Tableau 2021.1 preview ahead of release

0:00Hey, it's Tim here. In today's video, I'm

0:02going to be doing a preview of what's

0:03coming

0:04in Tableau 2021.1. Now, I have to caveat

0:07this and say technically a preview would

0:09mean that

0:10all the features we're seeing here on this

0:11page are actually going to come through.

0:13That's

0:13not always the case. Tableau do sometimes

0:16take features out, delay some stuff, only

0:18implement parts of it. So we're going to go

0:20through what's on this page. This is what

0:22Tableau shared as coming in the next

0:24version, which is 2021.1. I'm also doing

0:27this for a

0:28slightly different reason. So I'll explain

0:30that first up in this video. But for now,

0:32let's get stuck in. Okay, so you're

0:33probably wondering, hey, Tim, why are you

0:35doing a preview?

0:36Why don't you just wait until it's out and

0:37then you can do what you usually do, which

0:39is tell us all about the features. Well,

0:41this time around Tableau have changed the

0:42process

0:43so they haven't actually released a version

0:46or a beta of the release before the release

0:48.

0:49So we're going to be coming into this

0:50really, really cold. And I don't want to

0:52just launch

0:52videos on day one and just say, hey, look,

0:54these are how the features work, because it

0:56takes time to discover what's going on. So

0:58probably going to have to wait a couple of

1:00days after it's been released just to make

1:02sure everything is working as expected.

1:05There

1:05are no quirks, no new bugs, no new sort of

1:08nightmares. And part of getting access to

1:10the software early is that you actually

1:12know what's good and what's not. But I'm

1:15going

1:15to take my time to sort of understand this,

1:17what's worth showing, what's not worth

1:19showing.

1:19I really try not to show hacks. If you look

1:22at 2020.4 map layers, I didn't show people

1:26how to hack map layers, because I just

1:28think Tableau is going to do that properly

1:30anyway.

1:31So it's not really worth sort of hacking.

1:33So anyway, let's get into this. Let's get

1:35stuck into the preview and find out what's

1:37coming up in Tableau. Okay, so the first

1:39trend

1:39I can tell you straight away is that the

1:41Salesforce integration is really picking up

1:44speed. In

1:44the Gartner Magic quadrant, actually, Table

1:47au got criticized for not integrating Sales

1:49force

1:49features fast enough into the product,

1:51especially for Salesforce customers. I

1:53personally took

1:54that away. And I actually had a different

1:56critique, which was, you know, I'm a Table

1:58au

1:58user, I don't use Salesforce that much, all

2:00these features for Salesforce, they're not

2:02value added features for me. So maybe there

2:05's a bigger pool of Salesforce customers.

2:07And

2:07therefore for the bigger community, this is

2:09a great sort of value add. But for me,

2:11someone

2:11who's been using Tableau a long while, and

2:13doesn't have sort of big intentions to use

2:15Salesforce. And these features don't really

2:17sort of add much to my experience. So what

2:20I'd love to see is these features coming,

2:22and not just to users who use Salesforce,

2:24but to see some of this intelligence, make

2:27it into non Salesforce centric features.

2:30But

2:30nevermind, we're here. And the first three

2:32features on this page are about Einstein

2:34discovery

2:35and Einstein analytics. So what is Einstein

2:37? Let me click on this first one. Einstein

2:40discovery

2:40is essentially a capability that exists

2:42inside of the Salesforce platform. It looks

2:45at your

2:45data and looks at trends and patterns and

2:47tries to surface insights that it thinks

2:49might

2:50be useful for you. And it tries to use it,

2:52you know, the hot word at the moment

2:54machine

2:54learning, but it also tries to sort of do

2:56that in context. So what they're doing here

2:59in Tableau is actually bringing it into

3:01Tableau so that you can use it throughout

3:03the products.

3:03And they're doing that in lots of different

3:05ways. The first one here is bringing

3:07Einstein

3:08discovery into Tableau. Essentially, what

3:10this means is that you get some of the

3:12prediction

3:12capabilities inside of Tableau built into

3:15data sources, so you can use them. But also

3:18you can start to use some of the sort of

3:20smarts of Einstein inside of your

3:22visualization.

3:23So you're not just having this sort of

3:25wonderful set of data that lives inside of

3:26Salesforce

3:27that you then can't easily integrate into

3:29Tableau that is also fresh and dynamic. So

3:32this is a really sort of nice sort of

3:33quality of life improvement for Salesforce

3:36customers.

3:37It's just going to make it easy to bring

3:39that sort of augmented insight into the

3:41into into

3:42the dashboards. And if I go to the next one

3:44, Einstein dashboard extension, this is an

3:46extension.

