Video |

Tableau | Data prep

Grouped steps

A new Tableau Prep feature lets you tidy up complex flows by grouping connected steps, but there's a bit of nuance to know first.

Tim Ngwena •16 September 2020 •1 min read •6 min watch •1.3K

Part ofTableau Prep Builder tutorial Jan-2020

Watch on YouTube

At release this grouping feature isn't supported on Tableau Online or its dev instance, so you'll see a warning and won't be able to schedule a published flow; click 'use features' to continue locally
To group steps they must be directly connected, and you can isolate a top section by selecting it plus the step ahead to make grouping work
Groups can be expanded, collapsed, renamed and given descriptions, but the description only shows when collapsed, not when expanded
You can't nest a group inside another group, and any connection leaving a grouped step stays visible outside the group
You can right-click a group and save its steps as a reusable flow file on disk for use in other flows

0:00Hey, it's Tim here and in today's video I'm

0:01going to be showing you a new feature

0:03literally released

0:04yesterday that allows you to group sections

0:06of your prep flow very easily. Okay, let's

0:09jump into

0:09the sample workflow here on the bottom left

0:12and you'll see that this workflow is fairly

0:14simple

0:15actually, it's not a very complicated

0:17workflow. The new feature allows you to

0:19group specific items

0:20but there's a little bit of nuance to this

0:22so let's just start with a simple thing.

0:24Let's say

0:25I wanted to group this section of the

0:27workflow here, I can just select those two

0:29items, right

0:30click and if I go to group it you'll

0:32actually see a warning here. Now at the

0:34point of release

0:35this feature is actually not supported on

0:37Tableau Online which is why I'm seeing this

0:39error.

0:39It's also not supported on the dev instance

0:41of Tableau Online so what you can do if you

0:44're just

0:44using Tableau Prep locally is just click

0:46use features and this will allow you to

0:48carry on

0:49and see the feature in full progress but be

0:51aware that if you publish this prep flow

0:53you won't be

0:53able to schedule it. Okay, carrying on you

0:56can see that this item is now nicely

0:58grouped. I'm going to

0:59right click on it and you can see here

1:01there's an option to ungroup it and so it's

1:03a very very simple

1:05sort of workflow and once you've emitted

1:07that warning once you don't see it again so

1:10for every

1:10workflow when you see this warning here it

1:12won't warn you about this when you enable

1:14the grouping.

1:15Okay, the next thing is the ability to

1:18expand the group so if I go ahead and click

1:21on this box

1:22you can see that it expands the group very

1:24nicely and again if I go ahead and collapse

1:26it goes and does the same thing. Now each

1:29group still gets the same benefit as any

1:32step so I can

1:33add a description to this group so I'll say

1:36connect to a new file and when I click out

1:40of

1:40that obviously this applies to the group

1:42and if I expand that description disappears

1:44very briefly

1:45and then if I collapse it the description

1:47comes back again. The other thing you can

1:50do is you can

1:50rename the group so let's just call this

1:52connection and the benefit of naming it is

1:55that that actually

1:55stays with the group when you expand it and

1:58collapse it so you can see that this is

1:59maintaining

2:00the information you want and the

2:02description is actually available just here

2:05and it's not available

2:06when you expand it so that's just something

2:08to be aware of. It would actually be nice

2:10if the

2:10description was available here at the

2:12bottom but maybe that's a future fix or

2:14addition to this

2:15feature. Okay the next thing is when it

2:18comes to grouping things that are not

2:21necessarily

2:22sequential. Well what do I mean by that?

2:25Okay let's try and group these items here

2:27on the left.

2:28When I do that and I go to right click you

2:30'll see that it actually warns me to say

2:32steps must

2:33be directly connected and can't be part of

2:35an existing group. Okay this isn't part of

2:38an

2:38existing group but what it's basically

2:40saying is that I've selected things that

2:43aren't connected.

2:44Okay so they have to be connected for this

2:46to work so there's actually a little bit of

2:48a trick here.

2:49If I go ahead and select these items here

2:51and let's just move these down to this

2:54bottom section

2:55here. What I'm actually doing is isolating

2:58this top section here and I'm now going to

3:01select

3:01everything and include the step ahead

3:04because what this does is it connects all

3:07the previous steps

3:07so now if I right click on any of these go

3:10to group it it actually lets me group it.

3:13Okay I

3:13still get this warning about publishing

3:15this to Tableau server. I can still expand

3:17and collapse,

3:18I can still rename and do all the things

3:20that I'm used to and so the trick here is

3:22that things

3:23must be connected. Now the other thing is I

3:26can't put a group in the group so if I

3:29select

3:29these items here and then I go to try and

3:33group it because the bottom two items are

3:36already in a

3:36group I'm not able to add them to another

3:39group and you can't put a group inside of a

3:41group you

3:42can't do inception on this as it were. So

3:44that's pretty much the feature in a

3:47nutshell. If I just

3:48collapse this top group here and right

3:50click and ungroup you'll see that it

3:52basically gets rid of

3:53the group and it keeps those items selected

3:56. Again what I'll do is I'll collapse this

3:59and I will

4:00ungroup these items and you'll see that it

4:02goes back to pretty much how we opened it.

