# Tableau Prep Showcased at Conference - | Announced at Tableau Conference 2023

> This is content from just-tim, the data-and-analytics channel by Tim Ngwena (formerly 'Tableau Tim'). Tim has 12+ years of hands-on BI experience and covers Tableau most of all, plus Power BI, Looker, Hex, SQL and data modelling, the analytics industry, and the craft of doing the job — always tool-agnostic and honest about the trade-offs.

- **Author:** Tim Ngwena (just-tim, https://just-tim.com/about)
- **Published:** 2023-05-19
- **Format:** Video · 5 min watch · transcript available
- **Topics:** Data prep, Industry trends
- **Tools:** Alteryx; Tableau (ai, prep)
- **Canonical:** https://just-tim.com/posts/tableau-prep-showcased-at-conference-announced-at-tableau-conference-2023
- **Watch:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_N2y8AlI4cg

I run through everything announced for Tableau Prep at Tableau Conference 2023. While Prep didn't get as many blockbuster features as the wider platform, I cover Tableau GPT inside Prep, spatial joins, header row selection, duplicate removal and the growing list of Tableau Exchange connectors.

## Key takeaways

- Tableau GPT can write calculations inside Prep, such as extracting an email from a JSON dataset, and the feature works across the wider platform including Desktop.
- Prep now supports spatial joins on two spatial datasets, defining overlap or outer regions natively rather than relying on Python or third-party tools.
- You can choose which rows contain your headers, solving the long-standing annoyance of headers not sitting on row one of CSVs and flat files.
- A smart suggestion feature for removing duplicates was shown, though Tim cautions to test it rigorously since duplicates sometimes exist for legitimate reasons.
- Tableau Exchange connectors, such as Amazon S3, can be added to Prep today for free, with a growing list of vendor-built connectors.

## Chapters

- 0:06 Tableau Prep at the conference
- 0:51 Tableau GPT inside Prep
- 1:24 Spatial joins and the Alteryx comparison
- 2:44 Choosing header rows
- 3:26 Removing duplicates
- 4:09 Tableau Exchange connectors

Watch the full video, read the transcript and use chapter deep-links on the page: https://just-tim.com/posts/tableau-prep-showcased-at-conference-announced-at-tableau-conference-2023

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just-tim — Data and analytics, with a point of view. · https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7HYxRWmaNlJux-X7rNLZyw · https://twitter.com/TableauTim · https://www.linkedin.com/in/timngwena