Tableau Image roles: Working with Images in Tableau | New in Tableau 2022.4

0:00In Tableau 22.4 you can now natively

0:03support images on a dashboard as you can

0:05see right here on screen

0:06I've got a very simple URL to set up images

0:08online. I've loaded it into Tableau and it

0:11's inside of a table

0:12This is now native in Tableau, but there's

0:15a few catches to find out more. Let's get

0:17stuck in

0:17Before we get stuck in just one quick favor

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0:43the video. Okay, so to show you this

0:45feature

0:45I'm actually going to use web edit and

0:47Tableau cloud

0:48I'll go ahead and create a new workbook by

0:49clicking on the new option that brings up

0:51this interface

0:52I can go ahead select my file from my

0:55computer

0:56I've got a sample file there we can just

0:58hit enter and that will go ahead and upload

1:00that file to Tableau cloud and now

1:02We are connected one of the most

1:03frustrating things about web edit is it's

1:05just sometimes harder to do really simple

1:07things

1:08So I I like to preview my data set before I

1:10get stuck in it's actually really hard to

1:12do that here

1:12There's no there's sort of no button here.

1:14If you click on this drop down you don't

1:16get any sort of way of previewing it

1:17So here's a little trick go again the count

1:20of records and put it on rows

1:21You'll get a single bar chart click on that

1:24bar chart

1:24You'll get this little table icon you can

1:26go ahead and select that you'll see the

1:28preview for the count of rows

1:29I've got a thousand records

1:30But you can then go to the full data set

1:32here and that shows you the underlying data

1:34behind the number of records and so

1:36You get a preview of the data set so here

1:38you can see I've got an avatar URL a couple

1:41of profile bits of information

1:42Some of it lowercase some of it uppercase

1:45I'm actually going to show you how to

1:46produce that when we look at the capability

1:48called the proper function in another video

1:51But the column I'm most interested here is

1:53the avatar URL you can see here that it's

1:55actually being generated

1:56From a service and that service can

1:58dynamically change the size of the image

2:00based on what you give it

2:03So it's got a parameter and I've actually

2:05shown in another video a better service

2:07called cloudinary

2:08Which does this to another level even does

2:10image transformations hold that thought for

2:13a second. I'll come back to it

2:14So as the end of the video, so this is the

2:16column we're going to be working with and

2:17to be brutally honest

2:18This image role capability is very simple.

2:21I've already found a few catches though

2:22If I just go ahead and remove this you can

2:24see that this avatar URL is the column

2:27I want to use for the image role

2:29So I'll go ahead and click the drop-down go

2:31down to a new option here that says image

2:33role and you can select URL

2:35Now it's really interesting that they've

2:37made that a separate sort of menu item

2:39because I keep trying to think like

2:40What other types of information could they

2:43add in here?

2:44One thought I had is that you could specify

2:46an image role and add a different type of

2:48encoding into that

2:50So there is a method called base 64

2:52encoding which allows you to store images

2:54as text

2:55So that could be another way of defining an

2:58image role through text

2:59Which would then allow databases to store

3:01images without actually having to hold the

3:02JPEG files

3:03It's quite computer intensive

3:05So maybe that will come in the future

3:07But nonetheless as soon as we've done that

3:09you'll see that we have the avatar URL and

3:11it's now got an icon

3:13It's the first time I've ever seen an image

3:14icon in tableau in the data pane

3:17So that's really good to see now that we've

3:19done that it's super easy

3:20But here's what I discovered as soon as you

3:22drag it in. That's the first thing everyone

3:24will do

3:24Unfortunately get this rather not nice

3:26experience because this feature doesn't

3:28handle a certain number of images in this

3:31case

3:32It's saying filters a fewer than 500 images

3:34for this to work because I've got a

3:35thousand. I'm way over that limit

3:37So what I'll do is I'll just select the

3:39first few

3:41I'll keep those records just by selecting

3:43those records and selecting this options

3:45once I click on those rows and you can see

3:47the image

3:47Role capability is now working as expected

3:49now

3:50These images can fit up to 300 by 300

3:52Nicely and what we can do to kind of finish

3:55this

3:55visualization off is we can bring in the

3:58first name put it on text and now we have

4:00the avatar and name of

4:01Each of our user profile. So now that's

4:04natively supported in tableau

4:06The feature is as simple as that you just

4:08specify an image raw and it starts loading

4:10them in

4:10What use cases might use this?

