh, any item greater than let's say 500.
7:53We'd like to mark it red.
7:55Okay.
7:55That's rule number one.
7:57Let's add in rule number two.
7:59We'll say is less than and we'll talk uh let's see anything less than
8:0510 pounds.
8:0610 pounds is my data set, yeah.
8:08And actually, yeah, for those ones we'll do um yellow.
8:11Nice, nice bold yellow.
8:13Okay.
8:13So now those are my rules.
8:15Rule 1, rule 2, and of course you can move the rule up, move the rule down.
8:19There's a little bit of a hierarchy to that as well.
8:21The first rule will take precedence over the next rule.
8:24And so if I close that and now let's start filtering.
8:28As we start to come down, you'll see that that filtering is still working on the low end, which is what we'd expect.
8:33I can actually sort this in descending order so you can see this kind of play out a little bit more.
8:39And if I uh just
8:41Let's just see if we can go up here.
8:43What is this value?
8:44It's 168.
8:45So I set the value too high.
8:47Oh, that's that's annoying.
8:48So let's go back into the formatting and let's say that it should be 90.
8:53There you go.
8:54Now that's a little bit better of a number.
8:55Let's do 70 because it will just select a few more.
8:57So there we go.
8:58You've got the top um items then you can see this.
9:01sort of filtering down it really is quite fast, almost so too fast for people's good.
9:06And then here if I filter the top, it's just gone the full range of the entire um what's the word?
9:12the entire table.
9:13Don't forget I'm still filtered on Boston, which is why that filter takes quite some time to engage, because I'm actually filtering out stuff that's outside of the context.
9:21But if I
9:21If I clear that Boston filter, you can actually see this updating in real time as I as I move the slider.
9:26So there's there's so many moving parts here to kind of understand.
9:30I think it will take a bit of time to kind of use this feature correctly because there'll be this like instant urge to like super format everything and play with all these settings.
9:39But what I would always say is less is more.
9:41And so you might actually have to do a lot of formatting to pair it back down to something that works really, really nicely.
9:47Okay.
9:48Now, the last thing I want to show you is the search capability.
9:51Because the search capability allows you to search anything on the entire setup.
9:56So if I just search HP, you see that it actually does the highlighting capability.
10:00So
10:00Whereas before the search was doing it in each column and filtering down, this search feat the feature highlights options.
10:08So this is actually quite a nice touch.
10:10And it just allows you to see something.
10:11Maybe you've narrowed it down to maybe a handful of items that can fit on screen.
10:15You can then use that search function to really get that even further down and a little bit more capable.
10:21So there you go.
10:22That's sort of how it works now.
10:24The thing about this is we're not done yet.
10:26There's just so much to talk about.
10:28So in the tooltip options, you've got your standard tooltip.
10:31This is nothing new.
10:32I kind of find this interesting because
10:34The tour tip option sort of renders the old tableau in the background and then the detail and the formatting is all the new tableau.
10:41So obviously there is some interesting interplay between traditional tableau and new tableau in here
10:47I don't quite get that sort of full context, but that's something to bear in mind.
10:51Obviously we've talked about the formatting of the extension.
10:53This allows you to bring this up.
10:55So if you were to hide the toolbar like that.
10:57and wonder how do I get that back while you click on the format extension here and then you can show the toolbar and in the toolbar you've got the same options that you've had before.
11:05So that's pretty much how the canvas works.
11:08Now the very final thing we want to do is talk about this Excel export option.
11:11Just up here on the top right hand side, we get an option to export the Excel.
11:15We're going to save it into this test folder.
11:17On my desktop, you'll see that it downloads it very quickly and it's done.
11:20And now I'm gonna go ahead and open that in Excel.
11:24Spare me one second.
11:25And here it is in Excel.
11:27Now the formatting is kind of followed through
11:31The red background has come from the formatting we're doing.
11:35We don't have the bars in here.
