0:00Hey, it's Tim here and in today's video I'm
0:02going to be taking you through the new
0:03tagging updates in 2020.3.
0:06My previous video I actually covered how to
0:08tag stale content, but this video I'm going
0:10to be focusing purely on how to tag assets
0:13in your Tableau server or Tableau Online.
0:17Now you do need the data management added
0:19in order to do this, so if you're watching
0:21this video and you can't see the external
0:24assets section here on the left hand side,
0:27before you go in there and it's not working
0:28correctly, you do need to make sure that
0:30you actually have that enabled on your
0:31server.
0:32It is unfortunately at an additional cost,
0:34but it has a couple of useful features that
0:36might be worth the price if you're looking
0:38to go down that road.
0:40Now if I go into the external assets area,
0:42you'll notice that the group that you
0:45arrive at is the database and files.
0:48And when we're here, this is essentially
0:50showing you a range of assets on your Table
0:53au server.
0:54If I click on this drop down, you'll also
0:56see that we have tables available to us.
0:58So these are essentially the tables that
1:00sit inside of those databases or files as
1:02it were.
1:03So here you tend to see sheets from Excel,
1:06but if I go back to the top one, you will
1:08tend to see Excel files as the assets in
1:11this particular level.
1:13And if I go back to the explore page and I
1:16simply go to look at the workbooks, what
1:19you've been able to do for quite some time
1:20now is actually tag content.
1:22So if I just, for example, click on this, I
1:24can always go down here to tag and then I
1:27can add a tag to suit my needs.
1:30So I can just say a new tag here. Let me
1:32just tag this. I hit the enter button there
1:34too quickly.
1:35Let's try that again. Let's hit new hyphen
1:39tag. It doesn't like the space button.
1:42Any space basically enters the character
1:44and you basically get a new tag.
1:47So I'm going to save that as a new tag and
1:49there we go. We're pretty much done.
1:52But the new feature in 2020.3 is we're
1:54actually able to tag not just things like
1:57workbooks and data sources and sheets,
2:00but we can actually go in and individually
2:02tag assets such as databases, tables and
2:05even columns inside of those tables as well
2:08.
2:09So I'm going to show you how that works. I
2:12'm going to go over to the external assets
2:13area.
2:14And essentially the first thing I'm going
2:16to do is I'm going to tag this database
2:18here. This is a Salesforce.
2:20This is a Salesforce authentication. So it
2:22's essentially just pulling in information
2:24from Salesforce.
2:25And if I go down here and I just click on
2:27the tag here, you'll see that I've actually
2:29already tagged this as Salesforce.
2:32OK, so I'm going to also call this, I'm
2:35just going to put live, for example,
2:37just going to call it that it's a live
2:38connection because essentially these are
2:40credentials that I've saved on Tableau
2:42Online.
2:43And I've got the most in the workbook. So
2:44when we actually query the information, it
2:46's almost reading it directly from Sales
2:48force.
2:49So I'll leave it as live and just to give
2:50it some sort of different notation there.
2:53And then the next thing I want to do is to
2:56actually go into a table and tag the table.
3:00Then I'm also going to tag a specific
3:02column in the table. So I'm going to go to
3:04Superstore here.
3:05This is essentially acts as a database. And
3:07you can see here that we've got a table
3:09here called orders.
3:11And this is actually one of the sheets you
3:12find in that Excel file. If you're slightly
3:14lost in this view,
3:16you've always got this lineage area here on
3:18the right hand side that you can actually
3:20use to give you some guidance.
3:21If I want to go down to the workbook, I can
3:23just do that here and just keep going
3:25further down the hierarchy until I get to
3:28the owners of the workbook,
3:30which in this case is, of course, just me.
3:32But let's go back to the Superstore sales
3:34here.
3:35And what I want to do is I want to click on
3:36this table because this is what I actually
3:38want to go to.
3:39And when I'm here, I can do two things. I
3:42can tag this table and I call this sales
3:45hyphen table and just hit enter.
