0:00Hey it's Tim here in today's video we're talking about Tableau Einstein.
0:03Uh no that's the wrong sorry start again.
0:07Hey it's Tim here in today's video we're talking about Tableau with Agent Force.
0:12Let's try again.
0:14Hey it's Tim here.
0:15In today's video we're talking about Tableau Next, the next version of Tableau.
0:20Yeah, it's a bit confusing.
0:22As ever, let's get stuck in.
0:24Late last week on Feb 27th, Tableau announced the new name
0:29for the experience that I recently made a video for.
0:32It's called Tableau Next.
0:33Now this product has had many different names and I think it's important just to
0:37give that context, give that timeline.
0:39And it starts really with Tableau Einstein.
0:41This was the first name that we heard a while back and uh when Tableau showcased the fourth wave, the name that came immediately after that was Tableau Einstein.
0:50That's what we got familiar with.
0:52And then at the DataFam Europe event, it was very obvious that name wasn't going to stick.
0:57And a lot of the product devs there were trying to erase that from their memory.
1:01And I think the name that they settled with was Tableau with Agent Force.
1:05Now
1:05This wasn't really a name, it turns out.
1:08This was more of a a placeholder.
1:10And we now have the final name, which is Tableau Next.
1:15And so that begs two questions like what is Tableau Next and why Tableau Next and what happens to the core products in the product suite.
1:23And so what I wanted to do is go over to Southern Jones blog post, so I've got it here on screen
1:28I just talked through this name change a little bit and I kind of want to end the video on a story, like a little parable of Greek mythology, just to sort of I think highlight an issue with these
1:38frequent name changes.
1:39First up, what is Tableau Next?
1:41If you've heard anything about Tableau Einstein or Tableau with Agent Force already, it's essentially the same thing.
1:47The video I last made on this channel is actually the same as this.
1:50It just didn't have a name and a placeholder.
1:52So we have to go back and change all those names.
1:54It's actually quite interesting if you go to the Tableau website, they do this very sneaky control, find, and replace because
2:00You'll see that this announcement wasn't February the 27th, but if I go to this post, it was written October the 24th, but it wasn't called Tableau Next at that point.
2:08It was called Tableau Einstein.
2:10So it can get a little bit confusing, especially if you're looking for the metadata to give you the chronology, because it's there and it's not there.
2:16But they do this very well.
2:17Actually the last time
2:18When we had the change from Tableau Einstein to Tableau Agent Force, the exact same thing happened.
2:23It was a little bit uh of a change around the website.
2:25Now, what is Tableau Next?
2:27Um
2:28I'm about to do a video that summarizes this in about 10 to 15 minutes.
2:33It's a shorter version of the previous video I did, and in that video I walk through the entire platform.
2:38It's actually a very popular video.
2:39Go ahead and check it out
2:41But that at the moment is the best way that I can tell you what this is because it's still a work in progress.
2:45Tableau have not officially announced this, it's not live
2:48But as is with Salesforce, they like to do a lot of marketing up front to let you know what something is.
2:53And there's part of that they seem to speak to test names.
2:56um as part of that process.
2:58And so we have this blog post that basically goes through the product.
3:01And you have a platform diagram.
3:03This is a very different platform diagram to what we've seen before.
3:07Salesforce generally has an issue with platform diagrams.
3:10It generally doesn't envisage the world any other than their own world, basically.
3:14So the only thing you ever see inside of a di platform diagram like this is
3:18Salesforce's own products, Salesforce's own context, but it as an analytics user, as data people as it were, we tend to have a lot more context than this inside of our platform diagrams or architecture diagrams.
3:30But
3:31It's a decent sort of representation of I think how they want you to use the platform.
3:36It's not a decent representation of how your data moves through the platform.
3:39And I've given that feedback to
3:40tableau behind the scenes.
3:42I think people need a much clearer depiction of how this platform is going to work.
3:46And I think there is that description form behind the scenes.
3:49It's just not public yet and that that's one of the most frustrating things.
3:53But nonetheless, Tableau Next is essentially the new vision that Tableau or Salesforce has for Tableau going forward.
4:00Now
4:00You might also wonder what's happening to the tableau that I use and love.
4:03And actually they answer that question here inside of the blog post.
4:06So if I think if I actually go to this FAQ post from back in uh 24
4:11Which is a bit disconnected.
4:13They do actually cover off that question.
4:15So they do talk about Tableau Cloud, Tableau Service, CRM analytics.
4:18And essentially those are not going anywhere.
4:20The best way to think of those is to think of those as
4:24Tableau core.
4:25So this is a terminology that I've heard being used internally at Tableau.
4:28And I think I have the decency to be able to share.
4:30If I don't, whoops, but nonetheless, you can think of Tableau products as Tableau Core, Tableau Servo, Tableau Desktop, Tableau Prep.
4:38And the point about the new version of Tableau, Tableau Next, is that it's very much an experience-led platform.
4:45It's very much focused on the kind of experience Salesforce likes to give its customers to have one complete ecosystem
4:52And it's trying to do a couple of things.
4:53Number one, it's trying to make something that's more organic to Salesforce, which makes sense.
4:58They acquire Tableau, I think they're trying to make that investment pay off.
