0:00Hey, it's Tim here. In this video I'm going
0:01to be touching on a new feature in 2021.2,
0:04which is the Collections. Now, Collections
0:06have actually been in an open public beta
0:09for a while
0:09now, but they've actually taken on a lot of
0:11feedback from users over the last few
0:14months,
0:14and they've incorporated it into what they
0:16're sort of doing as their first official
0:18release,
0:18which is what we have for us in 2021.2. Now
0:21, what I'm going to do in this video is show
0:23you how to
0:24find Collections, how to create them, add
0:26items to them, remove items from
0:28Collections, and then
0:30lastly I'm going to show you how
0:31permissions work with Collections. It's
0:33actually quite a smart way
0:34of working with them, it's very well
0:35thought through, so I'll go through that at
0:37the very end.
0:38So I'm going to put timestamps in the video
0:40so you can access all of that very easily,
0:42but let's get stuck in. So the first thing
0:44to bear in mind is that, you know, in 2021.
0:472 they've
0:48actually added quite a lot of new asset
0:49types, so we've got lenses that are being
0:52added, and now we
0:53have something called Collections, and
0:55Collections get their own dedicated space
0:57here on the left
0:58hand side. I think this is quite smart
0:59because what Tableau is starting to realize
1:01is that,
1:02listen, every single analyst has their own
1:04world, and essentially we want to be able
1:06to
1:07access our own version of the world
1:09whenever we go to Tableau Server.
1:11Previously you went to Tableau
1:12Server and you saw what whatever was made
1:14for everyone, you sort of had no customized
1:17view,
1:17so Collections are sort of the first way to
1:20do that. So now if I hit Collections here,
1:23you'll
1:23see that I have no Collections set up, so
1:24it's completely banked. So we're going to
1:26go ahead
1:26and create a new one and just show you how
1:28this works. I'm going to go ahead and
1:29create a new
1:30collection just by clicking the new
1:31collection option, and the first thing you
1:33do is you see
1:33it just creates a collection straight away
1:35and it names it after me by default, so
1:37that's really
1:38sort of important, and the thing is is they
1:40're private by default, I'll come to that in
1:42a second,
1:43but essentially here's the first hint Table
1:45au is letting you create your own little
1:47world in this,
1:48and the sort of the big signal here is that
1:50this is private. You can obviously star it
1:53so it's in
1:53your favorites of the top right hand side
1:55menu if you want to do that, you can share
1:57your collections,
1:57I'll come to that in a second, and you get
1:59these other sort of controls you can share,
2:01you can see
2:02the details, rename it, permissions, change
2:04who the owner is, all of that great stuff.
2:07Now you can
2:07also give it a description, I'll just do
2:10that here, and you'll see here that once I
2:12give it a
2:13description, I save that, that's now
2:15persisted, and you can go in and update
2:16that and that's sort
2:17of nice to have, but essentially you're
2:19sort of creating this space, so you've got
2:21to really think
2:21about what goes into that description. Now
2:24the next thing is what goes into a
2:25collection, so
2:26basically the best way to think about
2:29collections is tags, but like a lot better,
2:32just monumentally
2:34much better. So tags have actually always
2:36existed in tabla, I'm not going to sort of
2:37break away and
2:38show you what those are, but essentially
2:40you've always been able to use tags to
2:42classify content,
2:43and the great thing about tags is they've
2:45existed across all asset types, so I can
2:47tag a workbook,
2:48I can tag a data source, I can tag a
2:50project, all of those things have sort of
2:52been able to be
2:53tagged, and now what you can do with
2:55collections is essentially do the same
2:57thing, but instead of
2:58using tags which sort of work like hashtags
3:00, instead you're creating a space which
3:02allows
3:02you to sort of bring content from lots of
3:04different places. So the big hint here is
3:07that
3:07they want you to go and explore content to
3:09bring it in, so it's sort of unintuitive,
3:11it'd be great
3:12to have like a way of adding content in
3:14here, but the button here just basically
3:16sends you to the
3:17explore tab, the explore tab is exactly the
3:19same as this one, so essentially just go on
3:22to server
3:22anywhere and go find the content that you
3:24really want to add to your collection. So
3:27if you go here
3:28to the 2021.2, I can add this project to my
3:31collection, so I'm just going to go click
3:34on
3:34that and you'll see that it looks for the
3:36server and sees what collections are
3:38available, and if
3:38I don't find the one that I like, I can
3:40actually go ahead and create a new one
3:42right here, I'll
3:43call this test collection, and you'll see
3:45that I think it actually puts that content
3:47straight into
3:48that collection, so you'll see that it's
3:50automatically ticked and it tells me that
3:52this
3:52is new, the one that I've just created, but
3:54actually I'm going to choose this one as
3:56well,
3:57so you can put things in multiple
3:58collections, so this is where things get
4:01really cool because
4:02if you've got something that's super
4:03important, you can put it in multiple
4:05collections and just
4:06send the link to the collection to one
4:08people and then every time you add things
4:10into the collection,
4:11everything's just going to be in one place,
4:13so that's a really sort of nice quality of
4:14life
4:15improvement. You can also search this if I
4:17search Tim, it obviously will search sort
