Tableau Conference 2024 Preview

0:00Hey, it's Tim here.

0:01Tableau Conferences Next Week.

0:02So as ever, let's get stuck in.

0:04Okay, so we're here on the Tableau Conference webpage.

0:06Tableau Conferences Next Week.

0:08So what I wanted to do is a bit of a preview of what to expect

0:11at conference next year, how to prep for it if you're going in person.

0:15And then finally, the kind of sessions I'm going to really want to dial into if I was attending in person.

0:19Of course I'm not.

0:21But a subset of them will be streamed on Salesforce Plus.

0:23I'll also show you how to access that.

0:25Let's break everything down and let's get started.

0:28Before we do that though, let's let's let's address a couple of things

0:31So many people have been in touch saying, hey, are you gonna be at conference?

0:34I won't be at conference.

0:35And actually for a very good reason.

0:37Listen, um, my wife's pregnant.

0:39We are having our third child.

0:40We've already got two children under three years old

0:43So um I need to be around to sort of help hold the fort down.

0:46So I won't be a conference this year.

0:48It's a very, I think, logical reason.

0:50So um unfortunately I can't see many of you devs, uh, you know, community members

0:55And also, you know, viewers of this channel.

0:57But nonetheless, I will be doing the live stream.

1:00That is something I can do remotely.

1:01Um, and I will be sort of dialing into the usual content schedule that I do during conference, which is breaking down the main events

1:07live streaming the keynote, live streaming the ironviz or whatever, doing what we can with the event to kind of make it work remotely.

1:14Okay?

1:15So that's something you can expect next week as ever.

1:18Now in terms of the conference itself

1:21Um this year's actually slightly different.

1:23It's a little bit smaller, but I don't think that's a bad thing.

1:25I think it's a little bit more compressed.

1:27And to be honest with you, I've always thought conference was one day too long.

1:30So I for one am actually happy that it's

1:32compress into a short amount of time because it means the value comes thick and fast and it's much easier to engage with.

1:37Now to find out what the schedule looks like if you go to the tablet conference homepage.

1:41Actually the homepage does a good enough job of this.

1:43You don't need to go to any tab here.

1:45You can just sort of scroll down.

1:46You immediately get a sense of the the kind of key emphasis here.

1:50So the the kind of activities you can expect, who's going to be talking, um, and what the three days look like.

1:55So if I just sort of move this out of the way, actually let's not do a

1:58full face here.

1:59Let's do that.

1:59I think you can just see everything just about right.

2:01Um Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, that's essentially the the the setup.

2:05Monday is always sort of a soft day with trainings and doctor sessions and hands-on

2:10If you've got a problem and you want it fixed at Tableau Conference, Monday is the day to do that.

2:13I guarantee you.

2:15If you don't sort it out on Monday, you won't sort it out on Tuesday, and you definitely won't have time on Wednesday.

2:19So

2:20Come on Monday to solve all the problems, talk to all the people you want to talk to to get sort of solutions done.

2:25Tuesday is when I think you should be dialing into the keynote, the events that Tableau put on for you.

2:30Right from the morning, right from the very start of the day, all the way through to the day to night out.

2:34That's going to be a fantastic event as ever.

2:37So be sure to go ahead and check it out.

2:38I, for one, will be mainly focusing on the keynote and iron viz

2:42Um those are the two things that I think are very interesting to watch.

2:45And as part of the keynote, we will have devs on stage again, which will be sort of a small thing on the end of the keynote, which is actually how it used to be.

2:52It used to be separate um briefly after that, but now it's sort of back with the keynote.

2:56So we'll have the keynote and devs on stage and then everything else as normal

3:00Now as well as these main sort of flagship sh I can't talk.

3:06As well as these main flagship sessions

3:09We also have breakout sessions as well.

3:11So breakout sessions are actually much more nuanced.

3:14Some of these are not being recorded.

3:15Only the key ones that I think Tableau and Salesforce really want to get out there are going to be recorded for the benefit of Salesforce Plus.

3:22So this is the schedule.

3:23I highly encourage that you just maybe put the keynote and iron viz on your diary.

3:28I appreciate that time zones are spread around the world, so uh some of these might not be in a suitable time

3:33The conference is in Pacific time, so that also makes it a little bit more tricky in terms of just kind of navigating the timings.

3:39But Salesforce Plus tends to restream them at a suitable time for your region.

3:43So for me in the UK

3:45Um once it's been live on Salesforce Plus, you'll be able to go back and watch it again the next morning.

3:49So you know, you're not gonna miss out on much.

3:51Um just make sure you tune in the next day to find out what's happened.

3:54So that's the schedule in a nutshell.

