How does Zone Visibility perform? | New in Tableau 2022.3

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

0:01just want to answer a very brief question.

0:03What happens when you hide a section when

0:05using zone visibility? This was a question

0:08that someone asked in the comments. And I

0:09thought, let's try and make a video and

0:11show you how I'm going to try and answer

0:13the question. It might not be the official

0:15answer. Obviously, we'll reach out to Table

0:17au to see if that's the case. But I can show

0:18you how I might be able to find out the

0:20answer using performance recording. Let's

0:23get stuck in. Okay, so here we are in Table

0:25au. Now the key to doing this test is you

0:28want to make sure you do the performance

0:29recording.

0:29At the very start, so you don't actually

0:32open your workbook, you open Tableau

0:34without opening a workbook. And then you go

0:36over to the top. And this is how you open

0:38the performance recording option, you go to

0:40help, you go to settings and performance,

0:42and then you select to start performance

0:44recording. Once you do that, nothing

0:46happens. It essentially runs in the

0:48background. But the performance recording

0:50is running because if you go to help go to

0:52settings and performance and stop

0:54performance recording is there. That means

0:55it's already running. Now, we've done that

0:58we can actually go ahead and do that.

0:59And open the workbook. So I'm opening up

1:02the demo work that I used in that

1:04particular demo. And you can see it loads

1:06up the workbook, I'm going to wait a few

1:08seconds and just fill the air because what

1:11I'd like to do is have a gap between when I

1:13loaded the workbook and the next activity

1:15that I do. So I can see very clear moments

1:17in time, when I did activities in the work

1:20book, if you do things too quickly, it's

1:21actually quite hard to see it very clearly.

1:23So now that that's been running for a while

1:26, I'll go ahead and select furniture.

1:28Furniture is actually a different zone that

1:30's enabled using a parameter actions, go and

1:32check the video to find out how that works.

1:34But go ahead and select furniture, you'll

1:36see it loads up a different part of the

1:37chart. I'll wait a few seconds, fill some

1:40air for some time. Maybe I'll skip ahead in

1:42the video by cutting it right here. Again,

1:45we're back. And now I'm going to go ahead

1:47and select office. We're going to wait a

1:49while again, and I'll cut away the gap.

1:51Okay, and now we're back, we've let the

1:53recording run for some time. And now I'm

1:55going to select technology again, to let

1:57that run for a

1:58bit. And that's pretty much it. That's all

2:00we're going to do, we're just going to

2:02click on the different zones, I've done

2:04nothing else, I've not used any filters, I

2:06'm not generating anything, just to show you

2:08what a filter would do, what I will do is

2:09go ahead and deselect accessories and cop

2:12iers from the technology section. So we can

2:15see that working on the technology works

2:17heet. But nonetheless, I think we're pretty

2:19much good to go, we can go ahead and stop

2:21the performance recording. To stop a

2:23performance recording, you just go up to

2:24the help option, again, go to settings and

2:26performance and select stop

2:28performance recording. That's pretty much

2:30it. Now, Tableau will open up a workbook,

2:32which shows you a performance recording. So

2:34let's just wait for that to load. It

2:36actually loads it up on a different screen

2:38for me. So I'll bring it up here on the

2:40main screen and just wait for it to load.

2:42And we'll set it up full screen. Now, the

2:44tricky thing with this workbook is just

2:46understanding I need to do another video on

2:47this because I did do a video on

2:49performance recording. But I realize I didn

2:51't explain this clearly enough. So we'll

2:53definitely do that again. But nonetheless,

2:55you get two things out of this, you get

2:57this dashboard, which

2:58shows you an overview of all the different

2:59events, you can see here now while I was

3:01leaving gaps in between the different

3:02recordings, because you can see there's a

3:04there's a timeline here. And then there's a

3:06second dashboard, which is the detailed

3:07view, essentially, from top to bottom

3:10showing you all the activities that

3:11happened when you load the workbook. And

3:13each of those happens at different times,

3:15you can actually see the different gaps I

3:17created between the activities. So you can

3:19see this is the first time I open the work

3:21book, then there's another activity, then

3:23there's another activity, then there's

3:24another one. And then there's these two

3:26filter actions that I quickly clicked

3:28on at the very end, in quick succession. So

3:30I clicked on technology, and then I des

3:32elected the filter. So that actually did a

3:34did a little bit of a change to the way

3:36this is working. So it's kind of like an

3:38interesting workbook to sort of dig around.