4:04I've just

4:04moved things around to make it easier. Now

4:08if you want to you can group almost whole

4:10sections as

4:11long as these steps are connected in one

4:13way or another. So let's just go ahead and

4:15highlight those

4:16let's go right click and group and now you

4:18can see that that's grouped and notice that

4:20the connection

4:21that was coming out of this has actually

4:23stayed outside of the flow because

4:25essentially the items

4:26I've grouped do come out of this group but

4:28if I expand it it actually came out of the

4:31first step.

4:32So this is another nice way of cleaning up

4:34your workflow it's a really sort of smart

4:35way of

4:36thinking about this and making it sort of

4:38work really really flexibly. Now the last

4:42thing you

4:42can do is you can take a group and save

4:44them as steps for a flow. So if you right

4:47click on the

4:48group and you can save steps as a flow to a

4:51file or you can publish them to a server

4:53but remember

4:54what I said in this case this isn't going

4:55to work because of the bug that we have. So

4:58instead I can

4:58just save this group to a file on my

5:00desktop and this will now be reusable in

5:03other places. So this

5:05actually makes using steps in your flow a

5:07lot lot easier. Okay that's pretty much it

5:10that's the

5:11feature in a nutshell I hope it's something

5:13that you find useful in your typical

5:15workflow

5:16and again these features were released

5:17slightly out of kilter with 2020.3 so these

5:20became available

5:21yesterday so if you're watching this video

5:23haven't got the latest version of prep I

5:25recommend you to

5:26check the blog actually and it has all

5:27these features listed out I'll put the link

5:29in the

5:29description below so you can go ahead and

5:31check it out and what you always want to do

5:33before you

5:33deploy prep is test it so if you've got a

5:35test machine you can use it on go ahead

5:37test the

5:38upgrade first before turning all your work

5:40flows into the latest release just make sure

5:42there's

5:42no bug or capability that's going to cause

5:44you an issue and especially if you're using

5:47server

5:48as you deploy the products.

5:48that

Rollup

Tableau Prep has a new grouping feature that lets you bundle connected steps into a single collapsible unit, making complex flows much easier to read and manage.

Tim demos the feature on a simple existing prep flow shortly after its release, showing what works, what's restricted, and a few rules that catch people out.

The Breakdown

Group a simple connected section 0:10

Select two or more steps, right-click and choose group. At release this triggers a warning because grouping isn't supported on Tableau Online or its dev instance; click 'use features' to proceed locally, but be aware a published flow containing a group can't be scheduled. Ungrouping is available the same way via right-click.
Expand, collapse, name and describe 1:16

Click a group to expand or collapse it, and add a name or description to keep track of what it does. The description only appears when the group is collapsed and disappears when expanded, so don't rely on it being visible in the expanded view.
Steps must be directly connected to group 2:16

You can only group steps that are directly connected in the flow, and a step already in one group can't be added to another. If your target steps aren't sequential, one trick is to physically move and reconnect them so they form a connected chain, then select that section plus the step ahead before grouping.
No nesting groups 3:24

You can't put a group inside another group. If some of the items you select are already grouped, Tableau Prep blocks the action.
Group whole sections and watch external connections 3:45

You can group almost an entire section of a flow as long as the steps are connected. Any connection leading out of a grouped step stays visible outside the group rather than being hidden, which is a clean way to keep the flow readable while showing where data still flows onward.
Save a group as a reusable flow file 4:39

Right-click a group to save its steps as a flow file to disk, which you can then reuse in other flows. Publishing the group to a server isn't an option yet due to the same restriction mentioned earlier.
Check release notes before upgrading 5:11

This feature shipped slightly out of sync with the main prep release, so check the blog/release notes if you don't see it. As general practice, test any prep upgrade on a non-production machine first, especially if you're deploying with Tableau Server.

Worth Knowing

Grouping isn't supported on Tableau Online or its dev instance at release, and a flow with a group can't be scheduled once published
Group descriptions vanish when the group is expanded, only showing in the collapsed state
Groups can't be nested inside other groups
Steps being grouped must be directly connected, which sometimes requires rearranging the flow first

Use It When

Reach for this when a prep flow has grown large and hard to follow, and you want to visually tidy it up or package a reusable chunk of logic to drop into other flows.

How this Rollup was made provenance & method

A Rollup is drafted by AI from the video's transcript, then reviewed and edited by Tim. Everything used to produce this one is listed below — the model, the exact prompt, and the source video — so the process is transparent and reproducible.

Transcription: On-device — NVIDIA Parakeet v3 for recent videos, OpenAI Whisper large-v3 for earlier ones. The transcript never leaves the machine or gets published.
Drafting: Claude Sonnet 5 in the cloud, from that transcript.
Prompt: The exact Rollup prompt (v2) — the full system prompt, unedited.
Source video: Watch on YouTube
Drafted: 5 July 2026 at 09:38
Reviewed & edited: 5 July 2026 at 09:41 · by Tim Ngwena

Model + prompt + video is everything you'd need to recreate a Rollup like this yourself. The one thing we don't share is the transcript.

Rights. The video and its transcript are the property of TN Media Ltd. Unauthorised use or download is prohibited. © TN Media Ltd.