How to use a Tableau dashboard: Tableau tutorial for beginners

0:00Hey, it's Tim here. Now for a long time, I

0:02've always tried to make videos on this

0:03channel that

0:04really help everyone get to grips with

0:06Tableau. But a large part of my audience

0:08have actually

0:09been people who build dashboards and dawned

0:11on me the other day, is there a guide for

0:13people who

0:14don't build dashboards? And so I went to

0:16Google, which is where I start all my

0:18research before I

0:19make a video. And I simply type that

0:20question in. And when you hit an answer, I

0:22was really

0:23surprised to find that there's not one

0:25resource on the homepage. And for the

0:27record, I'm searching

0:29incognito. So this level, Google doesn't

0:31know who I am, I'm not signed in, it's not

0:33sort of

0:34bias with my previous search history, this

0:36should be what most people see on the

0:38internet when they

0:38search how to use a tablet dashboard. The

0:41first hit you get is how to create a

0:42dashboard. The

0:44next one is how to create a dashboard. View

0:47ing a dashboard when you expand on that

0:49actually goes

0:50into a menu setup for creating a dashboard

0:53again. And the videos are all about

0:56creating dashboards,

0:58you kind of get the picture, everything

1:00here apart from this one resource from 2012

1:02is about creating dashboards, everything

1:05else is about building dashboards. So in

1:07this video,

1:08we're going to settle that score, I'm going

1:10to show you how to use a tablet dashboard.

1:13And if

1:13you've never built a dashboard, you're the

1:15ideal audience. If you're never going to

1:17build a

1:17dashboard, you're also the ideal audience.

1:20And this is really going to be a video

1:21targeted at

1:22people who don't even have to think about

1:24building dashboards, but do have to use a

1:26tablet dashboard

1:27at some point in their day to day work. I'm

1:29also going to try and keep it as simple as

1:32possible.

1:32So I'm actually going to be logging in as a

1:34viewer. A viewer is essentially a specific

1:37tableau license

1:38that allows you to have access to a

1:40specific set of tablet features. It's the

1:42most basic license

1:43you can get. And it's ideally pitched to

1:45people who just need to use dashboards to

1:46get their job

1:47done. Another version of this license might

1:50be something called the tableau explorer

1:52license.

1:53And in this license, you do get a little

1:55bit more capabilities. I won't cover those

1:57in this video.

1:58But if you have an explorer license, you

2:00will be able to do many of the things I'm

2:02talking about

2:02here to use a dashboard as well. Now if I

2:05go over to my tableau online instance, you

2:07can see that

2:07I'm logged in as a viewer. And viewers have

2:10a very limited sort of view of tableau. And

2:12they probably

2:13don't know it because for them, they just

2:15know what they see. And I've assumed that I

2:17'm logging

2:17in for the first time. So you can see that

2:20here in this homepage, we've got this blue

2:22welcome banner,

2:23that pretty much just tells you, hey, you

2:25've arrived, this is where analytics is

2:26served in

2:27the tablet platform, and start exploring.

2:30Now, I tend to close this straight away,

2:32because it's

2:33actually getting in the way. And you can

2:35see that you get a little notification here

2:37to tell you

2:38that it's gone. If you want to bring that

2:40back, you can click on this change settings

2:42option here.

2:42And when you do that, it takes you to your

2:44settings. And if you scroll down all the

2:46way to

2:47the very bottom, you'll see this little

2:49message here that says welcome banner, tick

2:51that again,

2:51save the changes. And now when you go back

2:53to the homepage, which I'm going to click

2:55on here on the

2:56left hand side, you can see that the banner

2:58is back again. Okay, so if you get rid of

3:00that,

3:00and you actually want to bring it back,

3:02because you don't know what it meant, or

3:03you just want

3:03to read it again, that's how to set it back

3:06up. Let me close this now for good, we're

3:08not going

3:08to bring it back. And now you can see we're

3:11on this page. Now on this page, we have

3:13different

3:14sections. In the middle of the page, we

3:16have a recent sections here at the top

3:18recommendations

3:19just below that. And if I keep going down,

3:21I don't have much more. Now depending on

3:23your organization,

3:24you might have other things available on

3:26this page. And those are all essentially

3:29sort of

3:30quick links to everything we've got on the

3:32left hand side menu. So on the left hand

3:34side,

3:34I've got a simple menu system that allows

3:37me to go back to this page, which is the

3:39homepage,

3:39my favorites, if I've had any particular

3:41ones saved, you can see I have none recent

3:44items that

3:44I've looked at or worked on things that

3:46have been shared with me explicitly by

3:48other people,

3:49recommendations, things that Tableau thinks

3:51I should take a look at, because other

3:53people like

3:53me are looking at them. And then as we go

3:55further down, you can see you get this

3:57little line. And

3:58then we have this new area called

4:00collections. Again, collections are just a

4:02group of content

4:03that have been grouped together from lots

4:05of different places. And they've been put

4:06in one

4:07place. Think of it as like a folder with

4:09lots of different files or documents in

4:11them. But those

4:12documents could have come from lots of

4:14different departments or lots of different

4:15parts of the

4:16organization. It's just another way of

4:18sharing content. Explore allows me to look

4:21at everything

4:21that I can see and I have access to. This

4:23is a little bit of a daunting place to go

4:25to. You have

4:27to understand a little bit about projects

4:28and folders. So don't worry too much about

4:31this. The

4:31best way to think of this is just imagine

4:33this as the file system for visualization.

4:36Essentially,

4:36each one of these projects or folders

4:39allows you to go to different parts of the

4:41business and inside

4:42of those, you'll find different types of

4:44content. So if I go to the samples folder

4:46here, you'll see

4:46that I have four sample bits of content,

4:49three of them are workbooks and one is a

4:51data source.

4:52You don't need to worry too much about that

4:54. But that's essentially how this all works.

4:57If you find another folder in here, then

4:58you just go another level into that folder

5:00and it becomes

5:01a bit like your desktop, you've got folders

5:03and folders. In Tableau, we call these

5:05projects.