3:47So this is not a feature built into the

3:49product. It's something that you can choose

3:51as a developer

3:52or an author to put into a dashboard. But

3:54what it will do is it'll essentially

3:56surface

3:56those insights. So you can see here on the

3:59sort of tooltip that's coming up here, they

4:01've

4:01got some sort of predictions and some

4:03insights from this data source that's being

4:05powered

4:06by something called an extension. If you

4:07don't know what an extension is, let me

4:09just go

4:09here onto a new tab and just do Tableau

4:12extensions, go check out the Tableau

4:14extension gallery.

4:16It's really great new resource that keeps

4:18getting sort of innovating and updated. I

4:20say new because it's just been updated

4:22recently to have this sort of marketplace

4:24vibe. So

4:25you can see a whole bunch of extension

4:27built mostly by partners, but also built by

4:30companies

4:31like Salesforce. So you can see there's

4:33lots of integrations here. And actually,

4:35the Einstein

4:36discovery extension is already here. So you

4:39can go to the page down and download the

4:41little

4:41T-Rex file, whatever it is you need to put

4:44inside a tablet and start using it and

4:46start

4:46playing with it. So that's a really, really

4:48cool thing. This is going to be coming into

4:50the product. I'm looking forward to see how

4:53this works. Okay, the next one is Einstein

4:56and Tableclax. So to me, this feels a bit

4:58like Einstein discovery. Einstein discovery

5:02is bringing the sort of, you know, computed

5:05insights into your data source. Einstein

5:09and

5:09Tableclax is letting you work with those

5:11things inside a table calculation. So feed

5:14Tableau

5:14analytics with dynamic predictive

5:16intelligence and connect Einstein

5:18predictions directly

5:19into Tableau into Tableau calculated fields

5:21. So essentially, this is allowing you to

5:23use

5:24that insight inside of your calculation. So

5:26you can do your own sort of augmentation of

5:29the augmented analytics, if that makes

5:31sense. And this is really, really cool

5:33because it

5:33brings a dynamic element to your data

5:35sources if you use Salesforce, right, so it

5:38makes

5:38it nice and easy for you to maybe change

5:41the way things are presented, maybe take a

5:43little

5:44bit of an insight and split it up in sort

5:45of lots of different ways or apply it

5:47differently

5:48to different groups of customers based on

5:50their sort of how they've been segmented or

5:53so on and so forth. So again, a nice little

5:55quality of life improvement. But for me,

5:57these

5:57top three are just, you know, one big

5:59headline Einstein discovery and Einstein

6:02analytics

6:02are coming to the product in a much, much

6:05more meaningful way. Okay, this next one

6:08quick

6:08LEDs, this is actually a nice thing. This

6:10is a quality of life improvement, okay, you

6:12're

6:12going to be able to very quickly create

6:15LEDs, just by right clicking a field and

6:17essentially

6:18choosing an LED. This is actually more

6:20important for web altering users, because

6:22of course,

6:23all these features here are going to be

6:25working on the web, pretty much all the new

6:26features

6:27that tablet are announcing work on the web

6:29as well. So they don't get implemented on

6:31just desktop, they get implemented in the

6:33browser. And when you're writing LEDs, the

6:36most commonly used LED is actually just,

6:39you know, fixed LED. So you can see here on

6:42the

6:42screenshot, what someone is doing is they

6:44're dragging a metric, dropping it on our

6:46dimension,

6:47and then that creates an LED that they can

6:49then work with, and it's already written

6:50for

6:51them. So that's a really nice, intuitive

6:53way. This is going to be one of those

6:54things in

6:54the future, where it becomes a hack that no

6:56one knows about, right? There's always

6:58these

6:58small things that people don't know about,

7:00this is going to be one of them. So quick

7:02LEDs, really nice quality of life

7:04improvement, be sure to check it out. Okay,

7:06and this next

7:07one, they're talking about unified

7:08notification experience. So what this feels

7:11like is they've

7:11updated the notification center. So that's

7:14actually a little bit more meaningful,

7:16actually,

7:17notifications and commentary, and all that

7:19sort of social stuff has always been in

7:20need

7:21of a big update inside the tablet, I've

7:22always felt that this is always stuff that

7:24could

7:24be really, really good if they just

7:26persisted with the updates throughout time,

7:28it's really

7:28good to see it get a little bit of

7:30attention in this particular update.

