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Tableau | Data visualisation | Tool strategy

Tableau 2020.2: High viz data quality warnings on Server & Online

Let me show you how Tableau 2020.2's high visibility data quality warnings put data issues right in front of your users, in context.

Tim Ngwena •6 May 2020 •1 min read •4 min watch •1.4K

Part ofWhat's new in Tableau 2020.2

High visibility data quality warnings are set on a published data source by an owner or administrator via the quality warning option, with up to 4,000 characters of description
Once saved, the warning appears as a toast notification plus a persistent indicator beside the data source, showing the message, date and author
When opening a view or dashboard built on that data source, users get an immediate notification that important data quality warnings affect the view
The warning detail sits in context within the view via the data details pane, which you can hide or reopen as needed
This improves transparency about issues such as stale data or problem fields, which matters in fast-changing business environments

0:00In Tableau 2020.2 Tableau have added the

0:02ability to add high visibility data quality

0:06warnings.

0:07This basically means that any quality

0:08warnings that you've added on the data set

0:11become highly

0:12visible in a view. That sounds like a

0:14complete tongue twister, absolute jargon,

0:17but let's have

0:18a go at showing you what that actually

0:20means. Okay, I'm going to go into a

0:22visualization. I'm

0:23going to go to this one you can see here

0:26where I built an example link out to a

0:28Salesforce item.

0:29Okay, the key thing here is I want to see a

0:31data quality warning here in context of

0:34this

0:34visualization to tell me if there's any

0:37issues with the data set. I'm in the

0:38visualization. I

0:39don't see anything here right now. Now what

0:42I could do is I could go back one step and

0:44look at

0:45my views. So this is typically how it

0:47access the views, but not many people think

0:50to go to data

0:51sources and just to check if there's any

0:54issues on this particular tab or even

0:56better go back to the

0:58lineage which is part of the data

0:59management add-on and actually just check

1:01if there's any

1:01sort of historical issues or challenges

1:04that this particular data source presents.

1:06So what Tableau

1:07have done is they've added the ability for

1:09you as an administrator or an owner of a

1:11data set

1:12to add high visibility warnings and so let

1:14me just show you how that works. At the

1:16moment you'll see

1:17that this column here on the left hand side

1:19with this exclamation mark is empty. There

1:22's nothing

1:22there and this is where typically the

1:24quality warnings would appear. So let me

1:26just zoom out a

1:27little bit and let's just set one of these

1:29up. I'll tick quality warning and you'll

1:31see here

1:32that I have the ability to enable the

1:34warning. I can choose what kind of warning

1:36I want. I'm going

1:37to just set a standard warning and I'm

1:39going to make this highly visible okay and

1:42I'll basically

1:43just type something sort of basic in here.

1:46Okay I'll just put a generic one. Obviously

1:49you'd need

1:50more descriptions in there but bear in mind

1:51that users will actually be able to see

1:53this and you

1:54have 4,000 characters so you can actually

1:56put quite a lot of detail in there. Okay so

1:58we've added this

1:59quality warning. I'm just going to hit save

2:02so it persists that warning and now you can

2:05actually see

2:05two things. You get this toast icon here at

2:08the top. This is a toast notification

2:10actually. I can

2:11clear that away now that I've understood

2:13that the notification is there and then I

2:16now get this new

2:17indicator here on the left hand side to

2:18tell me that there's a warning and when I

2:20click on that

2:21I actually get some context. Okay so all

2:24the information I typed there, the date,

2:26who's typed it

2:27and the warning is all available to me as a

2:31user. Okay so now the real secret is if I

2:34go into a

2:35dashboard with this particular data source

2:37used will I get that warning? Let's have a

2:40look and see.

2:41So let's go back to the home page.

2:42Previously we were looking at this

2:44particular view. When I

2:45click on it for the first time I go

2:47straight into it but notice I get this

2:50notification straight

2:51away. Important data quality warnings

2:54affect this view and if I open the data

2:56details you'll see that

2:57that's also available there but when I zoom

3:00out it's over here on the right hand side.

3:03So this

3:03information that I've typed in actually

3:06sits in context with my view. So if there's

3:08issues with

3:08a field or a calculation or any particular

3:11problem with that database, maybe the data

3:13is stale and

3:14you know refresh isn't updating as often as

3:17it should do, those notifications actually

3:19come up

3:20here and they get full context as to what's

3:22happening. That's really important for

3:25transparency

3:26with your data sets especially in the

3:28business where data can change really

3:29really really fast.

3:31Okay if you want to hide this you can just

3:33hit x if you want to bring it back you can

3:35actually see

3:35the data details here so you can always

3:37bring that back as and when you need to if

3:39you see this icon

3:41enabled. That's pretty much the feature in

3:43a nutshell, if you've enjoyed this video

3:45hit

3:46subscribe, hit the like button or if not

3:48drop a comment below and let me know what

3:50kind of content

3:51you'd like to see.

Tableau has added the ability to view alerts about data quality in prominent locations. These warnings can contain information about errors, delays, stale data or deprecated fields that are being used. Be sure to check out out my professional home, @The Information Lab for more great Tableau, Alteryx and AWS content. Visit my blog https://tableautim.com Say hi on Twitter: https://twitter.com/tableautimFiles used in my videos for 2020.2 videos: https://j.mp/2YvaEot ----Join my Discord Server. https://discord.gg/shBuxXr it’s a little sparse at the moment but hang in there.