11:36We do have the formatting.
11:38Actually, it's come through exactly as it was formatted
11:40So one thing you can sort of take from this is you can actually build the tables you need directly out of this capability and have it export with exactly the same formatting.
11:52All of that time and attention you put in can come out.
11:54Now the problem is if you have this report come through in an email subscription, I believe Viz Extensions render is blank.
12:02So
12:02This is great if you're going to export the Excel, but not great if you're going to, you know, do anything else with them.
12:08So this is a really, really nice touch, I think.
12:10I think is really useful.
12:12I have seen some discussions saying, hey, look, you know
12:14This isn't what Tableau is for.
12:16We're not supposed to export the data.
12:19I just do think, look, people are asking for this.
12:21Like, why are we here to tell people how to use the product?
12:23Yes, I know all the side effects that come from it.
12:25I know all the bad practice.
12:27But the problem is
12:28is if we don't offer people these tools, they'll just go and do it anyway.
12:31They'll find any possible way to get onto another product that lets them do exactly what they want.
12:36So I think it's it's it's a balance between offering people
12:39um you know what they want and also doing it well.
12:42And I think this is a good balance.
12:44This really does alleviate what I would have called the pressure in asking developers to build things that look like Excel that aren't Excel.
12:52I think Tableau have nailed the balance of what people want with doing it in a Tableau-specific way that actually supports some of the many things you'd want to do.
13:01And of course, because it's a Viz extension, it's still affected by other charts.
13:05So if I was to very quickly, I don't know, build another table with just region and sales, let's just make this super simple, then put them onto a dashboard.
13:15And do this, and then I'm going to select this as my filter.
13:22And now when I select central
13:25It filters all of central when I select north.
13:28It filters all of north and I select south, it filters all of south.
13:31So it's still a dashboard element.
13:34That's an easy thing to forget, but this actually feels
13:37a lot nicer.
13:38It feels like a capability you really want to use.
13:41And I think, hey, this is going to change a lot of people's workflow.
13:45It's going to make it a ton easier.
13:47The difference is you've just got to start using Viz Extension.
13:49So let's talk a bit about some of the not so ideal things.
13:53So subscriptions are definitely one thing.
13:54I believe Viz extensions still render blank when they come through in a subscription.
13:58That is not ideal.
13:59The other thing is with Viz extensions have this sort of infamous context around security.
14:05And I think this actually just comes from a lack of understanding of web developer technology and
14:11The way I think cloud technology works generally.
14:15The first thing I'll say is that a lot of customers use Tableau Cloud
14:18So if those customers are already on Tableau Cloud, on Tableau infrastructure, running Tableau applications with all of their data inside of the Tableau platform on that infrastructure.
14:29I I struggle to see why it's a difficult leap to then use something like a Viz extension that's built by Tableau as well inside of the product with other extensions like
14:38um third party extensions or extensions built by other developers, I can see the where the question comes from.
14:44What if those developers start doing something with my data?
14:46I I'll come to that in a second, but for these ones built by Tableau, they should be
14:50a lower barrier of trust because the you're using the platform already.
14:54So if you don't trust Tableau the vendor, why would you trust them with your platform and all your data and extracts and connections and all of that?
15:02Okay?
15:03That's sort of like a
15:04a pretty straightforward thing now the next thing is the developers the developers that are currently on the exchange they are doing it with their reputation on the line these aren't people who've just come out of nowhere at least not yet to build extensions
15:17And so the real question here is Tableau need to keep doing the work to verify these developers and make sure they clear a high bar so we keep the quality of extensions really high.
15:27That is a completely fair question
15:29And the problem is is once you sign up to Viz Extensions, you don't know the journey.
15:34So I can see organizations wanting to see that history develop a bit more, wanting not to be the first to beta test Viz Extensions, as it were
15:41Maybe wanting to wait a year or two before they adopt it to see what the best practices, some of the security questions get answered.