7:33Another nice thing

7:33is you can also control where you get these

7:35notifications. So I like this here, you can

7:37actually choose to have them emailed to you

7:40inside of tablet only. And I hope maybe

7:42mobile

7:42is in that story as well. If I've got a

7:44mobile device, I'd love to be able to

7:46choose whether

7:46or not I get notifications on my mobile

7:49device about these things or not. So I can

7:51sort of,

7:52you know, create some sort of triage system

7:54where really important notifications all

7:56come

7:56to everything, including my phone and just,

7:59you know, simple alerts go through to just

8:02my email. And you know, basic stuff like

8:04people tagging me only comes up in tablet

8:07where I

8:07can actually act on it. That would be

8:09something I'd love to see. But we don't

8:10know what that

8:11looks like yet. We'll have to wait and see.

8:13The next one is connectivity improvement.

8:15Now one thing that is staple with pretty

8:17much every release is that some sort of

8:18database

8:19driver or some sort of data element is

8:21improved, and it's common continuously

8:23being improved

8:24all the time. So now you can now connect to

8:26your data in Azure SQL database with Azure

8:29Active Directory and Azure data lake Gen

8:31two. So this feels like something that was

8:34really

8:34possible but wasn't possible on the latest

8:37and greatest setup inside of Microsoft

8:39Azure.

8:40And this is coming through. So I'm not an

8:42Azure expert. So I have no idea what this

8:44is about. So I'm not going to pretend I'm

8:46not going to even just read this because

8:47you

8:48can go read this yourself. I'll put a link

8:50in the description below and read the white

8:52paper. Actually, they've got this nice link

8:54here, whenever Tableau have something

8:55useful,

8:56they always link to it. And that white

8:58paper typically talks about that thing. So

9:01here

9:02you can go to this white paper, next

9:03generation cloud BI Tableau server hosted

9:06on Microsoft

9:06Azure. And this is something that's quite

9:08common because a lot of organizations have

9:10as all right. So what you can do go to this

9:13page, put your details in always want your

9:16details, you don't get these things for

9:18free, they always get something from you.

9:20Let me

9:20hit sign in here. Okay, so I've just logged

9:22in, you can see I'm logged in here on the

9:25top right hand side, it says Tim.wotnagwena

9:27. If I click on read white paper, it loads

9:29up

9:29the PDF, I'm not going to sort of link to

9:31this PDF, go to the page, sign up to it.

9:34And

9:34they have this white paper here, which is

9:35quite cool. I should probably read this. I

9:37'll

9:38read this and maybe make a video about what

9:39's changed on here. But again, I'm not an

9:41Azure

9:41expert. So this is going to be a little bit

9:44hard for me to understand because these are

9:46the kind of things where you really need

9:48experience. Let's go back to the next

9:49feature. Let's go

9:50back. So this is Azure. The next one is in

9:53product extension gallery. So this is kind

9:55of cool. Earlier on, I just showed you the

9:57extension gallery that you could use to

10:00implement

10:00Einstein dashboard extensions. This is

10:02going to be great because what it's going

10:04to essentially

10:05do if I just go to Tableau extensions here.

10:10I can't spell so let's hope this takes me

10:12to the right place. Here we go. We're

10:14actually going to be able to access these

10:16extensions

10:17inside of the product. And that's exactly

10:19what this sort of image is showing us. This

10:22is great because what you've had to do

10:24before is do this really janky process

10:26where you

10:26open up the product, you have an idea, you

10:28Google it, and you find an extension that

10:30works. And then you come over here to the

10:32extension gallery. Let's say you like this

10:34one and you want to use it, you download

10:37this, it downloads a file, you then put it

10:39in the

10:40right place, you put it somewhere. And

10:42before you know it, let me just log through

10:44this.

10:45So we download it, it makes a call, sends

10:47us to the desktop. Then once it's on the

10:50desktop,

10:51you got to go put it in the right place,

10:52this little T-Rex file, you're going to go

10:54put

10:54it in the right place. And so what I'm

10:56really hoping this feature does is it

10:58streamlines

10:58that process and lets you basically find

11:01connectors, specifically if you're in a web

11:04browser. I

11:05think this should be great because I'm

11:06hoping what it's going to do for things

11:08like Tableau

11:09Online and Tableau Server is automatically

11:11go through a process of putting these

11:14extensions

11:15so that they can be used on server as well.

11:18But this will be interesting to see. I

11:19think

11:19this extension gallery is specifically for

11:22extensions that have been blessed to work

11:24on Tableau Online. So that's something just

11:27to be aware of. It's going to be an

11:28interesting

11:29sort of little dynamic to sort of see. But

11:32let's wait and find out and see what

11:34happens.

11:35The next one is the Customer 360 Audiences

11:38connector with Tableau. Now, this I believe

11:42is actually a Salesforce related feature.

11:45Let me just clarify this. "Natively

11:48connected

11:49Tableau to Customer 360 Audiences to

11:51discover insights from your detailed

11:54customer data."