4:12Well, the sector that I think is going to

4:14benefit the most from this is fast-moving

4:16consumer goods or anyone who works with

4:17products

4:18You already have all the images typically

4:20hosted somewhere online maybe for your

4:23website so people can purchase them

4:24Maybe you already have the images as assets

4:26so you can refer to them in different

4:28services

4:29Working with images is just something that

4:31's purely common in product based roles

4:34So this is going to be really useful for

4:36you

4:36So you can show people the products you're

4:38actually working with in an analytical

4:40context

4:41now the challenge there is then working

4:43with those images is going to become a

4:44little bit tricky because tableau does

4:46actually have a

4:46Few requirements and you just can't go ham

4:49adding images absolutely everywhere to show

4:51you this

4:51What I'll do is I'll link to this in the

4:53description of the first comment in this

4:55video if I bring it on to screen

4:57There's actually a few caveats to be aware

4:59of so you can see tableau themselves

5:01I've actually got images of shoes and

5:02You need to be able to repair your data

5:04source in a certain way you're going to

5:06need to have to use a specific

5:07Extension format essentially the two ways

5:10of specifying in JPEG and a PNG no other

5:12image format works at the moment

5:14Which means no two gifts. I know that's

5:16something people are going to try to do

5:18Animated things inside of a dashboard. I'm

5:20sure someone will figure out a hack

5:21And then you need to mesh make sure that

5:24every URL is actually publicly accessible

5:26the reason this is in some cases the URL

5:29might have to go through the public

5:31internet and if

5:32It's not going to work because of security

5:35or firewall issues then the images won't

5:37simply load

5:37so if you have any sort of issues like that

5:39you need to make sure that you really

5:41understand the

5:42architecture of your network at work or the

5:44network of the people who are going to be

5:46using this dashboard and

5:47The easiest way to do that

5:48It's just to make sure that the images are

5:50publicly available so that if I can visit

5:52them just by going to our URL

5:53Is an absolute stranger then it's going to

5:56work and you might rely on sort of security

5:58by

5:59Sort of making the URLs difficult to guess

6:01changing the URLs and then having your

6:03database change those URLs frequently

6:06So they're being dynamically generated

6:08every so often and the data sources update

6:10as and when that happens

6:11That's going to be probably the best form

6:13of using security to do this

6:14I'm sure there's other ways and there are a

6:17couple of other sort of challenges as well

6:19If you go down there's a little bit of a

6:21limitation and it's actually to do with

6:22performance

6:23I keep going down actually might have

6:25skipped it already

6:26There is a there's a limitation here to do

6:29with client-side rendering and so in

6:31instances where you've got a lot of images

6:34Tableau has this concept called a

6:37complexity score and if the score of the

6:39dashboard is over a certain level

6:41What tableau will do is I'll ask the server

6:43the tableau server or the tableau cloud to

6:46render the dashboard for you

6:48Rather than having that dashboard rendered

6:50here in the browser in my case Google

6:53Chrome the difference there is that

6:55sometimes

6:56Client-side rendering which is in Chrome is

6:58often faster and server-side rendering is

7:00going to be slower

7:01And so if you hit a certain level of

7:03complexity and that's what this note here

7:05is about

7:05You're going to get slightly slower

7:07performance because it's going to have to

7:08require the server to do it and then send

7:10that information

7:11Over the internet to the end user

7:13And so that's why this is super important

7:14to be aware of if you're gonna hop into

7:16images

7:17You might just see a slightly different

7:19experience to sort of what you're familiar

7:20with

7:20Especially if you're testing it locally in

7:22a desktop. It works fine. You put it on

7:24server and for some reason

7:25It's just chugging along and it might be

7:27this particular use case

7:28So I don't want to go into too much detail

7:30about that because it's a whole other topic

7:32to do with

7:32performance recording and how tableau

7:35server and tableau cloud work