4:20of just my
4:21content, but because there's such little
4:22content on here, it sort of doesn't work,
4:24if I search
4:25tests you'll see that works, the reason Tim
4:27came up there is because I created both of
4:29these,
4:29so that's why it's coming up twice there,
4:31so let's go ahead and just tick both of
4:33these collections
4:34and just click add, we'll add the contents
4:35of the collection and there you go, we've
4:37added a project
4:38to a collection, and I'm going to go back
4:40into the explore tab, I'll go back into
4:432021.2 and you'll
4:44see that I have a bunch of different things
4:46here, so let's go to this list view, so as
4:48you can see
4:49here I have a range of different things and
4:51what is interesting here is you can't add a
4:53lens to a
4:54collection, but you can add some of these
4:56other things, so if I tick these two here,
4:58you go to
4:58actions, you can see that I get the option
5:00to add a collection, but if I tick the lens
5:02you'll see
5:03that that does that option to add
5:05collections actually disappears, so not
5:07everything can go
5:08into collection, but most things can go
5:10into collection, so now that we've ticked
5:12those two,
5:12let's go ahead and add those to a
5:14collection. Now the last thing I want to
5:16add to my collection is a
5:18prep flow, because of course Tableau prep
5:20is another sort of capability, so I'd love
5:22to be
5:23able to add my flows to this, so let's go
5:25back to the explore tab and let's go to my
5:28little drop-down
5:28that shows me all the different kinds of
5:30content that I have, so I've got flows here
5:33, so let's go
5:33into the flows and let's add a couple of
5:35these, notice how some of these are still
5:37in the draft
5:38stage, I never finished them, so I'll go
5:40ahead and add all of them to my collection
5:43again, so
5:44you can start to see the power of this, you
5:46know if you're using Tableau server every
5:48single day
5:49and you can actually go and create your own
5:50little sort of collection and make it
5:52really useful,
5:53and then if that collection is useful for
5:55people you can obviously go and add more.
5:58Now I'm able
5:59to add items to one collection, I think it
6:01's because these are in draft, so let's try
6:04that again,
6:05I think that's probably the case, I think I
6:07was maybe pushing my luck too much, yeah
6:09that's correct
6:09so I wasn't able to add the drafts to my
6:11collection, but I was able to add the
6:14finished flow to my
6:15collection, so that's all good. Let's go in
6:17here and let's look at something else, let
6:19's see what
6:20else we can add, let's add a metric to our
6:22collection, so you'll see here we have a
6:24bunch
6:24of different metrics, I'll add some of my
6:26favorite metrics, I'll go ahead and add it
6:28to my collection,
6:29so you can start to see here the way I'm
6:31doing this is I'm going to the asset and I
6:33'm adding
6:33them to my collection, I don't have to do
6:35it using this grouped method, I can go to
6:37any one of these,
6:38whatever view you have, so I can hit these
6:40three dots and you'll see that I can add it
6:42to a
6:42collection there, if I'm in grid view, some
6:45of you might be using the grid view
6:46predominantly instead
6:47of the list view, then again you can add to
6:50collections just like that and in this case
6:52everything here should already be added,
6:54but if it's not been added then you'll see
6:56that there.
6:57Now in this little toast menu that appears
6:59in green, you do get a link to go to the
7:01collection
7:02once you've added something there, so if
7:04you go ahead to the collection you'll see
7:06that now my
7:06collection is pretty busy and I've got a
7:08bunch of different things, I've got my flow
7:10, I've got my
7:10metric, I've got my workbook, everything
7:13here is really nicely laid out. Now I was
7:15sort of hoping
7:16we get a bit more control to customize this
7:20, use metrics to you know have big big ass
7:23numbers,
7:23bands on the top and dashboards below and
7:26to create some context we saw some really
7:29nice
7:29prototypes of this at Tableau conference
7:31last year, I'll try and put that up on
7:32screen,
7:33but unfortunately we don't have that in
7:34this first release, maybe that's where
7:36Tableau is heading,
7:37but nevertheless whether you're in list
7:39view or grid view this is a really nice way
7:41of collecting
7:42all of your content in one place. So I've
7:43shown you how to find the collections, I've
7:46shown you
7:46how to create one, I've shown you how to
7:48add content to the collection, now I'm
7:50going to show
7:50you how to remove content from the
7:52collection. So what you can do is you can
7:54just take any of these
7:55three once you're in here and actually you
7:57can just go here to the actions and remove
7:59them from
7:59the collection, so this is by far the
8:01easiest way to do this and when you remove
8:03something from a
8:04collection it's again instantaneous and the
8:06page refreshes and boom you've removed them
8:09, super
8:09super simple. Now the final thing to look
8:11at is of course permissions, now what
8:14collections don't do
8:15is they don't break the permissions model
8:18in Tableau okay, so by virtue any
8:20collection that's
8:21created is by default private to the person
8:24who created them, so what has to happen is
8:27that person
8:28has to share them for them to be visible to
8:30other people, so if I go in here and I
8:32share stuff and I
8:32just say send it to my other version of
8:36myself and I'll say hey one access and I
8:39hit share,
8:40what I've essentially done there is sent
8:43off the link but what I haven't done is
8:45grant the
8:46permissions and so one nice thing with the
