0:00Hey, it's Tim here. Have you ever wondered
0:02what a Tableau bookmark is? Or maybe you've
0:04never even heard of them before? Well, in
0:06today's video, I'm going to show you what
0:07they are, how they work and how to add them
0:10to your workflow. All right, let's get
0:11stuck in. Right here on my desktop, you can
0:14actually see I've actually got a Tableau
0:16bookmark already created. It's this Tableau
0:18icon here, you're probably familiar with
0:20this when you look at a Tableau workbook,
0:22but it's got a little bookmark on the icon
0:24itself. But in order to create them, you've
0:27actually got to have built something.
0:28So we're going to go ahead into a workbook.
0:30And if you're following along, I'm just
0:31going to use Superstore sales, the American
0:33version, which is here on the bottom left,
0:35I've just highlighted here, sample Super
0:37store. And if we click on that, it'll open
0:40up a data source for us to start working
0:42with. And we have a blank workbook. Now, if
0:45I just build some very, very basic charts
0:47here, I'm not trying to be impressive. I'm
0:49just going to drag sales onto rows and open
0:51up the product hierarchy and bring in subc
0:53ategories. So we have a little bit of
0:55variety. And then I'm going to open up
0:57another sheet.
0:58I'm not even going to name them. I'm going
1:00to drag sales onto size. Then I'm going to
1:02drag a category onto color. And that will
1:06automatically create a tree map. I want
1:08some information on this tree map. So I'll
1:10hold command, and I'll drag sales onto
1:13label that on a Mac allows you to basically
1:15copy the pill to the mark that you've
1:17dragged onto. And then we'll also add the
1:19category on again, I'm holding command
1:21there, and that will name them for us. We
1:23'll go into this label and make it a little
1:25bit tidier. This is opened up off screen.
1:27So let's just bring this here and let's
1:30just left align these and let's make this a
1:33little bit larger and then make this
1:36slightly darker as well. And Bob, let's
1:38just hit apply. And then you get that's
1:40that's worked out pretty nicely. I'm pretty
1:42happy with that. I should have left the
1:43automatic coloring because white is
1:45actually better here, but I'll just leave
1:47it like that for now. And we're pretty much
1:49good to get. The last thing I'll do is I'll
1:51draw a map. So this is essentially like a
1:53speed challenge classic here. So I'll just
1:56double click state.
1:57This should bring us all the American
1:58states. I want to make this an actual map.
2:01So let me change from automatic, which
2:03gives us circles to a map. And there we
2:05have it. Now a little tip. I like to have
2:08my map layers set up in a slightly
2:10different way. If I'm only showing
2:12something that's very basic, I actually
2:14like to wash out the background entirely
2:16and then give the state colors a little
2:18border around them. And it looks just so
2:20much nicer. People people, you know, when
2:22they look at this map, they know this is
2:24the United States. I don't need all the
2:25context in the background.
2:26Let's them know it's a map. So the last
2:28thing I'll also do here is I'll add region
2:30onto color so we can see the different
2:32regions. And now I think we're pretty much
2:35good to go. We'll build this into a
2:36dashboard. What I'll do is I'll just start
2:39by increasing the width a little bit. I
2:41like my dashboard slightly more widescreen
2:43because my screens are widescreen. And then
2:45I'll just double click each and every one
2:47of them. This is the classic trick here,
2:49where as you do that tableau automatically
2:52sort of lays them out. And I just want this
2:54to go to the bottom here.
2:55I'll grab this tab here on the right hand
2:57side, delete all the containers, and now we
2:59're pretty much good to go. I'm now ready to
3:01show you what a tableau bookmark is. I'm
3:04just going to set this to fit the entire
3:05view. So we've got three sheets on our
3:07dashboard. Let's say I have a sheet that I
3:09'd like to add, but I don't want to have to
3:12rebuild it. And I know that that sheet
3:14exists in another workbook.
3:17Let's go ahead and find that sheet for this
3:19. I'm going to hit the tableau icon. This
3:21just takes us back to the start menu, but
3:23it doesn't close the workbooks. A little
3:25trick here to get back to this interface.
3:27And I'm going to open the sample workbook
3:29because this is where the sheet is going to
3:30come from. If you're following along, let's
3:32click on that.
3:35And as we open that, what's happening here
3:37is now I've got two workbooks open. So you
3:39can see them here. I've got the one in the
3:41background and the one opening right now,
3:43which is just a default workbook that comes
3:45with tableau. I haven't done anything
3:46special to this.
3:48And what I'd like to do is I'd like to take
3:50this monthly sales by product category
3:53chart and actually add it to the one I just
3:55built. But I don't want to have to rebuild
3:57it.