5:05Now if I go back to the homepage, you can

5:08see this is where I land, this is where I

5:10arrive every

5:11single time. And what I can start to do is

5:13actually save some things to favorites. Now

5:15,

5:15if you see something in your recent stab

5:17that you'd like to save into your favorites

5:19,

5:19just go ahead and hit the star underneath

5:21the items. If you see here, I can just go

5:23ahead and

5:23hit the star. And that will actually go

5:25into my favorites. And you'll see that

5:27Tableau creates a

5:28new section immediately showing me my

5:30favorites on the homepage. And this is why

5:32favoriting items

5:34is good because they appear on your

5:35homepage. And it's going to save you a

5:37whole ton of hassle

5:38in the future every time you log in. So I

5:40'll go back to my recent area here, which

5:42has now

5:42gone further down. I'll also save this

5:45overview to my favorites. And I'll also go

5:48down here and

5:49I'll have a look at this root scout and I

5:50'll save that to my favorites as well. Three

5:53items in my

5:53favorites were pretty much good to go. I've

5:56set everything up the way I want. The other

5:58place to

5:58look just before we move into a dashboard

6:01itself is the search bar here on the top

6:03right hand side,

6:04you can search for pretty much anything. So

6:06you can search for people, you can search

6:08for content,

6:08it's just all there. So in this case, I'm

6:11going to search for something called an

6:12overview.

6:13And you can see that when I search Tableau

6:15looks across the whole entire site, it

6:18gives me a nice

6:19visual sort of guide for what's going on.

6:21And it goes and finds everything with that

6:23name in a nice

6:24clear way. There is this sort of little

6:26section marker here at the top that says me

6:28there's six

6:28views. If I click on that, it actually

6:30takes me to those six views. And you can

6:32see that everything

6:33is set out really nicely. Bear in mind that

6:36in this particular page, you're now in the

6:38search

6:39page. So everything here is related to the

6:41search results of the thing you just

6:42searched. If I go

6:44back by clicking on that, we go back to the

6:46homepage again. So now you know how to

6:49search,

6:49you know how to sort of navigate the site,

6:51let's actually get to a dashboard and see

6:53how it works.

6:54I'm going to click on this overview

6:56dashboard, you might already have seen this

6:58on your own Tableau

6:59instance, it's actually the default work

7:01book that ships with Tableau. And it's

7:03something that alters

7:04sometimes used for testing and capabilities

7:06. Now in this interface, you can see the

7:08dashboard loads

7:09straight away. And I have three core

7:11sections. At the top, I have this blue bar,

7:14which is essentially

7:14just a bread, breadcrumb bar. On the left

7:17hand side, it tells us where things are

7:19going, and

7:19where we've come from to arrive at this

7:21piece of content. And on the right hand

7:23side, we have a

7:24few basic sort of controls that we can use.

7:26But again, don't worry too much about this,

7:29we're just going to maintain our focus on

7:30the dashboard itself. On the next section

7:33down,

7:33you can see I have something called a

7:35toolbar, and the toolbar starts to look

7:37intimidating.

7:38And it's worth highlighting that you might

7:40not be able to see everything that I can

7:42see here.

7:43And that is because authors, the people who

7:45build your dashboards can essentially

7:47disable some of

7:48these features, because they don't

7:49necessarily want you to be able to do some

7:51of these things,

7:52or those experiences haven't been curated

7:54and governed properly by the organization.

7:57And so that disabled those, a good example

7:59is subscribing to this by email. In some

8:02organizations,

8:03the email capability has not been enabled.

8:05So you can't subscribe, because essentially

8:07,

8:07the Tableau server needs to be able to

8:09email things out. If I go to the download

8:12option here,

8:12you'll see that it's available. But in some

8:14organizations, downloading data is sort of

8:17a

8:17taboo, they don't let you download anything

8:20from any particular data visualization, or

8:22anything

8:23that has access to any sort of data set. So

8:25just depending on your setup, the author

8:27and how

8:28everything is set up in your organization

8:30and its culture, some of these settings

8:31here will not be

8:32available. Okay, so just bear that in mind.

8:35Now, if I go down, you can see that I'm

8:37actually now

8:38in the dashboard, this big title here is

8:40the title of the dashboard. And basically

8:42everything below

8:43this little bar here in the middle is

8:46actually just part of your dashboard. Okay.

8:49In some context,

8:50this bar here can load at the bottom

8:52depends if you're going to an embedded view

8:54or not.

8:55But if you don't find it here at the top,

8:57look at the bottom, sometimes that's where

8:58it is.

8:59Now, when we get to the dashboard, it's not

9:02always apparent that there's interactivity

9:04built into the

9:05dashboard. Most good authors should give

9:08you a guide like a PDF or a PowerPoint

9:10showing you how

9:11to use the dashboard. This is really good

9:13because it shows you where all the features

9:14are. And it

9:15gives you a little bit of intuitive

9:17guidance about how to go about using the

9:19dashboard.

9:19It shouldn't be hard to use a dashboard if

9:22you finding it hard to use a dashboard,

9:24maybe have

9:24a word with your author and ask them if

9:26there's anything they can do to improve the

9:28user experience.

9:29And when you do so be sure to mention the

9:31pain points. For example, it's hard to find

9:34this when

9:35I'm looking for this in my day to day work.

9:37When you term things like that the youth,

9:39the author

9:40typically starts to better understand what

9:42you're trying to do with something and

9:44starts to make

9:45those decisions as they build the dashboard

9:47rather than you having to wait for this

9:49whole feedback

9:50loop to go around in circles. Right, one of

9:52the first things I'm going to do is I'm

9:53just going to

9:54go into my dashboard and I'm going to click

9:56on one of these items you can see as I

9:58hover over,

9:59I get these sort of tooltips and these tool

10:01tips are great. They're fascinating because

10:03they give

10:03you this sort of deep dive. But in essence,

10:06sometimes is a distracting. Now I can't

10:09switch

10:09this off. Only the author can switch this

10:11on love. So again, this is one of those

10:13user interactivity

10:14things that you should feed back to your

10:16author. Say hey, these tooltips are great.

10:18But every time

10:19I hover on something they just pop up. I

10:21don't want them to pop up instantly when I

10:23hover over

10:24them. That's something they can change. But

10:26you unfortunately can't. Now if I click on

10:29this

10:29particular region here in Germany, you can

10:31see that a couple of things happen

10:33throughout the

10:34whole visualization. And in essence, what I

10:36'm doing by clicking on that item is

10:38filtering the

10:39whole dashboard to that item that I've just

10:41clicked on. This is known as an action.