11:55I don't know what the Customer 360 Aud

11:57iences is, but let's just grab that and let

12:00's have

12:00a Google. Yeah, it's a Salesforce feature

12:04again. This is really turning into the

12:06Salesforce

12:07release, isn't it? I guess you should have

12:09expected it. So yeah, Customer 360 I think

12:12is like an audience profiling tool inside

12:17of Salesforce then. I think so basically

12:21you're

12:21now able to connect to that data directly.

12:23And I'm not sure this is the kind of

12:25dashboard

12:26you want to be building, but nevertheless

12:28you can connect to the data and sort of

12:30build

12:30some dashboards, drill down, do all the

12:32things you'd want to do. And it's all being

12:35sort

12:35of natively connected. So now you can start

12:37to see why maybe Salesforce is really

12:39interested

12:40in Tableau, really help improve the quality

12:42of some of those visualizations that they

12:45have inside of their platform. So the next

12:48feature is about Ask Data. Now, Ask Data is

12:51a very interesting feature. It runs on

12:54Tableau Server or Tableau Online and allows

12:56you to

12:57basically type a question and get an answer

12:58. I've done lots of videos on the channel,

13:00so

13:01check out some of those. I'll put a little

13:03pop-up here on the screen for that. What

13:05they've

13:05done is they've essentially improved it.

13:07Essentially, they've created an onboarding

13:09experience for

13:11people who are admins and they've also made

13:13it easier for people who are users to

13:14figure

13:15out how to use this, including some

13:16training information, what kind of

13:18questions to ask.

13:20So they've essentially created this sort of

13:22safe place where both sides of the parties,

13:25admins and users, can have a better

13:27experience. So this will be interesting to

13:29see what that

13:29actually means. And I'm sure there'll be

13:31small things that we can test that will be

13:33allowing

13:33us to sort of validate that. Web authoring

13:37on Tableau Public. This is huge. This is a

13:40huge, huge deal. The main reason this is a

13:44huge deal is lots of people use Tableau

13:45Public

13:46as a learning tool. And another reason why

13:49it's really, really, really big deal is

13:53that

13:53software is really, really hard to do and

13:55lots of people have lots of different

13:57machines.

13:58And one of the biggest hindrances you can

14:00actually have to great software is when the

14:02laptop itself or the machine itself isn't

14:05optimized for doing that particular task.

14:08What Tableau is essentially doing here is

14:10they're taking that load off your laptop.

14:12They're going to let it run in the browser

14:14and anything, everything has a browser. So

14:17when it comes into the browser and you have

14:18all the same features as what you have on

14:20desktop, it's just such a compelling

14:22offering, especially given the fact that it

14:25's a free

14:26offering and it's a great way for people to

14:28learn and understand how web authoring

14:30works.

14:31So honest to God, I really challenge you to

14:34really try and give Web Edit a chance. You

14:37'd

14:37be amazed how much you can do with it now

14:39compared to before. And Tableau Public, the

14:42beta is going to be a really, really good

14:44way to find that out.

14:46I'm actually definitely going to do a video

14:48on web authoring. I think a lot of people

14:50are sleeping on this feature. They don't

14:52realize they have access to it. They don't

14:54use it

14:54at all. Server admins obviously don't

14:56really understand how it impacts their

14:59users because

14:59there's not enough real data out there to

15:02say, "Hey, if I have 100 people doing Web

15:04Edit sessions, what impact does it have on

15:06my server?" That question, I'm sure the

15:09answers

15:09are out there. People have tried it, but we

15:11haven't really seen that answer in earnest

15:13in every single business. So it'd be

15:16interesting to see how that works.

15:18The cool thing is it connects to most of

15:20the common data sources you'd actually get

15:22in

15:22the world in terms of the public sphere. So

15:25you can connect to CSVs, Jsons, PDFs,

15:28spatial

15:29files, statistical files, TDEs, Tableau

15:31Data Extracts, and Hyper Extracts. So this

15:34is really

15:34cool. If you get a data source clean for

15:37you, you can put it in here, work on it.

15:39And Tableau

15:40Public has been improving over the years as

15:42it is anyway. So this is a great sort of

15:44add-on

15:44to all of those features. I can't wait to

15:46see this. I can't wait to share this. I'm

15:48going to talk a lot about this when it

15:50comes out.

15:50Okay, the next one is new dashboard

15:52extensions on Tableau Public. This is

15:54interesting because

15:55they're essentially using extensions to do

15:58things that you would have thought you

16:01could

16:01just do. So parameter actions, this sort of

16:05confused me because I was like, "Well, why

16:07do you need an extension to do parameter

16:11actions on Tableau Public?" And again, I

16:15really want

16:16to see this in the flesh to really

16:18understand, okay, what's actually going on

16:20here? Because

16:20my assumption was the parameter actions

16:22were already available inside of Tableau

16:25Public.