3:41And yeah, we're going to try and get to the

3:43bottom of this. So if I go back to this

3:45workshop, this timeline worksheet, this is

3:46actually the most useful one. So what are

3:48we going to use for this analysis? If I

3:50open it up, it's just a classic dash

3:52boarding problem, you see, you've got a

3:54timeline going across the tops with start

3:56time. And you've got the

3:57different rows. Now the rows are structured

4:00in the structure of the workbook. But that

4:02's not what we're interested in, we want to

4:04just see the chronology of all the events

4:06as they happen. So what I'm going to do is

4:08I'm going to drag a few of these items onto

4:10the detail pane, just so that we can see

4:12them more clearly. And we'll go ahead and

4:14just put them on detail, I don't want to

4:16lose them completely from the

4:19visualization, because I think it's a

4:21useful sort of visual element to have, we

4:22'll just put it on, we'll just put

4:24everything on here, the event is already on

4:26the dashboard. So we can go ahead and

4:28remove that. And the start index is going

4:30to be good enough for me. So the start

4:32index is basically sort of that vertical

4:35timeline that you see. And now when I do

4:37that, you'll see that each of the

4:39activities is very, very clearly kind of

4:42broken down. And actually, if I, if I show

4:45you this, if I go from the top, you've got

4:47the initial sort of elapsed time from when

4:50I open up the workbook, and you go down,

4:52there's a bunch of things that happen right

4:54at the beginning. And then there's another

4:56bunch of things here. And if I move my face

4:57to the left, you keep seeing each of these

4:59activities. So each time I click on

5:02something, Tableau is doing something

5:04different. Now, the key

5:05thing is, I don't know what those

5:06activities are. So let's go ahead and

5:08actually do this. Let's bring the events

5:11back on. So let's put this here in the top

5:13right hand side. And you can see the events

5:15here are these events here. So passing,

5:17executing query. So let's go ahead and is

5:21it the event name that we want? Let's try

5:23the event, let's just put the event after

5:25the starting index. So yeah, we do have a

5:27slightly better sort of context here. And

5:29then I think the next thing I want is the

5:31worksheet. So let's go ahead, we'll keep

5:34the worksheet on

5:35there. But let's go ahead down here and

5:38bring the worksheet just after to see what

5:40's going on. So anything not related to

5:43worksheet comes up as null in the worksheet

5:46column. So you've got the passing, which is

5:49basically processing the workbook. That's

5:51what the XML essentially is based on. You

5:53've got the connecting to data source, you

5:55've got the query that runs. And then you've

5:57got the compilation of the query. So

6:00executing and compilation, I just think of

6:02them all as query activities. And then here

6:04, this is the

6:05secret answer, you're computing the layout.

6:07So actually computes the layout for

6:09furniture, office and the technology line

6:11as well. So it actually computes the charts

6:13. But interestingly, it doesn't say it's

6:16rendering them at all. So it computes the

6:18charts, which means it's doing all the

6:19calculations required for them. But it

6:22doesn't render them. At that point, there's

6:24a couple of rendering activities. Now,

6:26these aren't necessarily linked to a chart.