10:44Actions

10:44are used by authors to enable specific

10:46interactivity like this. But for you, you

10:49can

10:49just think of them as a filter. And this

10:51filter, all you're doing is you're clicking

10:53on the thing

10:53you'd like to filter with. And it's

10:55applying that change throughout everything

10:58in the visualizations.

10:59Now sometimes an author won't set that to

11:01apply to everything, they might only set it

11:03to apply to

11:04one chart, or one set of figures, just

11:06depends on how they've set it up. So if you

11:08click on something,

11:09and you don't see everything else changing,

11:10that's because essentially the author

11:12designed

11:13it slightly differently. And again, you can

11:15go back to them and ask them, hey, when I

11:16click on

11:17this, could you make it so that it changes

11:18all these other items that I'm actually

11:20quite

11:20interested in. So that's one way of

11:22filtering a dashboard is a very simple

11:24thing, you click on the

11:25data item and everything around it, maybe

11:27sometimes changes depending on how the

11:29author is set it up.

11:31Okay, this time, I'm going to head to this

11:32chart here on the right hand side. And you

11:33can see that

11:34I have a chart with essentially three

11:36sections, one for furniture, one for office

11:38supplies,

11:39and one for technology. For hover over

11:41these items, again, you get the information

11:43and the

11:44tooltips. And again, this is really useful

11:46supplementary information. But what I want

11:48to

11:48do is actually filter using this header

11:49item here in furniture, I don't want to

11:51have to click on the

11:52data point here, I want to filter on just

11:54this section across the whole entire

11:56visualization.

11:57So let's see what happens. If I click on

11:59that here, you'll see that everything does

12:01change. But

12:02notice that the numbers change, but my

12:03highlight is slightly off. Again, this is a

12:06weird sort of

12:06sort of design issue. And again, sometimes

12:09you might come across this when the author

12:12has set

12:12something up, and there's a bug. So again,

12:14do you send feedback to an author or to

12:17someone and ask

12:18them, hey, I'm clicking on this thing, but

12:19it's sort of grayed out the numbers. Now

12:21the numbers

12:22are filtering, so I can actually see them

12:24correctly there. If I deselect furniture

12:26here, you'll see

12:26that it goes back to 96.5. I selected again

12:30, you can see that it's sort of not working

12:32the way it

12:32should. So when you see little things like

12:34this, if there's something that looks

12:36unusual, it's sort

12:37of hard to know what's normal and what's

12:39not normal. Because you might assume that

12:41this sort

12:41of behavior where everything is grayed out

12:43when you select it is how Tableau works.

12:45Just be sure

12:47to check those items with whoever's built

12:48it. Normally, they should have some sort of

12:50feedback

12:51mechanism and you can feed into them there.

12:53Now if I go to this bottom one, which is

12:55broken down

12:56by segment, let's deselect furniture here

12:58and go down to the bottom, you can see

13:00consumer,

13:00corporate and home office. When I click on

13:02those, nothing happens. And essentially,

13:05this particular

13:05chart has not been configured to filter

13:07anything. So you can see that it's just

13:09behaving like a

13:11static chart, it's not designed to filter

13:13anything else. So when you don't find

13:16interactions, that's

13:17absolutely fine. But if you think they make

13:19sense, do send that feedback on to whoever

13:21's building it

13:22so they can do that. I keep saying that a

13:24lot because you start to realize that as a

13:26viewer,

13:26a lot of what you'd like to do sometimes is

13:28possible, but it's not actually been

13:30enabled

13:31by the author. And they could also be

13:33sometimes a skills gap where the author is,

13:35you know,

13:36building a dashboard, but maybe they're not

13:38familiar with the full feature set of Table

13:39au.

13:40So again, work with them and ask them, hey,

13:42can I add this, and they might actually be

13:43able to find

13:44a way of doing it if they know that a user

13:46is going to actually use that feature. So

13:48it's a

13:49good way to motivate authors to get the

13:50kind of features you want into the product.

13:52Now, the last

13:54area on this dashboard is I'm going to go

13:56over here on the right right hand side. And

13:58you can see that

13:58I have this sort of filter area. Now,

14:00typically on a Tableau dashboard, you will

14:02have an area to the

14:03right, or that pops up at some point on the

14:06screen that has a bunch of controls. Now

14:08with these

14:09controls, you can essentially control the

14:10dashboard again. So if you see here, I've

14:12got this drop down

14:13option. If I do select all the whole entire

14:15chart goes blank, because essentially I

14:18filtered

14:18everything out by deselecting all. If I

14:21just tick central, then the chart here will

14:25come back,

14:25but this time it's only me showing me data

14:27for central. Okay, if I deselect central,

14:30everything

14:31will go out again. And if I deselect north,

14:33everything comes back out again. Now you'll

14:36notice

14:36that that interaction takes a bit of time.

14:38The reason it takes a bit of time is

14:39because Tableau

14:40is an analytics tool. So it's having to

14:42work with either a database or some other

14:44information to help

14:46sort of show you what you need. But that

14:47means there's a little bit of thinking time

14:49between

14:49these. Let's say I wanted to quickly set up

14:52north and south and central. I didn't have

14:54to click on

14:55those three, then wait for the chart to do

14:57its thing. Maybe I've got to drop down with

14:5920 items.

14:59Well, there's actually a better way to do

15:02this. What you can do as a little hack is

15:04you can go

15:04over here to the top left hand side and

15:06select this pause option. What this does is

15:09it stops

15:10Tableau from updating the view anytime you

15:11change something. So if I now go to my

15:13region area here,

15:14and I deselect central and north, you can

15:17see that the chart hasn't updated to show

15:19me what's

15:19going on. What it has done is it sort of

15:21grayed out the whole page to show me that

15:24hey, this view

15:25needs an update. So if I go over back here

15:27to the top left hand side and hit resume,

15:29everything comes

15:30back and it loads. And this is great when

15:32you've got maybe a drop down with 20 items

15:34and you need

15:35to select eight of them manually ad hoc.