16:26Essentially all versions of Tableau have

16:27the same thing. So maybe I've been sleeping

16:29on

16:29Tableau Public and I don't actually

16:31understand what features it has, or this is

16:33something

16:33different, especially calling an extension

16:37when it's not an extension. That's sort of

16:39weird when you actually have something

16:41about an extension gallery on the same page

16:43. So

16:43language and Tableau sometimes can get

16:45really odd. So we just have to see that to

16:47really

16:47understand what it is. The data updates,

16:50this is good. So you're not going to have

16:52to be

16:52manually setting parameters to do stuff.

16:54This extension allows you to refresh any

16:56date parameter

16:57whenever it workbook is open. So this is

16:59great for Tableau Public because if you've

17:01got it

17:01connected to like a Google Sheet or

17:03something and that updates every so often,

17:05this is going

17:06to be perfect. It's going to be really,

17:08really good. So that'd be cool. Data-driven

17:11parameters,

17:11this is nice. This is some of the best

17:13stuff we've had on desktop already, being

17:15able to

17:16essentially dynamically update a parameter

17:18based on date values when it's opened,

17:19rather

17:20than having to sort of manually refresh the

17:22workbook and then, or refresh it, then get

17:25new data sources. This will just keep an

17:27eye on a column, see what the updates are

17:29and

17:29update the parameters that are feeding off

17:31that column straight away, which is a

17:32really,

17:33really sort of nice quality of life

17:34improvement. The last one is an interesting

17:36addition because

17:37this actually I think is an extension. So

17:39semiotic hierarchy, drag and drop your way

17:41to dynamic trees, circle pack and network

17:45layout. So this semiotic, if we just go and

17:48Google this, just Google this semiotic, let

17:52's call this D3. I think this is the busiest

17:56way to find it. So if I go to GitHub and

17:58look at the semiotic library, you'll see

18:01that this

18:01is a D3 library to allow you to sort of

18:06create lots of different charts. If I just

18:10go to

18:11examples, I hope I'm on the right thing

18:12here and I haven't just found some random

18:15semiotic

18:15thing that's nothing to do with this

18:18whatsoever. So this is the semiotic library

18:20. You can see

18:21I've got something weird happening on my

18:23internet. I think it's probably about to

18:25die, but I

18:26can still record what's going on here.

18:28Essentially, these hierarchical diagrams

18:31here are essentially

18:33what Tableau is referring to. So if I go

18:35back to the announcement, drag and drop

18:36your way

18:37to dynamic trees, circle pack and network

18:40layout. So drag and drop dynamic trees,

18:43circle

18:44pack and network layout. Again, maybe you

18:46'll have the option to add it. If we go to

18:49the

18:49extension gallery, let's see if I can find

18:52it. Let's see if there's anything. You can

18:54already get extensions for 2021.1, which is

18:58interesting. Let's see if I can find sem

19:01iotic.

19:02Here we go, semiotic hierarchy. This is the

19:06extension itself. This name here actually

19:13refers to an extension, not the semiotic

19:15library over here. I guess they're the same

19:18thing,

19:19but this extension built by Star Schema is

19:22actually feeding off that library. Let me

19:25unpack this a little bit. Semiotic

19:27hierarchy is an extension in the Tableau

19:29extension gallery

19:31built by Star Schema, which uses the D3 sem

19:34iotic library on Tableau data sets.

19:38Hopefully that

19:39makes sense. In fact, I could just have

19:41gone to their developer website to find out

19:44and

19:44it probably says everything here. So Tamas,

19:47Abraham and Elijah Meeks, creative semiotic

19:50.

19:50Great, perfect. That's exactly what's going

19:54on. It's a really, really cool plugin. It

19:57lets you create chart types that just aren

19:59't your everyday in Tableau, which is great.

20:02I'd love to see this in desktop as well and

20:05natively and all nicely done so it's secure

20:08and safe to use in a business context.

20:09People always crying out for new chart

20:11types. This

20:12could be a way of doing that without having

20:14to ask Tableau to go off on the path and on

20:16a tangent with development and put

20:18something else on the back burner. That's

20:20going to be

20:21pretty cool. Very interesting bunch of

20:23extensions you see because this is an

20:25extension. I'm

20:26wondering why are these other ones

20:28extensions? Why are they so complex that

20:31they need extensions?