5:01But additionally, it's also trying to tackle some of the challenges that I think people have complained about with Tableau.
5:06So things like formatting, templating.
5:09Just making it easier to work through the platform.
5:11I think all of those capabilities are actually going to be very interesting.
5:15Now, I don't know if they're going to be good.
5:16I don't know if they're going to work.
5:17But there is one interesting side to this, which is
5:20You know, and Tableau keep bringing up this slide in conference talks that talk about the fact that Tableau in general has tried to solve this problem
5:27And we've solved this problem for what is still a minority of of users.
5:31So they talk about this sort of gap between your a very um
5:36capable, enabled data analysts, but there's still this gap to the rest of the business analyst.
5:42I always joke about this because we call this the mind the gap slide between me and Ravi when we do our podcast
5:47But it's actually interesting because I would also say that this represents the messaging that Salesforce has, which is, you know, over here you've got your 20% and over here you've got your 80%.
5:57And
5:58I was listening to the Stephen Bartlett podcast like a couple of weeks ago.
6:01And I I appreciate that his podcast is is always a lot of yes, people who think anything is possible.
6:06And it can some sometimes it can be a little bit unrealistic.
6:09But there was this interesting quote
6:11which I heard, which was about to make a product for the 80%, you have to be willing to piss off the 20%.
6:19And I think that's what Salesforce is going here.
6:21And I I mean that in the nicest possible way.
6:23I think Salesforce realizes that if it's gonna make a mass appeal product
6:27it does have to start changing the way it its product works for the majority of end users.
6:34Now this creates an interesting balance because obviously the core users are the biggest audience of the
6:39product and also going to have to manage this and new platform as well.
6:43So I hope it works out.
6:44I hope it's successful.
6:45I hope that sort of strategy works out because
6:48This constant name changing really does create friction with the current sort of core user base, the the users who will be continuing to use Tableau Core.
6:57Now, I wanted to end this video on something a little bit more poignant and this sort of story of a Greek mythological kind of character called Proteus.
7:07Now
7:07Proteus's superpower is his wisdom.
7:10He's got this incredible ability to be able to give wisdom upon people who, you know, who seek it.
7:16But in order to access this wisdom.
7:18You have to do something very challenging and that is he also has this ability to change form.
7:24He can go from uh being a lion to being a snake to changing to water to changing to fire, all these sort of different things, right
7:32And the only way to access his wisdom is by being able to hold on to him as he changes through all these forms.
7:39And if you happen to do that
7:41um he he gets bored and essentially grants he this ability to use his power.
7:45And I think it has many, let's say, similarities to the constant name changes that we have with Tableau.
7:51I think the most poignant one is that it doesn't matter how many times he changes.
7:55Underneath, his core ability is still the same, his wisdom is still ultimately the same.
8:00But with each change, he has a new identity that people have to get familiar with
8:05Each new identity is difficult to grasp and very hard to hold on to, and that's sort of part of the trick.
8:10And then lastly, every time he changes, I think people lose sight of who he is.
8:15It's easy to lose track of what he is at the end of the day
8:18And so there are some similarities here, and I think it's very poignant because in all these name changes, I do think we've hit max fatigue, and I really hope we don't change the name again.
8:29because it's going to make it really difficult for everyone to just keep a track of what's going on.
8:33I find it funny because if I go to the Tableau Next page, just to give you a context, you go to Tableau Next, if you search Tableau Einstein, you actually get this page.
8:42It takes you to Tableau Next.
8:43And at the very bottom has a little silo little section that I found quite quite funny, which is keep up with tablet next.
8:51It's funny because it just keeps changing.
8:53So you generally do need something to help you keep up with all these changes that are going on
8:57So I just found that sort of small thing funny and uh it's probably not funny to anyone inside of Salesforce, but nonetheless, it is what it is.
9:04The new Tableau has a new name.
9:05It's called Tableau Next.
9:06If you want to know more about it, either watch my previous video or wait for my next video, which will come out this week, after this one, where we'll do a 15-minute overview of what Tableau Next is.
9:17And just just to be upfront, look, I'm really optimistic about this.
9:21I
9:21I kind of think I'm the kind of person who can't dunk on something until they've tried it.
9:25I know that the beta for this product is around the corner.
9:28We don't have dates.
9:29conference will probably be a really good opportunity to use it hands-on.
9:32I know some people will get access to it early before that.
9:35I'm really hoping I can be one of those people
9:37So I'll obviously share that with you as soon as I get hands-on experience.
9:42There are also parts of this platform that are already available right now and it's actually a difficult thing to articulate.
9:48I covered that in my previous video.
9:49Part of that is going to be about understanding Salesforce platform.
9:52The other part is going to be about just keeping in touch with all these updates as they happen.
9:56And just engaging with your account manager or tableau or Salesforce directly so that you make sure you get the pulse on what this is happening, no pun intended.
10:04But
10:05I'm going to end the video there because in my next video I'll go through this in a much more succinct way where we'll exclusively focus on the functionality.
10:12But this video is just to let you know
10:14There's a new name.
10:15It's the third name in my opinion.
10:17And hopefully it's the last change here.
10:19Somehow I don't think that's going to be the case, but nevertheless, here we are.
10:23Thanks for watching.
10:24I'll see you in the next one.
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