15:37This is going to save you a lot of time

15:39because if you're

15:39going through and selecting each of them

15:41one by one, you're going to be increasing

15:43the amount of

15:43time it's taking. Because each time you

15:45change something, it has to load the data.

15:47And while

15:48it's doing that, you kind of really can't

15:50use the visualization or the interface.

15:52That's something

15:52to be aware of. Now, you can also see there

15:55's another item here, which is a date filter

15:57. Now,

15:57these are a bit tricky, because sometimes

15:59most people think they have to use these sl

16:01iders,

16:01you can actually just click on them and

16:03just get a date picker straight away. So

16:05don't sort of take

16:06interfaces for you know, face value, click

16:09around, see what will happen, you can't

16:11break the

16:12visualization, you can't break it for

16:14anyone else, this is your experience. And

16:16if you want to reset

16:17anything, or go back to how it was at the

16:19beginning, there's a nice big fat revert

16:21button

16:21here at the top. And what that will do is

16:23it will take you back to how the

16:25visualization was loaded.

16:26So if you just want to start again, you've

16:28messed something up, maybe the selection

16:30isn't quite

16:30right, that revert button is going to help

16:33you. Okay. If I go back, and I'm deselect

16:36ing option

16:36here, you can see that it goes to central.

16:39And then if I go again and select North,

16:41it's going to go forward again. And all

16:43these options are sort of being saved in

16:45Tableau sort

16:46of intelligence, right, it's remembering

16:48these steps. And I can actually go back

16:49here to the top.

16:50And you can see there's an undo and redo

16:52function. Essentially, if I undo, then it

16:54takes me back a

16:55step. And I can undo again, and it takes me

16:58back one more step. But then I can also red

17:00o by going

17:01forward, I can go forward one more step.

17:03And it's remembering all of these steps.

17:05And every time you

17:06do that, it just allows you to sort of play

17:08around with some of these options.

17:10Sometimes maybe

17:11I things don't sort of work out the way you

17:12want. And you want to go back to the

17:14previous step,

17:15then forward again, this lets you do that

17:17in a very, very nice way. Now you can see

17:19that here

17:19that the spinner sort of froze, but it's

17:22essentially loaded up fine. If I go to redo

17:24again,

17:25you can see that it's loaded great there.

17:26So everything is set up the way I wanted it

17:28to.

17:29Let me go back into this region filter,

17:31select everything again. And we'll go back

17:34to these

17:35little items here in the bottom. Now, the

17:38last thing you'll see here is a like a

17:40profit ratio

17:40legend. This is actually linked to the

17:42performance on this map. So sometimes the

17:45legends and the

17:46information you need is not necessarily

17:47next to the visualization or next to what

17:49you need.

17:50Again, if the chart has been well

17:51documented, this shouldn't be a problem.

17:53And you can see there's

17:55also a profit ratio filter here. If I slide

17:57this a little bit, you can see that it

17:59works just as

18:00you'd expect. But I can also go in there

18:02and type it now the thing with percentages

18:04here is that

18:05notice that it's it's sort of displaying it

18:07as 47% or let's click out of this seven

18:10minus 72.

18:11But when I go to type it, it's actually the

18:13numerical value that I need to type in. So

18:15minus

18:1671.5. So if I wanted to change this to 75%,

18:20minus 75, I just hit minus 0.75. And there

18:24we go. Okay,

18:24the last thing I'm going to show is this

18:26export button here at the very bottom. Now

18:28when I click

18:28on the export button, the author has

18:30actually built something in for me that

18:32allows me to

18:33export a section of this data. And

18:35depending on what I can see and what I can

18:37't see, I'm actually

18:38get this ability to do this. So I can say

18:40specific sheets from this dashboard or

18:42specific sheets from

18:43this workbook. So let's say sheets from

18:45this workbook, you can see that I'm on the

18:47overview

18:47here. So I'm going to select that I'm going

18:49to hit download. And what it actually does

18:51is it gives me

18:52a nice image. So let's go ahead and look at

18:54this. Now it's actually given me a

18:55PowerPoint presentation

18:57rather than an image. And the author has

18:59baked this into the settings. So now when I

19:01open that

19:01in PowerPoint, you can see that it opens up

19:04and it's called export test. And there's my

19:07chart,

19:07my images in PowerPoint ready to go for

19:09whatever meeting I need it for. And so this

19:11is a nice way

19:12of going to your dashboard, setting

19:13everything up, making sure it's perfect,

19:15then hitting that export

19:16button for the PDF if it's an option, and

19:18being able to sort of go from there. Now

19:20what if the

19:21author hasn't given you that button? Is

19:23there another way to do this? Absolutely.

19:25If you close

19:26PowerPoint here, and we just go back to the

19:28view, and we go back to our toolbar, you'll

19:30notice that

19:30we have a host of items here across the top

19:32. So let's start going through those. If I

19:35click on the

19:35first one on the right hand side, you can

19:37see that it allows me to go full screen

19:39very handy in case

19:39I'm in a presentation, I need to show

19:41people a chart or I need the focus of the

19:43meeting to just

19:44be the chart. Really, really nice feature

19:47to have. If I click on that little x at the

19:49top of the

19:50screen, again, it goes back. So you see

19:52this little sort of square icon here, if I

19:54click on that, it

19:54goes back to how I had it before. Really

19:57cool. If I've been given the ability to I

19:59can actually

20:00leave comments for other people. So I can

20:03say hey, at Tim, this looks great. Let's

20:06chat about this.

20:07And when I do that, I can also attach what

20:10exactly what I'm looking at here. So if I

20:13go in here and

20:14just D select naught, let's say that I'm

20:15looking at the central and south region.