3:55Now we'll come back to the sessions in a second.

3:58What I wanted to call out though is before you start planning your sessions, if you're new to conference or you're just trying to look for ideas,

4:05Tableau have done something fantastic this year, which I think is really cool.

4:08They've done something called trail maps.

4:10So I think this is maybe borrowed from some sort of uh Salesforce sort of

4:13ideology but anyway what you can do is you can essentially pick high level tracks that they've put together for you so this makes it easy for you to kind of see the themes of the content and really

4:23You don't have to follow these, but it just packages all the uh like-minded sessions together.

4:27So if you're coming to Tableau Conference and you want to know everything to do with AI, which I'm actually quite curious for myself, if you go ahead and hit explore

4:35You'll see that it loads up a page, it gives you sort of a a key, a key sort of summary of what's going on.

4:41We'll get the main keynote, we'll get um a little bit of a session on Einstein Copilot for Tableau

4:46That's sort of really earmarked as like a headline piece.

4:49So I think it's really important to kind of uh see what they are talking about there.

4:53And then we have the sessions, and I think this is the really nice part.

4:56You can quickly pull out the sessions that relate to these trial maps

4:59Right here.

4:59And so just by looking at these and scanning these, I've already identified some absolute banger sessions I think you should go to.

5:04Einstein Copilot for Tableau, your data exploration partner.

5:08If this is what I think it is

5:10Gonna be a sensational feature.

5:11I think you should absolutely get involved and go and check out that session.

5:15That will be that will be just a really nice sort of session to come and understand how Tableau is thinking about AI

5:21in terms of helping everyday data analysts.

5:23So that's sort of really the way I kind of think of Copilot.

5:25Something that helps developers rather than something that helps people who are

5:29Using uh data like Tableau Pulse is more for everyone, Copilot is more for you know dashboard developers and report builders.

5:36Um there's going to be a lot of great content on um lots of other platforms as well, so Tableau Prep

5:42Um you'll obviously have content on Tableau Pulse as well, which has just been launched.

5:46But I think we will also have lots of great sessions on Tableau Desktop, partly delivered by the community, partly delivered by

5:53tableau but I really do think Salesforce's focus is on the AI enabled features, the newer parts of the platform.

5:59So there'll be that sort of interesting friction I guess between

6:02you know, the the legacy part of Tableau, desktop and server, and then you've got the modern side of Tableau, cloud and pulse and AI and stuff like that.

6:10So I think you'll get that tension naturally within the sessions

6:13But just to call this out again, trail maps, absolutely fantastic.

6:16The trail map that I really like the look of is the day travelist one.

6:20The reason I like this one is because

6:22in there, there was actually some a good balance between sessions that you can, you know, take back and apply in your everyday work and a good balance between

6:29sessions that are actually going to, you know, kind of show you where the feature's heading as well.

6:33So if you sort of sign up to everything in this track, I think it'll be really cool.

6:37One I spotted and I kind of know a bit of context about this as well, which is why I I spotted it, you know, popped out to me

6:43Multi-fact analyses using Tableau Data Model.

6:47To me, data model is the most underappreciated part of the whole entire Tableau platform.

6:52Um alongside Tableau Prep, actually I'll put that in the list as well.

6:55And this is I think going to be a really important part of the Tableau ecosystem.

7:01system, you know, data connections, doing joins.

7:04If you look at most of the Tableau help out there, it's all designed with the old way of thinking about Tableau in mind

7:10Data model has been one of the newest parts, and honestly, you can solve really hard challenges with a data model, but it's still quite of a hurdle.

7:18And one of those challenges is actually making it fully capable.

7:21And what I think this might do

7:23is uh go into a little bit more detail about how that might be happening in the future.

7:27So for this to be at the conference and for for for these two speakers, Thomas Nan and

7:31uh Kurt Munro, both sensational speakers.

7:34I absolutely love both of them as well.

7:35Everything they do is gonna be good.

7:37So I can endorse uh that particular session.

7:40Absolutely going ahead and check it out

7:42And then don't forget to kind of just immerse yourself in sessions that you think you already know.

7:48And this is sort of interesting, right?

7:49Go to a session, go to one or two sessions.

7:52Covering things you think you already know because you always will learn something new.

7:55That's when you kind of realize there's new ways of thinking and approaching things.

7:59So don't just assume, oh, I know, I know how to do data storytelling.

8:02Don't go to that.

8:03Well

8:03I encourage you to go to that and see how someone else is thinking about it because you will learn something really, really good.

8:08So those are the trial maps.

8:10I've sort of labored that and uh sort of almost too much.

8:14Let's go back to actually let's go back to the landing page and sort of just go look at the the rest of the the page.

