How to add Ask Data to your dashboard: New in Tableau 2021.2

0:00Hey, it's Tim here. Today we're covering

0:02another video on R-Stata. This time we're

0:03going to be

0:04showing you how to add an R-Stata view into

0:07your dashboard so viewers can use R-Stata

0:10inside of

0:10your dashboard. Now a prerequisite I

0:12covered in my previous video about creating

0:14R-Stata lenses is

0:15that you can only do this from a published

0:17data source and so by virtue if you want to

0:19be able to

0:20add R-Stata lenses inside of your dashboard

0:22you're going to need to be using a

0:24published data source.

0:25That's actually a prerequisite of this

0:27feature. Okay so let's get stuck into how

0:29this works. Okay

0:30so in my previous video I'll switch over to

0:32Tableau Online here you'll see if I go to

0:34my

0:35explore page and I go to my 2021.2 folder

0:38that we have three items here. We've got a

0:41published data

0:42source which we published from Tableau

0:44Desktop. I've actually got that open over

0:45here we were

0:46actually working on some shipping and

0:48profitability data. Then if I go back you

0:50'll see two new asset

0:52types that have been introduced in 2021.2

0:54and these are lenses. So lenses are like

0:57perspectives

0:57from your original data source but they're

0:59specifically catered around R-Stata. So it

1:02allows viewers to essentially focus in on

1:05the set of questions they want to ask on a

1:07specific area.

1:08So you can see here that I've got a

1:09profitability lens and a shipping lens and

1:11these essentially

1:12allow people from those respective teams to

1:15go in and just be focused on what they want

1:17to answer

1:18out of the data source. Now what I'm going

1:20to be doing today is showing you how to

1:22allow users to

1:23do this inside of a dashboard and in order

1:25to do this we of course have to start from

1:27a published

1:28data source. Now another big thing I'm

1:29really big about this release is I'm going

1:31to try and do

1:32everything as much as I can in the browser.

1:34In the previous one I had to publish up a

1:35data source so

1:36I couldn't but in this one the web altering

1:38is really really picking up pace so I'm

1:40going to keep

1:41trying to push the boundaries of what web

1:43altering has to offer and see sort of where

1:45we run into

1:46issues. Now another thing to bear in mind

1:47is now that I've connected to this data

1:49source you can

1:50actually see those lenses are available

1:52just here so I get a list of previous

1:54lenses created from

1:55this data source and ready to see but what

1:58I actually want to do is create a workbook

2:00in this

2:00instance. I'm going to do that in the

2:02browser just by selecting workbook and as

2:04this opens up you'll

2:05see that you get the desktop experience you

2:07're sort of familiar with. Now what I need

2:09to do in

2:10order to do this is essentially just start

2:12building something but the funny thing with

2:14this is if you're using a published data

2:16source and you already have a lens you kind

2:18of don't even

2:19need to build anything. The first thing you

2:21can just go ahead and do is just create a

2:23dashboard

2:24and you'll see there's a new object type

2:26inside of the dashboarding experience

2:28called ask data and

2:29essentially what we're going to do is going

2:31to show you this with the blue arrow is we

2:33're just

2:33going to drag it into the space here and we

2:35're going to see what happens. So let's go

2:37ahead and

2:37do that let's just drag that in it didn't

2:39work that time because I think I didn't

2:41click it

2:42properly but now when we do that again you

2:44'll see that it drops it in. Now the other

2:47thing to bear

2:48in mind is that when you sort of do this

2:50the first thing you see is that our state

2:53needs a workbook

2:54publish to tabla online or tabla server and

2:56connect it to a published data source there

2:58and you're probably thinking well I'm

2:59already in the browser so what's going on

3:01here well

3:02I haven't saved this so because I'm working

3:04in the browser I first need to go here to

3:06the top left if

3:07you're wondering where I just went it was

3:09just here to this little save icon and I

3:11need to save

3:11this as a workbook so I'm going to call

3:14this ask data workbook and now that we've

3:17done that we're

3:18going to put in our 2021.2 project folder

3:21and we're going to hit save and now that we

3:23've saved

3:24it you'll see that this little window

3:26inside of the dashboard actually comes

3:28alive okay now that

3:29we've saved this workbook it's got some

3:31sort of context of what's going on it's now

3:33come alive.