20:18And I think this

20:18looks great. If I click on this little

20:20paperclip and square, it's actually going

20:22to take a snapshot

20:23of this and save it with a comment, you can

20:25see that it just loads up here on the

20:26bottom right

20:27hand side. And now when I post this comment

20:30, it's a bit like taking a snapshot and

20:32adding it to the

20:33comment. And now this is visible. It also

20:36sends a notification to that person via

20:38email or via slack

20:39if they have that set up. And they're able

20:41to click on that and come directly here and

20:43see the

20:43exact same thing that you've clicked. Just

20:45to show you what that looks like. Let me

20:47revert this back

20:48to the very beginning. I'm going to close

20:50this comment tab so you can't see any

20:52comments. Go back

20:53in, open the comments tab so that you can

20:55see comments. And notice that the region

20:57here selected

20:58to all, I'll go back out and hit view. And

21:01you can see that it loads that old view

21:04back. And now you

21:05can see central and south selected. So now

21:07that's a really, really good way to share

21:09information

21:10with other people, both on Slack and here

21:13inside of tablet as well. Now the next

21:15feature is the

21:16download function. So when you click on

21:18this, you get a range of other settings,

21:20you get image,

21:21the data, which is grayed out, I'll explain

21:22that in a second, crosstab, PDF, PowerPoint

21:25,

21:25and Tableau workbook. Now as a viewer, you

21:27can't download the tablet workbook, that's

21:29not allowed,

21:29but you can download all the other options,

21:32an image will give you exactly that. Let's

21:34have a

21:34go at that. Let's collect an image. And

21:36when you do that, you get again, this

21:38option of where to

21:39save it, if I hit it to the desktop, click,

21:42click on that, you can see that the image

21:44loads up

21:44straight away here in Windows. Perfect. If

21:47I go back, go to download, this time, you

21:50'll see the

21:50data is grayed out. Okay. And if you see

21:53this little tool tip, it says click the

21:55view to enable

21:56data and crosstab download. This is not

21:58really that clear. What it actually means

22:01is look,

22:02Tableau doesn't know which data set you'd

22:04like to download. And so it wants you to

22:06click on a chart

22:07or in the visualization. And it's going to

22:09use that to download the data. So this time

22:12,

22:12let me do this, let me click on this chart.

22:14And for the record, it looks like I'm

22:16clicking in

22:16white space, that is exactly what I'm doing

22:18. I'm going to click in that white space,

22:20you didn't even

22:21see anything happen on screen. Now I go to

22:23download, and you can see up still nothing

22:25there.

22:26Okay. Very, very bizarre. Now, if I click

22:28on Office supplies, though, go back to

22:30download,

22:31you can see the data does appear. So it

22:34wants me to click on something very

22:35specific, okay,

22:36you have to click on some sort of element

22:38of grouping, a header, something on a map

22:41for it

22:41to grab the data. I wanted to click on

22:44everything, if I wanted to select furniture

22:47, technology and

22:48office supplies, what I could do is I could

22:50select the axis here, for example, and then

22:53go back to

22:54download. And you can see the data option

22:56is open as well. Or I could hold Ctrl and

22:58select each of

22:59these items. Notice that as I do that, it's

23:02firing off the actions and filtering

23:04everything. And now

23:06if I go to download, you can see the data

23:08is there again. So if I click on data, what

23:10it's going to

23:10do is give me the summary of the data. So

23:12it's not going to give me the full data

23:14that's not allowed,

23:15unless you're an explorer who has explosive

23:17explosive access to download the full set

23:19of data.

23:20But it does give me the summary of the data

23:22. And it gives me the first 200 rows. As an

23:24example,

23:25if I download all the rows as a text file,

23:27it opens it up, it actually generates a CSV

23:29,

23:30let's save that to my desktop. Let's open

23:32that in Excel. And boom, there we go, we've

23:34got the file

23:35in Excel. And you can see it's got a little

23:37bit of the formatting, as well as it's

23:38picked up from

23:39Tableau. And now I can use this data to do

23:41whatever I need to do. I hate showing

23:43people

23:44that feature. Because essentially, that's

23:46literally becomes the biggest use case for

23:48this

23:49is really frustrating. But yeah, that's

23:52just sort of how it is sometimes. So if you

23:54go back to this

23:55dashboard, you can see that's how to

23:57download data. Now, if I go back to the

23:59download option,

24:00we've also got a cross tab. So let's go

24:02ahead and click cross tab, you'll see that

24:04it then asks me

24:04which chart that I want to cross, or then

24:08ask me which chart I want the cross tab

24:10from, and also

24:12which file. So this is a bit like the

24:14option we've just used, except for this

24:16actually lets you

24:17choose which chart it's going to come from.

24:19So I'm going to choose the sales map. I'd

24:21like it to come

24:21out as an Excel last time I did CSV. Now I

24:23'm going to choose Excel, we're going to

24:26save it to the

24:27desktop, open up that file. And here we go.

24:30And you can see we get a cross tab. Now the

24:33cross tab

24:33was probably the worst format here because

24:35it's got the countries and of course, some

24:37of these

24:38cities are only going to be available in

24:39one of these countries that you know, you

24:41can't have

24:42Antwerp in Austria, Germany and Italy just

24:45doesn't exist. So cross tab wasn't the best

24:47format here.

24:48Maybe a summary data set would have been

24:50the better thing. So just bear that in mind

24:52.

24:52The thing you're downloading isn't ideally

24:54suited to a cross tab. Don't use the cross

24:56tab,

24:57use something like the summary view and

24:59just go ahead and download the data like

25:01this. If I click

25:02here on the map, I can go to the data and

25:04you can see the summary data is in a much

25:06better format.

25:07I even get the latitude and longitude and

25:09go off and use that in a much better way.

25:11So just think

25:12about what you're downloading and how you

25:14want it to sort of work. Let me just close

25:16this tab here.

25:17And let's go back to the download option.

25:19If I click it again, there's an option to

25:21grab a PDF.

25:22Now what I always say to people is that it

25:25's so tempting to choose a paper size on

25:27this page.

25:28Don't do that. Never choose a paper size in

25:30this setting. I know it sounds counter

25:32intuitive,

25:33and you might want to print an A4 or

25:35something like that. But here's the thing.

25:37PDF file format

25:38already handles this for you when you go to

25:41print. So there's no need to define it here

25:43in Tableau.

25:44Just go ahead to this drop down and choose

25:47unspecified. Choose the orientation and

25:49landscape

25:50or portrait, whatever one you want to use

25:52landscape would work better with this

25:53particular one.

25:54I want to download this particular view,

25:56you can select specific sheets from this

25:58dashboard,

25:59or you can just go ahead and do anything. I

26:01'll show you how to use this in a little bit

26:03more

26:03detail shortly. And this is a bit of

26:05scaling. Again, just set it to automatic,

26:09because we've

26:09chosen an unspecified paper size. This is

26:11generally the best setting to use. I'll

26:13show you why. If I

26:14hit download, Tableau will think about it,

26:17it will generate the PDF, and there it is.