20:32A really interesting question to ask. Maybe

20:36it's just a terminology. The next two are

20:39spatial file support. So essentially Table

20:42au is adding more spatial files. A while

20:44back

20:44Tableau could only connect to very basic

20:46data sets and now they're adding so many

20:48different

20:49spatial files. They pretty much all just

20:51work. So KMZ spatial file support, Snow

20:54flake spatial

20:55file supports. If you've got spatial data

20:57in the Snowflake instance, you can connect

21:00that in 2020.1.1. Snowflake is actually

21:02interesting. It's becoming more and more

21:04popular, especially

21:06in businesses just because it's really

21:08cheap to run really nice big data sets

21:10really fast

21:10and it scales a bit more like cloud

21:12technology. So you don't pay for something

21:14that's not

21:14running. You have to have a hot database

21:17running all the time, burning your holes in

21:19your pocket

21:20when you don't need it. You can just spin

21:22it up when you need it and ramp it all the

21:24way up if you need a lot of it in one go.

21:28Web altering improvements. This is sort of

21:29the story of whole of last year. I don't

21:31remember a release that didn't have web

21:33altering improvements

21:34and here enjoy expanded formatting options

21:36while creating and editing dashboards on

21:39the

21:39web. You can now format filters, parameters

21:42and legends directly in the browser.

21:45Honestly,

21:46the browser is coming this year people and

21:48if you're not using it, start using it

21:49because

21:50I don't think we're far off from tablet

21:52just saying yeah, you know that desktop

21:54copy? Yeah,

21:55we're not shipping this year. Use the

21:57browser. Device designer for web altering.

22:00This is interesting

22:01again more web altering improvements. So

22:04you can now sort of work on device designer

22:07setups

22:07in the browser whilst you're building dash

22:09boards. That's going to be really good.

22:11Nothing new

22:11there. It's a quality of life improvement

22:13for web altering pretty much. JDBC for SAP

22:16HANA connection on Windows. So this is

22:18actually an interesting one because I think

22:21what this

22:21allows for is better connectivity with SAP

22:24HANA. SAP HANA is one of those things that

22:27you know, you can connect to in tableau and

22:30it's great, but it just allows for a little

22:34bit more flexibility here because you can

22:36use a JDBC driver by default instead of an

22:38ODBC driver. The ODBC driver is what most

22:40companies have been using today. So what I

22:43'm

22:43thinking is the JDBC driver is going to be

22:46a little bit more resilient for more

22:48complex

22:49sort of work using the SAP HANA pipelines

22:52and essentially also it's more consistent

22:55with what else is going on on other

22:58platforms. So the connector is already

23:00available for

23:01Mac, Linux, and systems. So I think it's

23:04already available on Mac and Linux and they

23:07're bringing

23:07the Windows driver to this sort of world.

23:10So it's just bringing everything into a

23:12more

23:13streamlined setup. Although to be honest, I

23:15don't really understand the difference.

23:17So yeah, I actually have a SAP HANA

23:19database that I sometimes connect to. So I

23:21'll be interested

23:21to see what impact that has on that if I

23:24actually notice any new sort of speed

23:26improvements

23:27or better connectivity as a result of that.

23:31Right to Excel in Tableau Prep. So in Table

23:33au

23:33Prep, you've always been able to write to a

23:36CSV, write to a hyperfile, write to a

23:39database,

23:40write to Tableau Server, and now Excel.

23:43This is nice. I always thought writing to a

23:45CSV

23:45was basically Excel. But essentially what

23:48this means is that you can now sort of

23:50natively

23:50just spit out Excel files which makes

23:52bursting Excel files from data sources a

23:55really nice

23:55thing you can do. While the Tableau Prep

23:58visual and direct interface, you can easily

24:00see what

24:01tables are available in the Excel file and

24:03determine how your flow field map to

24:05existing

24:06fields in Excel tables. Now I tell you what

24:09, this is going to be interesting because

24:11what

24:11I really want to do, yes, you're going to

24:14be able to create new sheets. So you know

24:16in Excel where you have different tabs, the

24:18cool thing here is I can actually output

24:20one

24:20file and put different information in each

24:22sheet. That is actually quite cool. I don't

24:24get often excited about Excel features.

24:27That's one thing I'm looking forward to in

24:30Prep.

