0:00In Tableau 2020, Tableau have added the
0:05play button to the online experience of
0:09Tableau
0:09server.
0:10So what I'm going to do to show you this
0:12feature is I'm actually going to download
0:14an old workbook
0:15that I created back in 2014.
0:18It was absolutely crazy.
0:20So I built this as part of a challenge to
0:23try and visualize the Volvo Ocean Race.
0:25And you can see here that it needs a bit of
0:28love because the fonts don't quite fit on
0:30the screen.
0:31But what you can see here is a parameter
0:33that sort of slides all the way across and
0:35it changes
0:36the state of the visualization as it goes
0:38all the way across.
0:40So I'm going to download this workbook and
0:41then I'm going to publish this back up to
0:43Tableau online and we're going to see how
0:47the new play button works.
0:51Now I've already got the workbook on my
0:52desktop.
0:53So let's just open that.
0:57There you go.
0:58There you have it.
0:59I last opened this workbook in version 8.3
1:03of Tableau.
1:04It's absolutely crazy.
1:05But let's dive back in and this is the work
1:08book.
1:09So just pretty much as I left it a long
1:12while ago.
1:13And you can see here now that I'm in here,
1:14there's a couple of things we need to fix.
1:16Firstly, the map is actually quite an old
1:19style map.
1:20So what we can do is we can hop into this
1:21sheet and I'm actually going to change the
1:24map styles to slightly different color.
1:27I'm going to probably use the satellite
1:29version of the maps.
1:30I think that's probably the best.
1:32And I'll just see if maybe we can...
1:35No, let's actually just leave the washout
1:39kind of set to bright color and let's add
1:43some context for the map and then let's
1:45head back into the visualization.
1:47That's already so much better.
1:49Now the next thing is the font.
1:51So let's hop into that.
1:53And you can see here the font is just a tad
1:55too big.
1:56So what I'll do is I'll head in here and I
1:58'll just set it to about 14 and just hit
2:01apply,
2:02click okay.
2:03Now that should fit inside of the
2:05visualization.
2:06So let me just show you how this
2:07visualization works.
2:09If I just bring the slider, you can see
2:11here that I have this sort of parameter and
2:13it's
2:14got this play button.
2:15So what I can actually do is set the play
2:17button to fast and hit play.
2:19And you can see that it animates through
2:21each of the steps of the boat race.
2:24Essentially the boats were logging their
2:26location over time and I've just put those
2:28individual
2:29timestamps into some data prep and I've
2:31numbered them and then it's just playing
2:34through this
2:34sequence.
2:35So yeah, apart from the map that we've just
2:37changed, the visualization has remained
2:39pretty
2:39much exactly the same.
2:41So now let's publish this up to Tableau
2:43Online and see how this play button works
2:46on Tableau
2:46Online.
2:47Now I'm going to sign out and then sign
2:49back in just to make sure that I get into
2:52the right
2:52Tableau Online instance.
2:55And I'll just hop right into this.
2:59And I want to go to my test environment.
3:01So let's head on over to the test online
3:04environment.
3:05And now that I'm logged in, I can just go
3:07ahead and publish this workbook.
3:09So as soon as I publish this workbook, it
3:11will actually open the browser on the
3:13specific
3:14page.
3:15So I'm going to put this into my example
3:17visualizations folder.
3:19And I'll show sheets this tab just to make
3:22it easy to navigate between them.
3:24We'll publish this back up and then we'll
3:26try the new play button.
3:28Okay, so here we have it.
3:31This is the new workbook published to Table
3:34au Online.
3:35You can see the individual tabs available
3:38here.
3:39And I'm just going to go over to the
3:41homepage and we're just going to navigate
3:43this like
3:44I intended to navigate it.
3:45So if you actually hit this map icon, it
3:47should take you to the overview tab, which
3:50is what
3:50we have here.
3:51And you can see here when I publish this up
3:54, I left the slider right on the very top.
3:57But now what I'm going to do is I'm going
3:59to hit this play button and let's see what
4:01happens.
4:02So you can see it's a little bit slower
4:04than on the desktop experience because what
4:06it's
4:06having to do is it's using the browser
4:08capability to sort of play through this.
4:10But actually, if you know this in advance,
4:13you can actually design your visualization
4:15to make use of this speed so that it plays
4:18in a way that sort of makes sense.
4:20So maybe having less frequent intervals and
4:24having it sort of play larger chunks of
4:26time
4:27so the actual change is a little bit sort
4:29of more enticing.
4:31Now I'm going to stop that video and I'm
4:34just going to go back to Tableau.
4:37Now it's important to bear in mind that
4:39with the addition of this play button in
4:41the browser,
4:42Tableau have done this alongside animations
4:45.
4:45And so you just need to bear in mind that
4:47animations will cause this play button to
4:50behave slightly differently.
4:53Let me just head on over to the format
4:55options and let's enable animations.
4:57And the first thing that you'll notice is
5:00that whilst animations are enabled, certain
5:02chart items aren't visible.
5:04Let me just focus in here.
5:07Now in this mark type here, what I did is I
5:10enabled the history to show for a certain
5:14number of records and that kind of creates
5:16this effect like the boats are going
5:17through
5:18the water.
5:19Now watch what happens when I switch on
5:22animations.
5:23That feature disappears.
5:26And so whilst animations are nice, they do
5:30have an effect on other pieces of content
5:34on your dashboards, in particular this play
5:36button.
5:37Now the play button performs really well
5:40here on the desktop.
5:41You can actually see sort of the animated
5:43effect sort of happening and it's partly
5:46due
5:46to this duration that's set over here.
5:48So that partly controls how everything sort
5:51of works.
5:52Now the key thing here is that if you then
5:55publish this up to the Tableau server, the
5:58combination of animations and this play
6:00button will lead to slow performance.
6:02So just bear that in mind if you're
6:04building anything with this play button.
6:07Okay that's it.
6:08If you've enjoyed this video, drop a like.
6:10If not, drop me a comment below and let me
6:12know what kind of content you'd like to see
6:14in the future.
Tableau | Data visualisation | Tool strategy