0:00Hey, it's Tim here. In today's video, I'm
0:01going to be showing you a nice little trick
0:03that I don't
0:04think we use enough. And it's essentially
0:06called the describe function, I'm going to
0:08show it to you
0:09in two contexts. Okay, to start with, I'm
0:11going to open up Tableau. And I'm just
0:13going to go and open
0:14the sample workbook that's over here on the
0:16bottom left, I'm just going to hit Super
0:18store. And what
0:19that should do is open up that workbook for
0:21us in Tableau, we're just going to use this
0:23as an
0:24example, you don't need to build anything
0:26for this video. Now, what you can do when
0:28you click on any
0:29sheet, you get this sort of contextual
0:31highlight that goes around the sheet. So if
0:33I just click on
0:34this map here, if I actually have to click
0:36on a data point, otherwise, the sheet doesn
0:38't do
0:38anything. But if I just click on the sheet,
0:40you'll see that they get this sort of gray
0:41border. If I
0:42click on another sheet that goes gray too.
0:44And so that contextual sort of highlighting
0:46lets me know
0:47that I've selected the sheet. Once you have
0:49a sheet selected, you can actually go up to
0:52the worksheet
0:53menu. And if you go down here, you'll see
0:55this option saying to describe the sheet.
0:57Now there's
0:58also a shortcut for this, which is Command
1:01E on a Mac, Ctrl E on Windows. And this is
1:04sort of where
1:04the magic happens. So you can see here, I
1:06've got the chart, I'm just going to hit
1:07Command E. And
1:08boom, we get a description of the sheet.
1:11Now, I can't tell you how useful this is.
1:13Because if ever,
1:14there was like an automatic way of just
1:16describing how something is built, it's
1:18essentially all here.
1:19So if you just I'm just going to read this
1:20exactly as it says it, the plot of summer
1:22sales for order
1:23date month broken down by category color
1:26shows details about order profitable, the
1:29data is
1:29filtered on action state province region
1:32order date and profit ratio. The action
1:34state province
1:35filter keeps 127 members the region filter
1:38keeps central north and south. The order
1:41date filter
1:41keeps all the values the profit ratio
1:43filter keeps all values. And you get the
1:45point. It's literally
1:47spelling out exactly what's happening this
1:49year. And okay, it's a bit robotic, but it
1:51's actually
1:51pretty good. The thing I really like about
1:53this is this, it tells you what's on the
1:55shelves,
1:56rows, columns, filters and color. And
1:58actually, this is a very good way to learn
2:01Tableau. Anytime
2:02you have any worksheet, this is sort of the
2:04contextual memory that should be running in
2:06the
2:07back of your head, what's on rows, what's
2:08on columns, what's on filters, and what's
2:10on color,
2:11what is in each of these calculations. So
2:13it actually breaks down the dimensions and
2:15what's
2:16going on there. And it breaks down the
2:17measures along with the calculations. And
2:19this is just such
2:20a nice way of describing a sheet. Now, I
2:23have been known to have been asked to
2:25document a Tableau
2:26workbook. Now, it's kind of funny, I find
2:28being asked that question really sort of
2:30strange, because
2:32you asked me to document a tool that is
2:34like, it's incredibly easy. And you asked
2:36me to document how
2:37to build a sheet. And my response has
2:39always been, well, why would someone who
2:42doesn't know Tableau
2:43be doing this, right? You don't want to do
2:46want to give an analytics tool that's got a
2:48really
2:49complicated dashboard to someone who doesn
2:50't have experience, you know, working with
2:52dashboards.
2:53But anyway, I've been asked to do it. And
2:56so what I essentially did is I went through
2:58each of the
2:58sheets, and I just wholesale copied each
3:00and every one of these into a Word document
3:02. And then what I
3:03did is I took a screenshot of the chart, I
3:05put it right at the top, and then I titled
3:07the section,
3:08and I moved on to the section, I spent
3:10about half an hour doing that for a really
3:11complicated
3:12workbook I built ages ago. And then I was
3:14told it was too much information. So you
3:16can't win
3:17these days. But nevertheless, it's a really
3:19, really good way of documenting a sheet and
3:22just
3:22actually just, you know, getting a little
3:24bit more context about Tableau and what it
3:25's doing.
3:26Now, the other context of the describe file
3:28is actually when you go into any particular
3:30sheet,
3:31and you look at the fields on the left hand
3:33side, as you scroll through each and every
3:35one of these
3:35items, you'll see that you get lots of
3:37dimensions, and you get lots of sort of
3:39contextual information
3:40with these icons here on the left hand side
3:43, that tell you about data types, what's
3:45going on with
3:45hierarchies, whether fields are Boolean or
3:49not, all of these are sort of good
3:51indicators of what's
3:52going on. But if you want a really sort of
3:55in depth, sort of breakdown of a particular
3:58field,
3:58just right click on it. And if you go down
4:00to the bottom, you see the describe feature
4:02again. So if
4:03I hit describe, you'll see that I get here
4:05city, and I get all the details, and I even
4:08get the
4:09first few members, it doesn't do all of
4:10them, it normally does the top 20. But this
4:12is a really
4:13good way of seeing what's in the field
4:15without loading the entire field. And
4:17sometimes you might
4:18not get the information. So you see here,
4:20there's a little load button, it's sort of
4:22grayed out,
4:22because there's nothing else to load. But
4:24if you load one of these, and it's not got
4:26values,
4:27that's essentially because it's just you
4:28just need to click that button. And it's
4:30just not being
4:30cached. So if I was I think if I go to
4:33something like a calculation, you can see
4:35here that it
4:36doesn't have the initial values, because it
4:38's a calculation. And when I hit load, it
4:40actually goes
4:41and gets the calculation data for us. So
4:43that that's that's the load button working.
4:45But those
4:46are some really sort of nice contexts to
4:48use the describe button, you can see here
4:50that it's,
4:50it's just really simple on measures. But
4:52you know, if you're working with a database
4:54that has lots of
4:55complicated data, and you just want to get
4:57a handle of Okay, what does this data look
5:00like,
5:00it's a nice way of getting in there and
5:02finding out. Last context is, of course, in
5:05a calculated
5:06field, let's say we write a really
5:08complicated calculation, we bring it in. So
5:10let me just bring
5:11in sales forecast here from the left hand
5:13side. And when we click on the sales
5:15forecast, inside
5:16of it, you'll see that on the right hand
5:18side, there's a calculation. So the
5:20describe function
5:21also works to tell you a bit more about
5:23what's going on. And you can see that it's
5:25right here.
5:26So of course, if I hit describe, it
5:28actually does a pop out. And it shows me
5:30exactly the same
5:31information that I saw when I right clicked
5:33described on the left hand side. So it's
5:36essentially the same way of accessing the
5:38same thing. But here you're doing in
5:40context of a
5:40calculation. So that's it command D, and
5:43essentially the describe function, which
5:45works in a sheet,
5:46it works on the dimensions and measures
5:48pane. And it also works in calculation, it
5:50's a really,
5:50really nice tool to have, I use it all the
5:52time just to get some context into a field
5:54and what's
5:55going on. I think you should do the same.
5:56And if you've enjoyed this video, you know
5:58what to do.
5:59If not, let me know in the comments and let
6:00me know what you'd like to see instead.
6:02Thanks for
6:02watching.
Tableau | Data visualisation | Productivity