# Tableau Workbook Optimiser vs Tableau Exchange Accelerators!

> 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:** 2022-06-13
- **Format:** Video · 2117 min watch · transcript available
- **Topics:** Data visualisation, Tool strategy, Productivity
- **Tools:** Tableau (accelerators, exchange, extracts, lod expressions, performance, workbook optimiser)
- **Canonical:** https://just-tim.com/posts/tableau-workbook-optimiser-vs-tableau-exchange-accelerators
- **Watch:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vt8NQ8DYRqQ

I put Tableau's Accelerators through Tableau's own Workbook Optimizer to see how they score against a baseline I build from the default desktop workbooks. I download accelerators across departments, industries and enterprise applications, run the optimiser on each, and work out whether they clear the baseline pass mark.

## Key takeaways

- Build a baseline by running the Workbook Optimizer on the three default Tableau workbooks (Superstore, Regional, World Indicators) — they average 10.3/12, or 86%, which becomes the pass mark.
- Most accelerators sit around seven out of twelve, and every single one fails the unused-fields check, so I'd argue that test should be ignored unless you're at final production stage.
- Recurring failures are huge numbers of LOD calculations (one finance workbook had 253), excessive hidden sheets and views over ten per dashboard — much of that work belongs back in your ETL pipeline.
- Running 'Compute Calculations' on an extract materialises calculations and instantly lifts the optimiser score, a quick free win you'd miss without the optimiser.
- Hiding unused fields after building (with the show-hidden-fields toggle to bring them back) is best practice, and a genuinely well-designed accelerator focused on one question scored 11/12.

## Chapters

- 0:20 Setting a baseline score
- 4:38 Downloading the first department accelerators
- 13:56 Web traffic and finance workbooks
- 19:18 Department section verdict
- 20:23 Testing industry accelerators
- 26:29 A well-designed account engagement workbook
- 31:16 Overall verdict on accelerators

Watch the full video, read the transcript and use chapter deep-links on the page: https://just-tim.com/posts/tableau-workbook-optimiser-vs-tableau-exchange-accelerators

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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