24:30So let's go to the next one. Automated Data

24:33Quality Warning. So this is cool. Data

24:35Quality

24:36Warnings have been sort of running around

24:38Tableau for quite some while but they've

24:40always

24:40been manual. You've always had to sort of

24:42go in and put them in yourself. This sounds

24:44like you're going to get them automatically

24:46. So let's look at this. Data Quality Warn

24:48ings

24:49will be automatically created based upon

24:51Extract, Refresh and Tableau flow run

24:53failures. So

24:54data freshness or lack thereof is

24:56communicated without any manual effort. So

24:58this makes a

24:58lot of sense. If you've got the Prep Cond

25:00uctor which is part of the data management

25:02add-on,

25:03you're going to be automating flows

25:05automatically. So it's obvious when those

25:07flows fail, let's

25:08say for three or four or five days in a row

25:11and the data is no longer fresh anymore. So

25:14having Data Quality Warnings just being pl

25:16astered everywhere as a result of failures

25:19of flows

25:19is actually a good thing. The reason I

25:22think this is also a bad thing is because

25:24Prep flows

25:25actually at the moment, especially on Table

25:28au Online, do fail quite often. I get about,

25:30you know, if I run 15 flows on a daily

25:33basis that are scheduled and I think three

25:35of them

25:36will fail at least once every day. Now they

25:38don't keep on failing. It's just sort of an

25:40odd bug about the time it runs or something

25:42happens. The errors aren't that descriptive

25:44.

25:44So if I'm just going to constantly be

25:46seeing Data Quality Warnings on my data

25:49source because,

25:50you know, Prep, the Conductor bit isn't

25:52just working as well as it could be, that

25:54won't

25:54be great because it won't give my users a

25:56lot of confidence in the data source that

25:58I'm seeing. So I'd love a little bit of

26:00finesse with this. If we're going to get

26:02this, let's

26:02make sure that Prep Conductor runs those

26:04flows every single time and actually gives

26:06you meaningful

26:07errors so you can solve those problems if

26:10they don't. So that's going to be a great

26:12little thing. Tableau catalog search

26:14improvements. So again, more improvements.

26:17I guess it just

26:18improves the quality of search. So you're

26:20finding the most trustworthy and most

26:22reliable

26:23sort of bits of information in your catalog

26:25, which is a nice sort of thing to have.

26:27Yeah,

26:28it's essentially improved the algorithm

26:29behind this. So matches by name are now

26:31ranked higher

26:31than matches by columns. To ensure you're

26:33finding the most trustworthy content,

26:35certified

26:36tables and databases will be ranked at the

26:38top and assets from Data Quality Warnings

26:41will be ranked lower. So that's an

26:43interesting one. Metrics improvements. Met

26:46rics, again,

26:48this is almost a release of improvements. I

26:50reckon there's a couple of features they've

26:52just not put on here and they're going to

26:54announce on the day because there's a lot

26:56of improvements or they've just been busy.

26:58You never know. You never know. You can now

27:00easily see all the metrics and the vis by

27:02opening the metrics panel while viewing a

27:04dashboard. Having this visibility makes it

27:06easier to find and create metrics relevant

27:08to the data you care about. So this is just

27:10sort of like putting metrics in your face

27:13a little bit so that you open up the

27:14metrics thing, you see that three people

27:16have already

27:17created metrics about other things and so

27:19it sort of inspires you to start creating

27:21some. I'm not sure that will actually

27:23happen, but let's wait and see. And the

27:25quality of

27:26life improvement there will sort of be

27:29obvious if more people start creating them.

27:32License

27:32of improvements. So the two here, new

27:35product activation methods, opt-in to

27:38server authorization

27:39to run, ATR, product activation of Tableau

27:42server deployed in cloud or virtual

27:44environments,

27:45which abstracts licensing from underlying

27:47hardware changes. So whoa, whoa, whoa, this

27:50is obvious. I need to, I need to read this

27:53again. Opt-in to server authorization to

27:57run

27:57product activation of Tableau server

28:00deployed in cloud or virtual environments,

28:04server authorization,

28:06which abstracts licensing from underlying

28:08hardware changes. Right. So I think what

28:11this

28:12means is essentially you're going to be

28:16able to dynamically license Tableau, even

28:22if the

28:23underlying sort of machine information

28:25changes, which abstracts licensing from the

28:28underlying

28:28hardware changes. Opt-in to server

28:32authorization to run ATR activation of

28:36Tableau server. Okay.

28:38I actually don't know what this means. It's

28:41not really, not really clear to be honest.

28:43I don't actually know what it's saying.

28:46This sometimes happens with server to be

28:48fair.

28:48Like most of what happened in the server

28:50landscape is often gobbledygook to me. So

28:53again, on

28:53that one, wait till that comes out to find

28:55out exactly what it is. Maybe I'll just ask

28:57on Twitter and find out if someone already

29:00knows the answer. Zero downtime licensing

29:02admins can now apply term and capacity

29:04licenses to Tableau server without

29:07requiring results

29:08that disrupt business activities.

