0:00Hey, it's Tim here. In today's video, I
0:01just want to let everyone know that I still
0:03hate hacks. To
0:05find out why I'm bringing this up again,
0:07let's get stuck in. Okay, so you might be
0:09wondering,
0:09hey, like, what are hacks? What do you mean
0:11hacks? Tableau is a brilliant product. And
0:14it is,
0:14I love using it, I use it every single day.
0:16But something people ask me all the time is
0:18, hey,
0:19I've seen this technique, and it involves
0:21doing something funky with map layers to
0:24get things in
0:25a certain way so that I can make this
0:26custom chart. Hey, do you have a video on
0:28that? And I'm always
0:29like, No, and I'm proud to say no, because,
0:32in my opinion, those are hacks, those are
0:34not sort of
0:35intentional uses of the product. And so you
0:38might then say, Well, hey, Tim, who are you
0:41to tell me
0:43how to use Tableau? And that's not what I'm
0:44here to do. I'm not here to tell you how to
0:46use Tableau
0:47how you should use Tableau. What I am here
0:50to say, though, is that I think sometimes
0:53we let
0:53too many features or too many hacks become
0:56accepted practice. I've done a video about
0:59this, I've put
0:59a thumbnail on screen. And in fact, I just
1:01want to reiterate this point so much so
1:03that I'll put
1:04that video at the end of this video,
1:06because I'm only going to need another
1:08minute to explain why
1:09I'm peeved off about this again. If I click
1:12out of this, you'll see on LinkedIn Tableau
1:15posted
1:16this post about pie charts now all the
1:18chart types to trigger someone in the
1:20community with this was
1:22always going to be it was about pie pie
1:24charts. And again, I have nothing wrong
1:27with the visible.
1:28I think these, this workbook that's being
1:30used as an example is actually a fantastic
1:33use case. But
1:35when I look at the examples that are in
1:38this video, and by the way, this is a this
1:42is a chap
1:42called Brian Tong, he's actually a famous
1:44YouTuber, Salesforce have this thing where
1:46they go out and
1:47essentially get influences to come and
1:49promote their products. Where it comes back
1:52to bite them
1:52is that sometimes it's very clear those
1:54influences are just reading off a script.
1:56And that's exactly
1:57what Brian is doing here, you can actually
1:59see the teleprompter in his eyes. But he's
2:01just reading
2:01off a script is essentially going off what
2:04he's been told to do. And in this little
2:07clip,
2:07let's just get to this, we have a sunburst,
2:11not a native chart in Tableau. It's easy to
2:15do,
2:16but it's not native. We then have radio
2:19charts. Also not native, we did just have a
2:23pilot,
2:23which allows us to build these but not a
2:25native chart. In order to do that, at the
2:27moment,
2:28you have to go out and do a few tricks with
2:30Tableau. Now, there are templates, there
2:33are
2:33workbooks that have these templates built
2:36out, you can even go get a Tableau prep
2:38template that goes
2:39and explains how to do all this. So your
2:41data comes through the pipeline, and it's
2:43ready for
2:43this particular type of chart. But it's not
2:45native, they require a lot more work than I
2:47think Tableau is used to marketing its
2:49product to say that it's just drag and drop
2:51. These are far
2:52from that. If we then go ahead to the next
2:55one. Donut, Donut is one of my favourite
2:58ones, because
2:59it's so simple to do. In fact, if you go
3:01see my video on pie charts, I actually show
3:03you how to
3:04do a donut chart right at the end. So this
3:06is so quick that it's not really a hack,
3:08but it still
3:09is a hack. Because to get it looking like
3:11this, it's not a native chart type, you can
3:13't just go
3:14drag Donut from the marks type pane and
3:16bring it in, you have to go into the pie
3:19chart, duplicate a
3:20field with an average of one or sum of one
3:23or min of one, whatever, get the second pie
3:26chart,
3:27format it, remove the detail, put the label
3:29on there. And then when you hover over it,
3:32make sure
3:32that on one you have the hover over for
3:34this thing. And on the other you have the
3:36hover over
3:36the detail like it's quick to do. But if
3:38you're new to tableau, and you just think
3:40this is an easy
3:41to drag and drop thing, then hey, it's not
3:44it's not as easy as it looks. And so to me,
3:46all three of these are hacks. But here we
3:49are, we have tableau marketing this as
3:51something you can
3:53just do. And I sort of have an issue with
3:55that, because this leads to this acceptance
3:59of these
3:59hacks as features. And what drives me sort
4:02of up the wall is that this then makes it
4:04into an exam,
4:05if you go to tableau exams, I once did an
4:07exam, and it asked for what was the way to
4:10create a
4:10button to do something. And the answer was
4:12a parameter and an action in order to
4:14recreate
4:15something that in my mind was a hack and
4:17not an actual feature. So there's something
4:20about it
4:21that really frustrates me. And here's the
4:24sort of irony, we've just had a pilot for
4:26one of these
4:27chart types, which is in a way sort of the
4:29best acceptance that this shouldn't be how
4:31it's done,
4:31that pilot showed the way this should be
4:33done, and go check out my video on radio
4:36charts that I
4:37released recently. So I hate hacks
4:39passionately, I really do. And I just had
4:43to take this opportunity
4:45to share this again. Now, just to finish
4:47this off, I think there's there's one
4:49beautiful comment on
4:50this page, which was from Andrew Levin and
4:53his advice is think beyond the pie, and all
4:56its
4:57derivatives.
5:01Thank you.
5:07[ Silence ]
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