15:48And also Tableau will obviously enhance the capability.
15:51Sandboxed extensions will definitely be something that I think will come back
15:55and we'll be able to use that.
15:57So you know, yes, I see the the the issue, but the reality is a lot of companies already using the cloud.
16:03For those companies this should be an easier jump.
16:05For everyone else, if you're on Tableau Server and all of that stuff, that is a different discussion.
16:09And I think the thing with the extensions is a lot of the extensions can be run natively on your own infrastructure.
16:14You just need to talk to the developer.
16:16if it's a third party one.
16:18And I think with the Tableau ones you can actually download the extensions and put them as specific um sort of I think you can put the T-Rex files in as specific places and then they're able to run as well.
16:29So
16:30I think there's a lot of support for this.
16:37And yes, it won't be for everyone.
16:39There will be some instances where you can't use this, but that's fine, I think.
16:43At least there's a way to do it.
16:44And then the other thing is, you know, this this can also be great for people just doing ad hoc analysis.
16:50Not everyone has this need to export everything.
16:52I know sometimes we get a little bit, I think
16:55sort of attached to the idea that everything we built has to be seen and shared by someone.
16:59I use Tableau so often and never share what I build with anyone.
17:03I use it to answer questions of my own.
17:04And for those people, a table is a really efficient way of answering it
17:08If you're going to do a presentation, you just want to be able to quickly search the data.
17:11This is a great setup.
17:13You can really get great information and great context in here.
17:17and sort and really dive around with data.
17:18And don't forget you can add visualizations to this as well.
17:21So I think it's a really nice touch.
17:23But anyway, I'd love to know what you think.
17:25I've definitely not answered every single question.
17:27So the comments are the best place to ask those questions
17:30We'll try and get some answers.
17:31And as ever, thanks for watching and I'll see you in the next one.
In this video, we explore a new Viz extension in Tableau that brings Excel-like capabilities natively to the platform. This extension simplifies the process of building tables, offering a more efficient alternative to the hacks used over the past decade. I demonstrate how to add and use this extension, covering features like column formatting, sorting, filtering, and exporting to Excel. We also discuss the security concerns and practical applications of this tool, emphasizing its potential to streamline workflows and enhance data analysis. Videos & Playlists You Shouldn’t missWhat is Tableau: https://youtu.be/7Jl-RwkzqQ4How to Learn Tableau: https://youtu.be/ayc6AjOuQb0Tableau Desktop Crash Course: https://youtu.be/-Aj8IlC0IEATableau Prep Course: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRfaJ7ZL0cF6JRvdxUV3FQSYG6OOH9EtaTableau Functions: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRfaJ7ZL0cF7f6EQL-mGk63ElvpWzs2z- Tableau charts in 2 mins: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRfaJ7ZL0cF7kHEdpAum7pccjQypzlabRTableau Desktop Crash course Playlist https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRfaJ7ZL0cF4fwAQFPvDMWxN\_xPFu2XujTimestamps0:00 Intro0:16 Adding the extension1:46 Building the table2:28 Customisations11:13 Formatted Excel Exports11:57 Dashboards and Subscriptions13:52 Final thoughtsJoin this channel to get access to perks:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7HYxRWmaNlJux-X7rNLZyw/join#tableau #salesforce #analytics #data #DataVisualization #Excel #VizExtension #DataAnalysis #TableauTips #DataScience #BusinessIntelligence #TableauTutorial #DataFiltering #DataExportFollow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/TableauTim My recording gear & what’s on my desk. https://kit.co/TableauTim/desk-setup My website: https://www.tableautim.com/ My Screen Annotation Tool: https://j.mp/3HWc4MjMy technology Channel: https://j.mp/3F0d28fShare feedback and Suggestions: https://tableautim.canny.io/suggestions----------(C) 2024 TN-Media LTD. No re-use, unauthorized use, or redistribution, of this video without prior permission.