29:11Additionally, upon subscription renewal,

29:13Tableau desktop

29:14and Tableau server prep builder license

29:16will automatically be refreshed when they

29:18're nearing

29:18expiration. So this is great because

29:22previously to get this to work, you had to

29:25restart your

29:25Tableau server for the license to pick up

29:27essentially because you needed to trigger

29:29the check. So now this seems like you don't

29:32have to do that. What I wonder is, I wonder

29:35if this also means that the high

29:36availability challenge they used to have

29:39with license check

29:40happening once a day, but not really

29:42knowing when the last check was done

29:45impacts high

29:46availability. So to explain this,

29:48essentially with high availability of Table

29:50au server,

29:51there's a critical point where the Tableau

29:53server needs to check for a license. Now,

29:55if you have a high availability setup and

29:58you're trying to do some disaster recovery,

30:01you don't want that license check getting

30:03in the way of the disaster recovery. If the

30:05last time the license check was done was

30:08roughly 24 hours before the point at which

30:11you had

30:11a disaster recovery, because then the

30:13licensing is going to stop you from doing

30:15the kind of

30:15things you need to do. So that is a really

30:18sort of interesting quality of life

30:20improvement

30:21to see if that's actually what it also

30:22helps with secretly behind the scenes.

30:25Otherwise,

30:25this is nice if it just allows you to

30:27change your licenses without restarting.

30:29That is,

30:29you know, a pretty nice thing. But I also

30:31don't think that was really impacting a lot

30:33of people. Maybe I don't know, maybe they

30:35've heard from customers who upgrade their

30:37servers

30:37quite often. You only really do your

30:39licenses one a year and you can probably

30:41synchronize

30:41your server downtimes for things like

30:44patches and maintenance to that license

30:46change anyway.

30:47So you know, if you're just a bit organized

30:49, you can get around this anyway. Okay, last

30:52feature Tableau server management

30:54improvements at TSM. This TSM is

30:56essentially the engine

30:58that runs the back end administration of

31:00Tableau server. So TSM has a web page also

31:03has a command

31:04line interface. The command line lets you

31:07run commands that do things like restart

31:09server

31:09server do backups, the front end interface

31:12as you do things like pretty much exactly

31:14the same, but you can even change things

31:16like resource allocation and so on and so

31:18forth.

31:18They now have support for a Z Azure Key

31:20Vault for Tableau server. So essentially,

31:22this is

31:22like a I think it's like an encryption.

31:25Yeah. So as part of Tableau server

31:28management integrate

31:29with Azure Key Vault for Tableau server

31:31data extract encryption at rest, to central

31:33ize

31:34key management and unlock more advanced

31:36security and compliance. So to explain this

31:39encryption

31:40at rest basically means when you have a

31:42data source on Tableau server, that file

31:45sits somewhere,

31:46okay. And where it sits on the hard drive,

31:48and you want it to be encrypted. That's

31:51basically

31:51what encryption at rest means means when

31:53the file is stored somewhere. Is it

31:55encrypted

31:56in that sense because I can encrypt the

31:58transfer, but not encrypt the final state

32:01of where it

32:01sits. So encryption at rest is about

32:03encrypting the file wherever it is on the

32:05hard drive,

32:06not the transfer between those things. That

32:09's where SSL comes in. Okay. So this is

32:11essentially

32:12saying you're going to be able to use Azure

32:13Key Vault. I see him that's like an

32:15encryption

32:15centralized encryption system that is used

32:18in Azure to you know, make everything

32:20secure.

32:21That's good. Again, for Azure customers.

32:24Resource monitoring tool, RMT search and

32:26filter. So

32:27search and filter Tableau resource

32:29monitoring tools to quickly find specific

32:31content, events

32:32and sessions. So again, a search feature

32:34here implemented into the resource

32:36monitoring,

32:37which is kind of really nice. So that's it.

32:38That's pretty much everything on this page.

32:41I just have a sneaky suspicion this isn't

32:43everything. And I also have a suspicion

32:45that

32:45not all of these will make it either. So

32:48that's pretty much it for this video. In

32:51terms of

32:512020 in terms of 2021.1, I'm not sure when

32:54this is going to drop. My hunch is we're in

32:57March. So at some point in the next couple

32:59of weeks, we're going to see it. And yeah,

33:01I'm going to be doing videos. Of course, as

33:03soon as it's out, I'll try and keep up and

33:05do as many as I can on day one, some of the

33:07big headline features. But otherwise, this

33:09video has been it pretty much. I hope you

33:11enjoyed the preview. If you like the

33:13preview,

33:13let me know. Maybe we'll do more of these

33:15in the future. So yeah, let me know. We'll

33:18get stuck in. I'll catch you in the next

33:19one.

33:19Thanks.