8:21One of the things I do want to call out is um obviously the location, San Diego, lovely

8:26If you're going early, it's a great time to do things like certification and get everything done, so that's super important.

8:32This is also the best setting because you rarely get a chance

8:35to do an exam in a room where everything is set up correctly and if something goes wrong well guess what you're doing it right there with tableau so it just works right so this is it's honestly the best time to do any exam

8:47is that conference.

8:48You're in the vibe, you've got the time, you've got the space, you can kind of zone out.

8:52You don't have to take time off work to do it.

8:54You're already where you need to be, the best place to go and do any exam.

8:57So it might sort of put you off doing at the beginning, but I honestly think this is

9:01It's where I've done half of my certifications in in the past.

9:04Obviously we've got the sponsors as usual.

9:06San Diego, lovely, lovely um place to be doing it.

9:09So bear in mind the weather if you're gonna go there.

9:12And um the thing I'll also call out now is um

9:15If I just bring in my side panel here and we go to uh Sarah Bartlett's blog, um she does a great no before you go blog post.

9:21So this is the tablet conference 2024 no before you go.

9:25It's been themed up for San Diego, which I absolutely love.

9:27And Sarah's gone and updated it.

9:29and kind of giving you everything you need to know.

9:31And this is great if you're new to conference or if you just you know, you've gone to conference, maybe it was a long time ago, five years ago, this is a this is a great thing to go and visit again.

9:39It gives you context for the keynote as well and it gives you context for how these things work.

9:44She's put her own spin on this and some perspective as well.

9:46So maybe you've thought about, you know, going to a session, or maybe you've thought about doing conference differently, or maybe you're, you know, only there for a day or two.

9:54This is going to be a great resource to kind of pinpoint you in the right direction and make sure.

9:57You're getting the most off conference.

9:59So be sure to check out Sarah's blog post.

10:01I'll put a link to it in the description in the comments as well because I think it's an invaluable resource.

10:05Now

10:06In terms of the remaining content, the key thing I kind of wanted to kind of talk about is a preview of what to expect.

10:13So last year we really had the statement from Salesforce saying, hey, look.

10:17This is what we're going to be doing.

10:19We're going to be trying to enable the next wave of analysts.

10:22And that's where we got the first glimpse of Tableau Pulse.

10:25And then it rolled out a little later in the year.

10:27And then we started to get the soundings of Copilot.

10:30And now we are kind of a year into everything and we now have a much more sort of, let's say, concrete idea of what the foundation of the platform's going to be

10:38At this conference, I'm expecting this to be a more sure-footed sort of placement of where Tableau's heading because um I think last year was was maybe a reactive year.

10:48We were reacting to the trends, kind of meeting meeting the wave of

10:51opportunity that AI presented, but going forward, I think Tableau now has to be super confident about the teps the steps it takes and it needs to convince people that those steps

11:02are in the places they need help.

11:04So, um a couple of areas.

11:06Um as an author, as a developer, it's kind of felt like with Tableau Pasta the focus has gone

11:11away from you and it's kind of felt like the focus has gone more towards the everyday sort of analyst who's just consuming a report.

11:18I feel like this conference definitely needs to strike that balance of showing what AI can do for everyday developers, people building reports.

11:25Can we build things faster?

11:26The things I've shown you can do in Chat GPT, can we do them natively in Tableau?

11:30And then um the other side of the the the picture is also

11:34You know, at uh at Tableau Conference we also get this sort of vision piece.

11:38So last year it was this augmented reality demo that we got.

11:41So that was a really sort of nice

11:43thing and that demo's been done quite a bit now.

11:45I think a lot of people have seen that demo.

11:46It's been great.

11:47But that was done in a context where augmented reality wasn't actually that big.

11:51We hadn't had Apple with the Apple Vision Pro kind of putting anything out there to get people thinking about it.

11:55We hadn't had uh Meta release the MetaQuest 2 or 3.

11:59And really those platforms seem at a world away.

12:02And I I really like the idea that, you know, Tableau put out there with um the the vi um

12:07with a augmented reality demo that you didn't need expensive hardware to be sort of doing anything.

12:12So I'd love to see where they can take that idea

12:15If they had the opportunity to use some hardware, I I don't know if that's something they'll do, but hey, um that's gonna be another great discussion.

12:21Now the final thing

12:23Is I think sort of an underlying tone at conference, which you might not even see.

12:28You might not even see this discussion playing out really.

12:30You won't ever see it, but the role of partners in the ecosystem

12:34Historically, Tableau has been very much uh a a company that sort of works with its partners and very, you know, works hand in hand.

12:41You can actually see some of them here are sponsors.