26:19There's my PDF.

26:20Let's open that. And you can see it opens

26:22it up for me here in Chrome, because this

26:24is my default

26:25sort of PDF viewer when I'm just on my

26:27desktop. If you've got something like Adobe

26:30Acrobat,

26:30it will open it in that instead. Now, what

26:33I can do over here in the print settings is

26:35I can of course

26:36specify my paper sizes specifically for the

26:39printer that I want. And the settings are

26:42endless

26:42here. Okay, you don't need to specify this

26:44in Tableau. The other thing you'll get when

26:46you do

26:47this is you'll get a file that is much,

26:48much higher resolution. So if I just zoom

26:51in here,

26:51notice how crisp the text stays all the way

26:54through. That's because it's basically a

26:57vector

26:57item. Now, the map doesn't do the same

26:59thing. Maps are pretty hard to sort of keep

27:02consistent because

27:03of the way all this is done. But if I was

27:05to zoom in again, and let's go all the way

27:08to the right,

27:08you can see that even the charts stay crisp

27:11and nice and detailed. If you set a paper

27:13size,

27:14and you try and do the same thing, you don

27:16't always get consistently the same quality

27:18as

27:18you zoom in or you make things larger. So

27:21again, unspecified as a paper size,

27:23is going to give you the highest level of

27:26detail in that PDF, and you're going to be

27:28fine. So let's

27:29go back out. Go to download again. And the

27:32last one is PowerPoint. We've already seen

27:35an example

27:35of this. So let's select this view,

27:38download. We'll do another export test,

27:42open it up again.

27:45And this is what our button was doing,

27:46essentially was creating one of these for

27:48us without

27:49having to use the button. So in essence,

27:50you can see that the button here is quite

27:52handy because

27:52it gives me a specific feature. But on the

27:55other hand, this download option gives me

27:57all the

27:57features I could want. So you don't

27:59necessarily need to have it built into the

28:00dashboard.

28:01If it's been enabled, you'll be able to do

28:03it over here as well. Now you might see

28:05this interface

28:06for choosing this view or specific sheets

28:08from this dashboard, or specific sheets

28:10from this

28:11workbook. Essentially, this is talking

28:13about which specific item you want to

28:15download. And you can

28:16kind of see that you get this sort of

28:19different choice, different choices as you

28:21go through.

28:22Now, the only one to really talk about is

28:25specific sheets from this dashboard.

28:27This will give you each of these charts as

28:30their own thing. So if I go in here, for

28:32example,

28:33and I select the sales map, then we say

28:35unspecified, remember, automatic, and we

28:40can choose

28:41landscape for this, I think that's going to

28:42be better for the map, hit download, and

28:45what it

28:45will give me is just essentially that sales

28:48map. And it's a nice way for me to sort of

28:50isolate that

28:51and just see what's going on. So if you

28:52wanted to do that, and you wanted to

28:54generate that,

28:55that's how to do it. It's really super easy

28:57. You don't need to sort of stress too hard

28:58about it.

28:59Okay, that's everything in the download

29:01option is pretty thorough, you're going to

29:04be pretty much

29:04set. The next option is the share option.

29:06If I go ahead and click on that, I get this

29:09nice

29:09interface, I can then go ahead and tag a

29:11colleague here. So I can say hey, Tim, what

29:14's going on. Now

29:15in this particular setup, and you can see

29:17that I can just actually just type a

29:19username, I was

29:20treating it like a comment, you don't need

29:22to do that at all, I can just go ahead and

29:23type a name,

29:24and it will find that person, I can go

29:26ahead and type their email. Or if I know

29:28their enterprise

29:29ID, I can sometimes even type that. And

29:31again, it will find them absolutely fine.

29:34The user is going

29:35to need to be part of the Tableau server.

29:37That's how it knows their name is

29:38interesting. If you

29:39try and type someone's name in here, and

29:42they don't exist on the Tableau server, it

29:45won't come

29:45up. So therefore, you won't be able to

29:47share it with them. What you could do is

29:49you could copy

29:49this link though, and send it to them in an

29:52email. And then when they get access to

29:54Tableau, they'll

29:55then be able to click on that link and get

29:57the access if they've got the access to see

29:59that

29:59particular item. So if you want to send

30:01something to someone preemptively, because

30:02you know, they're

30:03joining the organization, copying this link

30:05and putting in an email will be a nice way

30:07to do that.

30:08And then once they arrive, you can maybe

30:10come back and share a bunch of things with

30:12them.

30:12But that's just sort of a mechanic, you

30:14have to work around and see what's best for

30:15you and your

30:16organization. Let me close the share view.

30:19And I'll go back to this option here, which

30:22is

30:22subscribe. Now if emails have been set up,

30:24you can actually have this view on this

30:26dashboard land in

30:27your inbox every single week or however

30:29often you want. The first thing to do is to

30:31choose what you

30:32want to see this particular view or the

30:34entire workbook, the entire workbook will

30:36go and get

30:37everything. So not just this specific tab,

30:39I'm on but every other tab, this dashboard

30:41only has one

30:42tab, so we don't need to worry too much.

30:43But if I go back to this view, this is

30:45going to be all that

30:46I get. The format I can have is an image, a

30:49PDF, and both. So this is a really nice

30:51thing to have.

30:52So I'm going to choose a PDF in this

30:54particular case, because something's

30:56interesting, I'd like

30:57to be able to forward it. And I think a PDF

30:59sometimes works a little bit better in that

31:01instance.

31:02Remember what I said about paper size,

31:03never choose the paper size, go to

31:05unspecified,

31:06choose your format, create a subject and

31:09call this weekly report. And you can add an

31:13additional

31:14message and then you can pick a schedule.

31:17Okay. Now the schedule, you can you can

31:19pick here on

31:20a selected schedule or when data refreshes.

31:22Okay. Now these are sort of two options and

31:25they sort of

31:25don't make sense unless you've used Tableau

31:27for a while. Essentially the data in Table

31:29au can refresh

31:30on a schedule. The author worries about

31:32this, you don't need to worry about it. The

31:34author worries

31:35about this, you don't need to worry about

31:37it. But why this is useful is that

31:38sometimes in

31:39organizations the data is not refreshed

31:41that often because essentially it doesn't

31:42change that often.

