I still hate Tableau hacks

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 ]