8:47collections is if you do share something
8:49with
8:49someone it automatically pops up the
8:51permissions window so you can grant that
8:53person permission, so
8:55now that I've shared it with the user I'm
8:57going to give them access to actually look
8:59at the thing, so
9:00the sharing interface is just sending them
9:02a link and then the permissions interface
9:04that comes up
9:04afterwards is actually giving them access
9:07to see the collection. Now if we go into a
9:09little bit
9:10more detail you'll notice that the little
9:12private icon has disappeared because I've
9:14shared it with
9:14someone it's no longer private so now that
9:17's gone out to the world it's no longer
9:19private, I can go
9:20to these three dots and go down here to
9:21permissions and manage my permission so I
9:24can see essentially
9:25what's going on, so let's go ahead and
9:26click in permissions box and see what's
9:28going on, so you
9:29can see here that I've given view access to
9:32one other person okay and the other version
9:35of myself
9:35hasn't actually logged in and sort of
9:37looked at the permissions and accepted the
9:39link so
9:39I think that's why it's not showing up here
9:42but I can of course add different people, I
9:44can add
9:44groups to my permissions and I can go and
9:47say view and that's really the only
9:49permission here that
9:50can only view permissions. Now you're
9:52probably wondering well what happens if I
9:54put something
9:55in a collection that someone doesn't have
9:58access to in that object's owner's
10:00permission, they won't
10:01see it so it's super simple if you don't
10:03have access to see something and it gets
10:05added to
10:06a collection that you have access to you
10:07just won't see it, it just won't appear,
10:09that's a
10:10really important dynamic to be aware of
10:12that's kind of cool though because you can
10:14sort of create
10:14these collections which are focused on a
10:18project so you for example in fast moving
10:21consumer goods it's sometimes important for
10:23finance and sales to have access to the
10:25same
10:25content but to see slightly different
10:27things. What you could do here is create a
10:29collection
10:30for the business area they're managing let
10:32's take for example biscuits and then in
10:35that collection
10:36you could have content for finance people,
10:38content for sales people in those
10:40individual
10:41workbooks manage those permissions so they
10:43can only see their respective things but
10:45share one
10:46collection to that group of people so you
10:48give everyone one link but you're actually
10:50managing
10:51the permissions of what they see once they
10:53get there in the respective content which
10:56just makes
10:56things so much better it makes having
10:58duplicate versions of content everywhere
11:00sort of not
11:01necessary and it also makes permissioning
11:03more enjoyable because you now have another
11:05dynamic
11:06that you can use to separate out content so
11:08that's pretty much collections in a
11:10nutshell I've covered
11:11permissions I've shown you how to create
11:14them I've shown you how to you know set
11:16them up last thing I
11:17can show you is how to delete collections
11:19so of course if you go to these three dots
11:21and you go
11:21to delete and you get that option now this
11:23is a pretty nuclear thing so be really
11:25careful before
11:26you do that and the other thing you can do
11:28is you can change who the owner is so I
11:30could for example
11:31give someone else the ability to manage
11:33this permission this is handy if you're
11:35moving on and
11:35you want to give stewardship to someone
11:37else or you've been promoted and you want
11:38to give it to
11:39someone else you want them to be able to
11:41manage it that's that's perfectly sort of a
11:43possible thing
11:44but nevertheless I'm going to go ahead and
11:46delete this and just hit delete when we
11:48delete the
11:48collection everything that goes where it
11:50goes but the content stays exactly where it
11:52was so now you
11:53see here I'm back to square one remember
11:55earlier on I created a test collection
11:58which had a piece
11:59of content that was actually in two
12:01collections that's still here in this case
12:02it's a project
12:03that's here in my collection and so now I'm
12:06able to sort of browse that and just get on
12:08with my
12:09work as as I should be able to so that's
12:11pretty much collections in a nutshell there
12:14's plenty of
12:14options and capabilities with this I think
12:16this will be a really really cool feature I
12:18think it'll
12:18be a really nice additional thing to see it
12:21's interesting that it gets its own little
12:24sort of
12:24space here and projects for example don't
12:27get any sort of love in this respect so I'm
12:29interested to
12:30see how tabla really developed this further
12:32I've heard of the concept especially at
12:34conference of
12:35spaces I'd love this to become sort of more
12:38personal and sort of more interesting for
12:40people
12:40to use so that when you log into tablo
12:43server you can go out here and just set
12:45this particular
12:46collection as your own start page rather
12:48than having to set one start page for
12:50absolutely ever
12:52okay thanks for watching I hope you've
12:54enjoyed this check out all the other videos
12:56on 2021.2
12:57and I hope you're enjoying the content if
12:58there's a video about something you'd like
13:00me to make that
13:01isn't about tablo or even 2021.2 then
13:04please get in touch otherwise I'll catch
13:06you in the next video
13:07and yeah I'll catch you later
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