31:44So if a data set is only maybe changing

31:46once a week, then you might be better off

31:48choosing this

31:49option here. But you need to make sure that

31:51the data source does actually refresh

31:53because otherwise

31:54the first time you get this you'll get it

31:55and then you won't ever get anything again

31:57until it

31:58updates. And so some people it's actually

32:00quite nice to have this schedule selected

32:02because then

32:03even if the data hasn't updated, they're

32:05still getting that ping and it prompts them

32:07to go and

32:07say, hey, why hasn't this data been updated

32:10in two weeks now. If I scroll down to the

32:12bottom,

32:12you'll see a schedule. This is largely set

32:15up by your admin. Now your admin is the

32:17person who

32:18controls the whole entire Tableau server.

32:20They set up these schedules and you can

32:21essentially pick

32:22from the schedules depending on what's

32:24going on. Now a lot of these are actually

32:26pretty smart. So

32:28you can go in here and choose weekly,

32:30hourly, whatever you want to do. And this

32:32is sort of set

32:33up for you to do whatever you want. And the

32:35data updates are done on a completely

32:37different schedule.

32:38Those are sort of set in stone. So this

32:41scheduling is actually quite powerful. You

32:43can go in and set

32:44whatever you want. But just bear in mind

32:46that you might be getting email updates at

32:48a different

32:48frequency to how the data is being updated.

32:51That's why this option here to use a data

32:53refresh is

32:53there. But again, like I said, if you want

32:56the prompt, then just get it at the same

32:58time every

32:58week, let's say weekday, daily, every

33:01Monday, Tuesday, another Sunday, Wednesday,

33:05Thursday,

33:06Friday, I can choose this specific time. So

33:08let's go ahead and choose, what should we

33:11choose here,

33:12let's choose 9am in the morning, let's say

33:14910 in the morning, just after I've signed

33:17in. And you

33:18can see the times and then it's using for

33:20this as well. And there's a little link at

33:21the bottom to

33:22go manage the subscriptions. I won't click

33:24on that and deviate, of course. But if you

33:25do click on

33:26that, you can go and see all the things you

33:28've subscribed to and delete them from one

33:30place.

33:30If you want to manage that it's a bit like

33:32unsubscribing from emails, there's an

33:33interface

33:34place for that to do. So if I go ahead and

33:36hit subscribe, you can see that I get this

33:38little

33:38notification at the top saying I've created

33:40a subscription. And we're pretty much good

33:42to go.

33:43Metrics is super cool. In this particular

33:45setup, I'm a viewer, so I can't create any

33:47metrics. So

33:48if someone has created a metric, I can view

33:50the metrics there. And there's not much to

33:52say about

33:53this other than essentially a metric allows

33:55you to track one particular KPI from a

33:58dashboard always

33:59has to come from a dashboard. So let's say

34:01you wanted to track furniture sales, you

34:03could ask

34:04an explorer or somebody has elevated access

34:06to create a metric linked to the furniture

34:09sales,

34:09essentially, they'd click on this item. And

34:12this furniture value here would show up

34:14here as a line

34:15item. Okay, so that's something really

34:17useful to be aware of. Let me just quickly

34:20enable one so you

34:21can see what it looks like. Okay, so I'm

34:22going to refresh this. And just like that,

34:24we should have a

34:24metric available. Okay, so I've just gone

34:28and go to my metrics tab. And you can see,

34:32well, I have

34:33a metric. And now this metric here is

34:35specifically tracking the sales of

34:37furniture. And it's not

34:38tracking the yellow item is tracking the

34:40blue items, just the sales. And you can see

34:43the current

34:43value today is down 24.28%. And I think

34:47this is from a specific value, if I

34:49actually click on it,

34:51you see it takes me off to view. So it's

34:53basically saying that it's down from

34:55November 2019. And that

34:56change there is 24.28%. The hover over you

34:59can kind of see the number changing over

35:02time. But

35:03it's connected to this visualization, you

35:05can't create them just off some other data

35:07set has to

35:08be based on a visualization item. And again

35:11, you can't create this as a viewer, only an

35:13explorer

35:14or a creator can actually go in and create

35:16these and set these up. So if you want to

35:18use these,

35:19make sure someone is setting them up for

35:21you, so that you can do that. Okay, let's

35:23close that,

35:24go back, you can set up alerts on a

35:26particular dashboard. Now it's set up an

35:29alert, you need to

35:30do a couple of things. Okay. Now, if I

35:32click on this axis here, you'll see that I

35:35have nothing

35:35set up here. And you'll see that it's not

35:38letting me do anything. Now again, now just

35:40like metrics,

35:41alerts need to be set up for you by an

35:43explorer. So let me go ahead and set up an

35:46alert on this

35:47page. And then we're going to see what it

35:48looks like. Now, the reason I can't see any

35:50is because

35:51the author hasn't actually enabled them for

35:53me. So whoever's created the alert hasn't

35:55set it up

35:56for me to see. So what I've done in the

35:58background is I've changed that. So I've

36:00now gone and enabled

36:01those alerts to be visible to other people.

36:03And if I go ahead and refresh this again,

36:05and I go back into the alert section, you

36:09can see that I can now see an alert. And

36:12what I can do is

36:13I can add myself to it. So if I know there

36:15's an alert there that someone is set up, I

36:17can already

36:17see who a recipient is, I can add myself to

36:19that alert. And you can see that I've been

36:22added. When

36:22I do that, I get this actions tab here,

36:25where I can remove myself from that action

36:28and alert as

36:29well. So it's a really good nice thing to

36:31be able to do if you see an alert that you

36:33find useful,

36:34again, set it up. Now, it's sort of strange

36:37because of the viewer, this should be

36:38something

36:39you should be able to set up for whatever

36:41reason, it's not a current capability. So

36:43if you want to

36:44be able to set these up and use these, ask

36:46someone on an explorer or create a license

36:49to create them

36:50for you. And then you're going to be in a

36:51good spot. Go back to this top item here,

36:54which is

36:54called view original. Now this is called a

36:56custom view. Remember earlier on when we

36:58went into regions

36:59we had central and south ticked? What if

37:02that's the only thing I care about. And

37:04every time I come

37:05to this dashboard, I don't want to have to

37:07reselect these two things. So what I can do

37:09is I can

37:10actually go to this little view option here

37:14. I can name this North and South. And I can

37:18actually make

37:19it my default. Every time I come to this

37:21visualization, it loads this North and

37:23South version

37:24first. Okay, I'm going to hit save. What it

37:27does is actually creates a nice version

37:29just for me.