3:58Now, one thing you could do, one thing I
4:00see a lot of people doing actually is they
4:02open the sheet and they right click and you
4:05can copy this actually. And you can just go
4:07over here.
4:08And if you just right click here and you
4:10click paste, it's just happened off screen.
4:13What it will do is it will essentially copy
4:15the chart into the sea and it brings the
4:16data source across.
4:17Okay. So it's essentially exactly the same
4:19effect. But the issue there is you've
4:21copied it and it's in your pastebin and you
4:23can't get it back. So once you close your
4:25computer, you close tableau, it's no longer
4:28in your pastebin.
4:29How do you make this something more
4:30persistent? That's exactly where a bookmark
4:32comes in. Okay. And it has exactly the same
4:34effect except for you just grabbing the
4:36file rather than copying it from your past
4:39ebin.
4:39So let's just step back one so we don't
4:41have the item in our worksheet. So we go
4:43back to how we were before. And let's go
4:45back. But this time, once I'm in the sheet,
4:48if I just drag this up here, I'm just going
4:50to go to weirdly, if you go up here to the
4:53help or window, I can never remember which
4:55one it is, it's actually the window bar.
4:56It's in the most unsuspecting place. Go to
4:59bookmark here and then create bookmark. And
5:01this will actually create a little file.
5:03And this file, we're going to put it into
5:05our folder here. We're going to overwrite
5:07the existing one here that we had.
5:10We'll just call this tableau bookmarks new.
5:12And I'm going to save this. Okay. So what
5:14this has done is it saved the information
5:17about the sheet into that file exactly the
5:19same as copying the file.
5:21Now, if I go back to this workbook, what I
5:24can do is I can bring that bookmark in. And
5:27the way you do it is just by going to file
5:29and then selecting open. It's a bit unint
5:32uitive because you'd think you want to
5:34import something like import workbook,
5:36which also exists.
5:37But in this case, you just actually want to
5:39open the file. And here, what you need to
5:41do is you make sure you select the right
5:43one. So this is the new one that we've
5:45created. So it's a dot TBM file tableau
5:48bookmark.
5:49And now if we open that, what should happen
5:51is I should get the exact same effect as
5:53copying it on there. You can see the exact
5:55same thing has happened. It's created a new
5:57sheet with a chart that we built.
5:58And it's also copied the data source. So
6:00this is an important step here. If the data
6:03sources you're bringing in are the same,
6:05you don't need to have two duplicate data
6:06sources.
6:07So what you can do is you can right click
6:09on this, hit replace data source, and then
6:12replace it with the existing one. So you
6:14don't have duplicate data sources.
6:16And bear in mind, I actually built this
6:18workbook in the American data source. But
6:21this workbook has come from the European
6:22data source. So we're going to get a bug
6:24when you switch this over because there won
6:26't be an action.
6:26I didn't build any action into this work
6:28book. And there's actually an action here in
6:30the filters pane. So let's click OK. And as
6:33we do that, you see we get the inevitable
6:35error here. This is in red. This is fine.
6:38All we need to do is just drag that out of
6:40the pane. And now it's working. And I can
6:42go ahead and close the old connection that
6:44I no longer need. And boom, we've
6:46essentially brought in a chart into our
6:48workbook.
6:49And this is great because if you have a
6:50chart that you use time and time again, or
6:52you need something for inspiration, and you
6:54want to save them in a folder so you can
6:56come back to them tomorrow and figure out
6:57which one sits best in your workbook.
6:59This is a great way of doing that. But go
7:01into the dashboard here, you can see that I
7:02can now bring that here on the right hand
7:04side. And we've essentially finished our
7:06dashboard. And this works just like any
7:08other sheet. Obviously, it's part of your
7:10visualization.
7:12So if I just enable the filters very
7:13quickly, and I start clicking on these
7:15states, then you'll see the actions start
7:17working and actually works really, really
7:19well. Okay, so that's pretty much it.
7:22Tableau bookmarks exactly the same as
7:23copying and pasting except for you actually
7:26get to save the information into a file
7:27that you can use later on once you've
7:29closed Tableau and brought it into your
7:31workbook.
7:32So that's pretty much it. Hopefully you
7:34found this video useful. If you did, you
7:36know what to do, drop a comment below. Let
7:38me know subscribe, whatever it whatever it
7:40is youtubers tell you to do do that.
7:42Otherwise, if you didn't like it, let me
7:44know below and we'll try and improve the
7:45quality of what we make. I'll catch you in
7:47the next one.
Tableau | Data visualisation | Productivity