7:36But check out this note about client-side

7:39rendering and make sure you've had a look

7:41at it

7:41now the other thing that tableau have

7:43nicely done is look how to

7:44Troubleshoot this because there's going to

7:46be a bunch of reasons why this doesn't work

7:48And so the bottom of this has actually got

7:49several guides on how to this how to use

7:51this how to make it work and

7:53a couple of other things to be aware of and

7:55One of the things I think is going to be

7:57super interesting is you do have a

7:58recommended file size

8:00Let me just try and find that for you. What

8:02is the recommended file side?

8:04I think I skipped past here you go ensure

8:06that each image file is smaller than

8:08128 kilobytes and that is either really

8:11quite permissive or quite restrictive

8:13It depends what images you're using because

8:16if I want to show an image that's black

8:17Well, I don't need much information or much

8:19dates to be able to show that

8:21However, if I have an image that has tons

8:23of colors in it, but it's very very small

8:25It might actually go over that limit very

8:27easily

8:28And so what you're gonna have to do is use

8:30a service that can dynamically make sure

8:32that the images don't go over this

8:34Specific size and that becomes very very

8:36hard to do if you're a photographer

8:38You'll know that when you export an image

8:40You can actually specify a maximum ceiling

8:42for a file size when you work with tableau

8:44dashboard

8:44That's just not something you want to be

8:46messing around with for the thousands of

8:48images

8:48You might be looking at and also it's quite

8:50hard to computationally process all those

8:52images again

8:52Upload them all to where they need to be

8:54and then test this whole workflow

8:56So that's why it's super important to check

8:57out the service that I've mentioned in the

8:59past called Cloudinary

9:00What they do is essentially take the effort

9:03of doing all of that away from you. So let

9:05me go to their website

9:05I've actually done a video on this already

9:07So I'm not going to spend too much time on

9:08this go check out the video on that

9:11But what they do is they essentially

9:13process images and for the record

9:14They're not the only company that just the

9:16company that I use and love they process

9:18images for you in the cloud

9:19And so what you can do is you can specify

9:21Transformations essentially edits to your

9:24images by just changing the URL. I've done

9:26this in another video

9:27I'll put some images up on screen

9:28but then what this will allow you to do is

9:30use things like parameters use things like

9:32Specific customizations for specific teams

9:36or specific departments on those images

9:38without you having to go out and render

9:40those images

9:40It's quite a permissive service

9:42You can actually do a lot of the testing

9:44you need and try this out with maybe one or

9:45two dashboards

9:46While still using the free plan, it's not

9:48expensive at all in my opinion

9:50So go ahead and check Cloudinary out check

9:52out the video on that topic because I've

9:54done a whole video already in anticipation

9:55of this

9:56Feature I think you're gonna absolutely

9:58love it. So that's image rolls in a

9:59nutshell. It's really quite a simple

10:01feature

10:02I for me I just think it's about time we

10:03have this it's gonna be super exciting

10:05I think it's going to change the way people

10:07design dashboards. I don't think it's quite

10:10what everyone was looking for

10:11I think what people wanted is a little bit

10:13more than this no limitations on the number

10:15of images

10:15Maybe even more flexibility to do various

10:17things, but if you're being sensible with

10:19this, I think 500 is quite a nice number

10:21It's quite a nice limit and you can create

10:24dashboards and now start to tell a bit more

10:26of a story in this particular case

10:28I've just built a simple table to show the

10:30capability in other videos in the future.

10:32Not this one

10:32I'm going to break down this feature and

10:34really show you what it can do

10:35But as I like to do I like to keep things

10:38simple and I also hate hacks with a passion

10:40if you want to know

10:41Why check out this video. That's it for

10:43today. Thanks for watching and I'll catch

10:44you in the next one

10:45You

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