0:00Hey, it's Tim here. In this video I want to
0:02cover everything announced at Tableau
0:03Conference for Tableau Prep.
0:05Let's get started.
0:06Okay, so Tableau Prep didn't have as many
0:07blockbuster features as the rest of the
0:09platform, but nonetheless there were a
0:12handful of things to touch on and I think
0:13they're important.
0:14So let's take a look at them in this
0:15particular video.
0:17Now, what I will also say is that a lot of
0:19Tableau Prep capabilities do tend to be
0:21platform wide.
0:22So if you take something like Tableau GPT,
0:24that was platform wide and we saw one
0:26example of how it can work inside of Table
0:28au Prep.
0:29We also have things like Tableau Pulse,
0:30although that is an ability to build
0:32metrics, I wouldn't be surprised if Tableau
0:35Prep has a unique capability to push
0:37certain types of metadata to things like
0:40Tableau Metrics as well and Tableau Pulse.
0:42So that would be another interesting area
0:44to wait and see what specific detail
0:46actually refers to Tableau Prep as we get
0:48our quarterly release cadence.
0:51Nonetheless, the first thing I want to talk
0:53about is obviously Tableau GPT inside of
0:55Tableau Prep.
0:56The example we saw on Devs On Stage was
0:58essentially Matt Miller demo from him where
1:01he essentially asked Tableau to write a
1:03calculation to extract the email from a
1:06JSON dataset inside of Tableau Prep and
1:10that was fantastic.
1:11That is just a simple example and you can
1:13imagine how that calculation feature was
1:15demoed in Tableau Prep but actually works
1:18right across the platform, something like
1:20Tableau Desktop, no reason why that wouldn
1:22't have it as well.
1:24The other area that was featured in the
1:26video was the ability for Tableau Prep to
1:28do joins on spatial data.
1:30Now if you use a tool like Alteryx, this is
1:31a native capability, essentially being able
1:34to take two spatial datasets and being able
1:36to define a join by specifying whether they
1:39overlap, whether you want the outer regions
1:41that don't overlap and doing that in a
1:43spatial way.
1:44Now that is a very sort of unique dataset
1:46and typically people have had to do this
1:48outside of Tableau Prep or they've used
1:50third party tools through the Python
1:52capability that you can run inside of Table
1:54au Prep.
1:55That was announced as well so that was good
1:57to see.
1:58I think Tableau Prep is turning into this
2:00secret power tool because the features keep
2:03coming release by release and if you've
2:05been keeping track of all these features,
2:08it's getting it closer and closer and
2:10closer towards matching some of the basic
2:12capabilities of something like Alteryx
2:15which has been around for years.
2:17I don't know about you but the Alteryx
2:19interface for me is just long overdue a
2:21refresh and a change and Tableau Prep has
2:23really taken a fresh approach to how to
2:25improve that kind of interface but also
2:27make it fun and interesting and applicable
2:30to the Tableau platform.
2:32So that's always a personal sort of thing I
2:34like to champion about Tableau Prep.
2:36It might not have the same power but it's a
2:38damn sight nicer to use even though at some
2:40points it does have quite a few annoying
2:42bugs.
2:43Anyway, let's keep moving.
2:44One of the nicest features was the ability
2:46to choose the rows on which your headers
2:48are located.
2:49Sometimes when you connect to a data source
2:51, the headers are not on row one of that
2:53data source and with Tableau Prep it's been
2:55super annoying because you've had to go and
2:57specify and then rename a bunch of fields
3:00and that's always been some sort of messy
3:01way of doing it.
3:02Maybe bulk pivoting and then unpivoting.
3:04There's so many different approaches to the
3:06same problem depending on your file.
3:08What they showed was a capability that can
3:10automatically do that or specifically an
3:12option where you can go and specify your
3:14specific rows.
3:16Something like named ranges in Excel does
3:18this sort of if you're kind of working with
3:20those but if you're working with CSV and
3:22flat files you don't get that and so this
3:24is a super nice feature to use.
3:26The last two features I'd like to talk
3:27about are the ability to remove duplicates.
3:30That's a very sort of difficult thing to do
3:32correctly and Tableau had a smart
3:34suggestion feature that could do that.
3:37Again you kind of have to wait till you see
3:39this in practice because removing dupl
3:41icates sometimes sounds easy to do but there
3:44are also instances where duplicates exist
3:46for a reason.
3:47Let's say you go to a shop and you buy two
3:49things at exactly the same time the
3:51transaction might look like you've got dupl
3:53icates in there but unless you've got some
3:56sort of unique identifier or some other
3:58sort of information that can tell you
4:00whether it's a duplicate or not.
4:02That's always a tricky thing to do so it's
4:03one of the features that I like to not
4:05trust until I've rigorously tested it and
4:07seen it for myself.
4:09The final thing is I think something that
4:11is growing a lot of momentum which is Table
4:13au Exchange, specifically Tableau Exchange
4:15connectors inside of Tableau Prep.
4:18This enables features and connectors like
4:20Amazon S3 inside of Tableau Prep so that is
4:23a super nice feature.
4:25If you want to check out these connectors I
4:26'll put them up on screen but there is a
4:28growing list more and more vendors are
4:30building connectors for their technologies
4:32inside of the Tableau platform.
4:34So something to check out and something to
4:36be super sort of alert of because you might
4:39just find in a year from now we have twice
4:41the number of connectors and these
4:43connectors can just be used today for free.
4:45They can be easily added to Tableau or
4:46Tableau Prep and it's now great to have
4:48them directly inside of the product.
4:51That's pretty much it for the features, I
4:52've gone through my list of features and I
4:54think that's pretty much everything.
4:56If you've got any questions, any notes
4:57about Tableau Prep drop them in the
4:59comments below I'd be happy to answer them.
5:01Apart from that, thanks for watching and I
5:03'll catch you in the next video.
5:05[BLANK_AUDIO]
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