3:34Now once we've done that in the previous

3:36video remember we created two lenses one

3:39for shipping

3:39and one for profitability and so I can

3:41actually if I'm building a shipping lens

3:44for example and

3:44I want to put that in the shipping workbook

3:46so people can ask their own questions I can

3:48just go

3:48ahead and choose the shipping lens option

3:51here and I can just go ahead and use that

3:53lens and when we

3:54do that you get sort of an embedded view of

3:56our data inside of the dashboard and it's

3:59pretty much

3:59exactly as you'd expect in fact if I just

4:02make my browser window a little bit larger

4:04you'll see that

4:05it's actually just like an embed view of

4:08the R-Stata experience and this has

4:10actually been

4:11possible but it's only been access

4:13accessible through creators what they've

4:15done here is they've

4:16essentially brought that into the dashboard

4:18and made it a generic thing I think this is

4:20partly

4:20because of the big push to make Tableau

4:22more web friendly so they're essentially

4:24sort of benefits

4:26that are being unleashed because of this

4:28work that's being done generally speaking

4:29so you can

4:30bring more features from other parts of the

4:32product into the browser experience it also

4:35works in

4:35desktop though if I go over to desktop you

4:37'll see that I'm here in desktop what we're

4:40going to do is

4:41I'm actually going to need to connect to

4:43that published data source you see it doesn

4:45't work

4:45on an embedded data source it has to be a

4:47published data source so let's go to

4:50connect

4:50let's select Tableau server and what we

4:53will do is we'll just connect to the

4:55published data source

4:56now you'll see that this this data source

4:58here is the one that we want to connect to

5:00because it's in

5:012021.2 project folder so let's go ahead and

5:04connect to that and once we connect to that

5:06we'll actually

5:07be able to go and you know start doing

5:09something with this in our in our workbook

5:11okay so let's

5:12wait for that to load and you'll see there

5:15's some funny things going on here but now I

5:17know that

5:17this is published because if I just show

5:19you with this arrow you'll see here that

5:21this icon here

5:22shows me that this is a published data

5:25source coming from Tableau online now what

5:27I'd like to

5:28do is actually I'd actually like to replace

5:30this data source because essentially this

5:32was the

5:32published one that I worked with and

5:34because it's superstore I know that I can

5:36get this back if I

5:37need to so I'm just going to right click on

5:39this I've got a little bug here where Table

5:41au doesn't

5:41really like me right clicking sometimes so

5:43you can see here sample superstore which is

5:45the one

5:46I'm connected to it's going to be replaced

5:48by sample superstore data source and I know

5:50these

5:50are exactly the same because one created

5:52the published data source if I go ahead and

5:54click ok

5:55and what Tableau will do is we'll swap

5:57everything that's connected and now I can

6:00go ahead and just

6:01close this connection here at the top and

6:03all I've done there is I've just basically

6:05made my

6:06workbook now and you know friendly for this

6:08new feature so now that we've done this I

6:10can now go

6:11ahead to a new dashboard and you'll see

6:13again here in the desktop you have ask data

6:16as an object so

6:17when I drag ask data into the view I guess

6:19you get an error which is a shame I don't

6:21know what this is

6:22it this is I don't even know how to sort of

6:25troubleshoot this I have tried to look

6:27online

6:27I've tried to troubleshoot a few things but

6:29I assume these are just launch day bugs

6:31this will

6:32get fixed and everything will sort of start

6:34working might even be to do with the fact

6:35that

6:36I'm on Tableau online but if this works for

6:37you let me know but essentially it's

6:39exactly the same

6:40process as you saw before you basically get

6:43the same sort of experience so hey an

6:45upside of the

6:46browser is that hey stuff tend to work a

6:47lot better and from the get-go now because

6:49of course that is

6:50now the their main focus okay so that's

6:53pretty much how to add an ask data lens to

6:55your dashboard

6:57I think these will be interesting I can

6:58really imagine an ecosystem where you know

7:02authors will

7:02build really complex dashboards to really

7:04sort of focus on the general things that

7:07everyone wants to

7:07ask but then they'll have these lenses

7:09which are sort of catered for people to ask

7:12questions that

7:13you know people just come up with on the

7:14spot and they can essentially type those

7:16questions and get

7:17an answer it also brings it up to parity

7:19with other products like Microsoft Power BI

7:21which has

7:22had something like this for quite a bit

7:23longer so now that this is in the product

7:25and is available

7:26to everyone that's really going to make it

7:28sort of compete in that space so I'm going

7:30to stop the

7:31video there it's a real shame this didn't

7:33work in desktop it maybe hints to a world

7:36where the desktop

7:37users are a second citizen compared to the

7:39browser I'm just saying like this this kind

7:41of thing never

7:42really happens normally and so I'm

7:43surprised that this sort of hasn't been

7:45caught out I have looked

7:46online a few other people have had the same

7:48issue but nonetheless these things will get

7:50fixed I'm

7:51not I'm not sort of pushing too hard on

7:53this because it is only a day since it

7:55launched

7:55and I'm also using Tableau online and Table

7:58au desktop so there's a little bit of len

8:00iency there

8:01um this is also one of the reasons I always

8:03recommend not updating on the day of

8:05release

8:05and you want to wait at least two or three

8:08months after testing this before you

8:10actually update

8:10everything so for Tableau online users you

8:13have no option so if you've downloaded 2021

8:16.2 and your

8:17online instance is up to date and you're on

8:19a Mac like me and your experience is this

8:21bug unfortunately

8:22there's not much you can do about that but

8:23you can obviously work around this with web

8:25edit which is

8:26available for all creators who have access

8:28to that anyway okay so thanks for watching

8:31um hopefully we

8:32won't have more bugs in other features

8:34about 2021.2 be sure to check in on some of

8:36those I'm

8:37going to be next covering the video on

8:39explain data for viewers as well okay catch

8:42in the next one