3:48And I'm going to save the tags. And the
3:51next thing I can do is I can also tag these
3:54columns.
3:55Now, you'll notice there's a column here on
3:57the right hand side that says no tags
3:59available.
4:00That just means I haven't tagged this
4:01content. But let's say we've got a
4:03calculation that's really specific and
4:06maybe we want to be able to tag it.
4:08So we know where certain information is
4:10being used. All you need to do is to click
4:12on the column name.
4:14This opens up this nice pop up window. And
4:16here you can edit the tags as well.
4:18So, for example, you could tag this as a
4:20field that uses personally identifiable
4:22information.
4:23So you can say PII. And when you save that
4:26tag, it's obviously going to go and be
4:28assigned to that field.
4:30Now, let me just do that again. I think I
4:33didn't hit the right thing there. So let's
4:37just type in PII.
4:39And hit enter. There we go. That's saved.
4:42And then hit save again.
4:44And now that's actually happened correctly.
4:46You can add multiple tags. You don't just
4:47have to add one.
4:49I can also add another one here that says
4:51sales and notice that my tags are universal
4:53.
4:54So they're not exclusive to any type of
4:55content. I can tag this as Salesforce or
4:58they wouldn't make sense in this case
5:00because this data is actually an Excel data
5:02source.
5:03So I hit save here as well. So now we've
5:05added two tags and overall we've added
5:07three.
5:08We've added one to a column, one to this
5:10table and also one to a database. So you
5:12might be wondering, well, what use is this?
5:14How can I go find this content? Well, the
5:17first place you can go is the explore page
5:18where on the right hand side,
5:20you can filter your content based on tags.
5:24Now, at this point, I'm on a top level
5:25project.
5:26So of course, I don't get the ability to
5:27look at tags because tags don't exist at a
5:30project level.
5:31But if I go to workbooks, you'll see the
5:33filter pane on the right hand side changes.
5:36And now I can actually start to interact
5:38with my tags. But notice that these tags
5:41are only specific to the workbooks.
5:44If I go to the data sources and I go back
5:46down to this dropdown, you'll see that I
5:48just have one tag for stale content.
5:51Essentially, what's happened here is in the
5:52previous video I recorded, you can check it
5:54out. I actually tagged this as stale
5:56content.
5:57So this tag is still here. So you're
5:59probably wondering, well, where are my
6:00other tags?
6:02Well, in order to do that, we need to go
6:03back to the external assets.
6:05And what I'm going to do is I'm going to
6:06very quickly show you a cool feature which
6:09you can use with the metadata API,
6:11which allows you to very quickly query
6:13these tags. Before I do that, it's also
6:16worth mentioning that you do have the
6:18ability to look at tags here on the right
6:20hand side.
6:21So if I click live, for example, you'll see
6:22that that comes up there. Salesforce comes
6:25up there.
6:26If I go down to tables and I look at this
6:28as well, you'll see that I have just the
6:30one tag here for sales tables.
6:33But if I clear the filters and I go back in
6:34here again, you'll see that I still can't
6:36see every single time that I created.
6:39Well, the best and easiest way to do that
6:41is to jump over here to this interface.
6:44And this interface essentially allows you
6:46to talk to the metadata API.
6:48Now, this is not designed to be a
6:49production level interface that allows you
6:52to export data like a CSV or Excel file.
6:55But it is designed for you to look at what
6:57the API can actually offer you.
7:00You'd need to do a bit of heavy lifting
7:01yourself to actually use the API, maybe
7:03connected to a third party system that
7:05manages assets across your organization.
7:07So you can track where things are going. So
7:10let's go ahead and run this.
7:11And you can see I actually already pre
7:13entered a query here just to filter this
7:15list.
7:16It's very, very simple. You essentially
7:17start by naming the asset you want to look
7:19at.
7:20In this case, it's tags. And then you bring
7:22all the sort of information about those
7:24tags of the ID, the name.
7:27And here I want to actually call out the
7:29assets.
7:30Then I go and get the asset ID, because
7:31what I can then do with that is link it to
7:33other information.