37:30And I can know that if I look at the URL

37:32here, you can see that it's gone really,

37:34really long.

37:34And the other thing to know is that this

37:37little tab here saying view North and South

37:40has changed

37:40to tell me that I'm looking at a different

37:43version of the same thing. If I click on it

37:45,

37:45I can actually go back to the original one,

37:47you can see that the original one was

37:49created by me,

37:50of course, if I click on that, it takes me

37:52back to the default one. So if you want to

37:54go back to

37:54what everyone else is looking at, you can.

37:57And if we go here, and I select my version,

37:59you can see

37:59that it loads up there just fine. Now you

38:01can see that it is a default. So what that

38:04means is if I

38:04go back out to let's say this export test

38:07tab here, and I go back into my overview,

38:09it's going

38:10to look at my credentials. And it's going

38:12to figure out that hey, I'm Tim, and I

38:14actually

38:14prefer the North and South version every

38:16single time. And it actually tells me up

38:18here. So this

38:19is what this is actually for. Essentially,

38:21you're saving a custom view for yourself,

38:23based on the original visualization to save

38:25you having to go and change a bunch of

38:27filters and

38:28do a bunch of things that you don't need to

38:30do. If I go back, and I go back into the

38:33original one,

38:34you'll also see things like the filters and

38:36the order dates are completely different

38:39where I go,

38:39if I go back into the North and South, you

38:42can see the order dates and profit ratio

38:45are set up

38:46slightly differently as well. So it's a

38:48nice way of saving these things and sort of

38:50looking at them

38:50in the future. Now the last one here is

38:52going to be data changes. This essentially

38:55notifies you if

38:55there have been any changes to the data or

38:58in the dashboard. And this is basically

39:00based on analysis

39:01now, at this moment in time, this is still

39:04a fairly new feature. So don't worry too

39:06much about this.

39:07I'll probably cover this in a separate

39:09video. But just to be aware, more and more

39:11features can get

39:12added to this toolbar over time. So as this

39:14video ages, so will its currency. So be

39:17sure to check

39:18out other videos on my channel to find out

39:20more about things like this as and when

39:21they're

39:22announced. The last thing is the data

39:24details. So when I click on this, I get a

39:26little bit of

39:27metadata about the data being used here. So

39:30you can see that I can see that this is in

39:32this work

39:33book. It's in the samples project, the

39:35author was me, and the exact date it was

39:37modified, it was

39:39modified a few minutes ago, because I

39:40changed the alerts and the settings, I can

39:43actually see the

39:44data source that is connected to. So you

39:46can see here, it's connected to sample e

39:48superstore. If I

39:49scroll down, I even get a view of the

39:51individual metrics. So I can go into profit

39:53ratio, for

39:54example, and I can see what the calculation

39:56looks like. So as a viewer, this is really

39:59nice, because

39:59if I have any doubts about how something's

40:01been done, and that metadata is available

40:03in Tableau,

40:04I can actually get to the bottom of that.

40:06So I can see here how the profit ratio is

40:08calculated.

40:08And I can actually select something called

40:11view more, it takes me off to another place

40:13where I can actually see something called

40:15the lineage. Now, in this particular setup,

40:18because I'm a viewer, I'm actually getting

40:20a few sort of errors here. But nonetheless,

40:23nonetheless, this is quite useful, because

40:25I can actually start to understand more

40:26about what's going on with my data set. But

40:29again, this is a for another day, don't

40:31worry too much

40:31about this. And I just wanted to show you

40:33that you can dig into these features a bit

40:35more.

40:36If I keep going down, you can see the other

40:38fields are also available. If I look at my

40:40order dates,

40:41and you can see there's nothing there,

40:43because no description or anything has been

40:45set up.

40:45Ideally, authors should be setting these up

40:48as well. So be sure to make sure that if

40:50you want

40:50these descriptions, and you think they're

40:52useful, make sure the author is setting

40:54them up

40:54appropriately when they're creating the

40:56workbook. So that's pretty much everything

40:59in the toolbar

41:00and everything in the dashboard. The key

41:02thing to remember is that essentially,

41:05really try and lean

41:06on any guides that have been created for

41:08the dashboard, that's going to be the

41:09fastest way

41:10to find out what the dashboard can do, and

41:12what the interface items can do. I've only

41:15shown you

41:15a fraction of the interface items, there's

41:17so many more available, things like

41:19parameters,

41:20set actions, parameter actions, all these

41:23are fantastic features that authors use

41:25to make things really interactive and smart

41:28. But they do require a little bit of

41:30awareness. And so

41:30the author really needs to tell you exactly

41:33what they do and how to use them because if

41:35you use

41:35them incorrectly, then they can actually

41:37break your visualizations as well. So be

41:40sure to check

41:40that out. Okay, this has been a long video,

41:43I hope you find it useful. I really hope I

41:45'm not the only

41:46one who makes videos about how to use a

41:47tablet dashboard. I'm sure other people

41:49will be making

41:50them as well. If I've missed anything in

41:52this video, or maybe there's something

41:54blatantly

41:54obvious that you think should be in this

41:56video, let me know and I'm sure we can make

41:58another video

41:58to fill the gap. But thank you for watching

42:00. And if it's the first time you found the

42:02channel,

42:03be sure to subscribe, like and let me know

42:05what you'd like to see more of about Table

42:07au.

42:07And if you're brand new to Tableau, check

42:09out my explainer on Tableau it's had over a

42:12quarter

42:12actually no, yeah, it's on its way to half

42:15a million views on YouTube, which is crazy.

42:17So if you haven't seen it, be sure not to

42:19miss out on that

42:20and check it out as well. Thanks for

42:22watching and I'll catch you in the next

42:24video.