12:44Um, but what is interesting about this is that I think for the first time, Tableau's asking its partners to do something entirely different.

12:51In the past, Tableau's asked its partners to reach new people, help deploy Tableau, help get into really difficult places.

12:57Going forward, I think Tableau and Salesforce by extension want partners to help build and add solutions on the platform.

13:05So whereas before it was about getting the platform out.

13:08Tableau going forward, I think, want to help want help getting ideas and solutions built.

13:14So some of the things we've seen this year have been things like the SDK for migration so that partners and

13:20Yeah, collaborators collaborators can go and build those solutions.

13:23We've also seen uh the you know test and trial of the charts API, so I'm expecting to see

13:29what comes out of that.

13:30I'm I'm really excited to see a whole wave of new types of partners.

13:33You know, before we've had these what I would call sort of um boutique consultancies that are, you know, setting up as partners.

13:39I'm hoping to see the more individual contributors, the you know innovators.

13:43We've had so many of them on this channel showcasing products that they've built around a tableau.

13:48I'd love to see that kind of partner come to the fore a little bit more, make that sort of more of an interesting battle.

13:53And then very finally, I think we're seeing an element of, you know, Tableau also taking uh the leash off Tableau a little bit, really sort of seeing what it can do with the platform, ripping it open and just throwing ideas out there that I think are going to be fantastic.

14:06And

14:06As ever, you know, just because they showed a conference doesn't mean it's coming out.

14:09And so that's a really safe place for them to try out those ideas, see how they message, see how the community takes them.

14:15And then also importantly, have everyone you need to talk to in the right place to be able to get these ideas quickly.

14:20So

14:20Lots of developers will be coming to you asking you for your opinion.

14:23Give them and share those opinions.

14:24I can't tell you how many things get solved at conference because uh you're there with the product manager, the developer who's working on it is also there

14:33And you can just quickly iterate on something.

14:35And it's just not quite the same as a phone call or a video call as we do to do these days.

14:39So um yeah, that's that's me.

14:41That's me rambling.

14:42That's me rambling.

14:43I totally admit I've been rambling.

14:45So

14:45Uh we'll we'll cut it off there.

14:46So that is the Tableau conference.

14:48As for what I'll be doing, so I don't actually know 100%.

14:52I'll definitely do a live stream for the keynote.

14:54I'll definitely do that.

14:55I'll definitely do a live stream for Ionviz, although I might have to sort of, you know, temper my expectations a little bit 'cause that's quite late for us in the UK and I've got work the next day.

15:03So old man Tim here really has to get to bed by uh uh by a good time given

15:08given kids and la family and life and so on and so on.

15:11So uh we really do have to kind of get to a good place.

15:14So we'll kind of figure out what we're doing, but uh we'll do a long run up of content after conference, just breaking down some things that I think are really interesting

15:21And of the sessions recorded on Salesforce Plus, I'll go through and break them down and do the thing I usually do.

15:27And then we need to get back on the train of content.

15:30Like I've been really quiet, you probably noticed the the pace of content has dropped down a little bit

15:34life has just been super hectic um for a lot of reasons I've already described.

15:38So um I want to try and build up, but I want to do it in a sustainable way.

15:41And frankly what I'm doing at the moment is just building out that team.

15:44I've been saying I've been doing that for a while, but it really just takes time to find the right people.

15:49And get the right setup and in the background I'm also seeing lots of great other content creators do stuff.

15:54If you haven't seen Data with Barrers 21 hour course on Tableau Desktop, my word

16:00That is a Herculean effort, if if there ever was one.

16:03I don't think anyone has made a video that long about Tableau ever.

16:07And uh he's gone and done it and he's done a great course and the feedback that I'm seeing on the comments of

16:11of his post and his blog is absolutely amazing.

16:14So I'll put a put a call out to that in the description.

16:18Go ahead and check that out.

16:19Other people are making great content.

16:20Donabel Santos just crossed a hundred thousand subscribers

16:23If you don't know about her content, go ahead and check that out.

16:26You've got the usuals, uh, you've got the Andy Creebles, you've got so many people, Teki Anshi.

16:30I could go on and on and on.

16:32The Tableau community here on YouTube

16:35It's fantastic.

16:36So if I'm not making content, you've got plenty of other people to follow along.

16:39And uh I do see every single comment that's shared on this channel.

16:43I know sometimes I don't get or get a reply.

16:45But I see every single comment and don't worry, all the people who've said, hey, where's part two of this?

16:50Where's part two of that?

16:51Trust me, I have a list of videos to get to.

16:55And they're all on there, it's just time.

16:57So anyway, thanks for watching and I'll see you in the next one