7:35And then the type of asset that it is. And
7:37you'll see that this is loaded a nice list
7:38here on the right hand side.
7:40So essentially, you can see here that I
7:42added a new tag and this has actually been
7:44applied to a workbook and a sheet.
7:47Essentially, the sheet is actually inside
7:49of that workbook, which is why those two
7:51sort of come in hand and hand in hand.
7:53Now, I also earlier marked stale content,
7:55and you can see that this has applied it to
7:57the workbook and the sheet.
7:59So these two are sort of linked whenever
8:01you apply a tag to a workbook, it's
8:03automatically pushed down to the sheet.
8:06And also any published data sources that
8:08might sit inside of that.
8:10But the other thing to bear in mind is that
8:12you can also tag data sources separately.
8:15So you need to do a little bit of
8:16validation to make sure that data source
8:19isn't part of a workbook or it is part of a
8:20workbook, or maybe it's published
8:22separately.
8:24Earlier on, you saw me tag the PII
8:25information. And the really cool thing is
8:27it's actually pulled that information out.
8:30So this is a great way of tagging a series
8:32of content on your server and then being
8:34able to very, very quickly find it.
8:37If I just scroll down this list, you can
8:39see a few other tags that have been created
8:41.
8:42For example, the sales table tagged to a
8:44database table. And this is all information
8:46that's easily available.
8:48If I just remove the ID just to make this
8:49list a little bit shorter, we actually just
8:52get a list of the type of assets.
8:54So you can see here that this sales item
8:56has been tagged to two columns here.
8:58And of course, I've removed the ID, but you
9:00can of course go and find that out.
9:03Now, the way I know what to type here is
9:05essentially I'm just using this capability
9:07here on the right hand side that shows me
9:09what to type.
9:11So if I just type in asset and then I go to
9:13tag assets, then it tells me what those
9:16things are.
9:17So if I go into Taggable, then basically
9:19this is what it's returning.
9:21This list here, for example, is just a list
9:23of the implementations here on the right
9:25hand side.
9:26So that's pretty much all that's going on.
9:27It's a very, very simple list and it's a
9:30nice feature.
9:31And so if you're really into managing
9:33content and you need to be aware of
9:35information that's being used inside of
9:37Tableau,
9:38and actually you want to bring that out of
9:40Tableau into a metadata system,
9:42the API is a really powerful way of
9:44actually going into Tableau, getting that
9:46information out and storing that
9:48information,
9:49maybe in an external database in your
9:51organization.
9:52So you can not only track what Tableau is
9:53aware of, but you can also track where
9:56information is being used in your entire
9:57organization to give you a much higher
9:59level overview of what's going on.
10:02OK, thanks for watching this video. It
10:04ended up really deep inside of this, you
10:07know, admittedly code heavy sort of
10:08interface.
10:09But I just wanted to show you how you can
10:11use the metadata API to query information.
10:14And don't forget, of course, this is just a
10:16temporary interface to use this and see
10:18what you can get.
10:19And ideally you'd want to build something a
10:22little bit more robust to find out how to
10:25use that.
10:26If you want to learn more about the
10:27metadata API, I highly encourage you to
10:29follow my colleague, Andre.
10:31If I just go back to YouTube here, you get
10:33to see all my great tastes.
10:36Andre De Vries, here we go. And we go to
10:39his channel and you'll see that he's
10:41actually got a video here about the
10:43metadata API.
10:44So this is a really good video just to give
10:46you a deep dive into how you should be
10:48using it.
10:49And he goes into a little bit of depth
10:51about metadata API and also GraphQL and how
10:53you can use that to to to to make
10:55everything work for you.
10:57OK, thanks for watching. I'll catch you in
10:58the next video. If you've enjoyed the
10:59content, you know what to do.
11:01If you haven't, you also know what to do.
11:03There's a dislike button if you really want
11:05to smash it.
11:06Hopefully not. Hopefully you hit the like
11:07button and I'll catch you in the next video
11:09.
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