6:29So it's difficult to know if this is the

6:31rendering of the entire dashboards,

6:33including the hidden

6:34zones or not. So let's go down here, there

6:36's a computing layout. And this is basically

6:39the first time we click, there's a bunch of

6:41rendering, there's another computing layout

6:43, a bunch of rendering another computer in

6:45layout, a bunch of rendering another

6:47computing layout. So we don't see any other

6:50sort of query events, essentially. And so

6:54my gut instinct is that it's actually

6:56loading all of the different jobs in the

6:58background, it's computing the layout, it's

7:00doing the maths, loading the data set. And

7:03it's doing the rendering,

7:04but it's just not showing it. And so the

7:06when you actually switch between them, that

7:08's when it draws the shapes that you

7:09actually see. So it's doing all the work

7:11that it needs to, apart from rendering that

7:13visualization right in front of you. And

7:15then it's switching between the different

7:18tabs. That's what I think this is saying to

7:20me, I think that's what I think this is

7:21sort of coming to you. Now, it's really, it

7:24's really hard to be absolutely clear about

7:26that. And because some of these activities,

7:28you know, the way Tableau is built, I don't

7:30know how it's built. So I don't actually

7:31know all the quirks of sit behind some of

7:33this. But that's

7:34what this data seems to suggest. And what I

7:36what is interesting is all the query is

7:38done at the beginning, all the queries are

7:40being done in the beginning. So if you've

7:42got a new zone visibility, and you've done

7:44some nasty queries behind one of the sheets

7:46, it still looks like it's going to be

7:48loaded at the beginning, it's not going to

7:49wait until you activate the zone to sort of

7:51set it up. So that's my thought on this.

7:54That's what I think is going on. I'm going

7:56to ask tableau the question, and we'll try

7:58and put a semi official answer in the

7:59comments below. Once I get sort of a bit of

8:02clarity on that. But nonetheless,

8:04that's how you can sort of find out what's

8:05going on. And this might help you debug

8:07what's going on with the slow workbook.

8:09When you open it up, you can actually use

8:11this technique to go and find what's going

8:13on inside of a workbook and hopefully get a

8:15better perspective of what's sort of

8:17slowing you down what's taking time. This

8:19workbook was pretty fast. If I loaded

8:20something from a database, you'd see much

8:22bigger query sections as well. And don't

8:24forget, if you're if you want to see what

8:27some of these things look like. So if I go

8:29down here, for example, I want to see what

8:31the queries actually look like, I can click

8:33on the

8:33green query items, and it'll actually load

8:35the query here. So I can see the sequel

8:37that's actually being sent to the database,

8:39in case I want to debug that. So that's,

8:41you know, hopefully a really useful trick

8:43that you guys can use. But I just wanted to

8:45show you how I'd sort of come to that

8:47conclusion and how I'd find the answer.

8:49Hopefully you found that video useful. If

8:51not, let me know in the comments below,

8:52nonetheless, and I'll catch you in the next

8:54video. So you made it to the end of this

8:55video, I always add bloopers. And for this

8:57one, I think it needed context. So many

8:59times I record a video, maybe 234 times,

9:02and I'll

9:03basically reject every single version of

9:05that video until I get the version of the

9:07video that I want. Because as you know, a

9:09lot of my videos are done from start to

9:11finish for that very few cuts. So this is

9:13one of those rare videos, will actually

9:16show you the start and end of a previous

9:18take that I did. And there's always

9:20something funny that I do at the end of a

9:22take that I know I'm going to reject as

9:23soon as I started because I sort of get the

9:25feeling that the video is going to be a bad

9:27video. So I can I can really feel it. But I

9:30finished the video nonetheless, just for

9:32the

9:32practice of doing the video. And then once

9:35I get to the end, I always end up by saying

9:37, Ah, this isn't good enough. I cancel the

9:39take. And then I, you know, get rid of the

9:41clip. But in this case, this is what you

9:43see. Hey, it's Tim here. In today's video,

9:46we're going to answer a very, very brief

9:48question. What does zone visibility do for

9:51so it's a it's a little bit of a mindmaze

9:53to sort of explain everything. And I don't

9:54think I did a great job. So I'm actually

9:56going to record a second take of this video

9:58because this wasn't this wasn't good enough

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10:02Transcribed by https://otter.ai

10:02Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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