Virtual connections: New in Tableau 2021.4

0:00Hey, it's Tim here. In 21.4 Tableau have

0:02brought along two features, virtual

0:04connections and

0:05centralized row level security. In this

0:07video, I'm going to touch on virtual

0:09connections.

0:09Centralized row level security is a topic

0:11of its own. So I'll cover that in the next

0:14video

0:14after this one. Now, the great thing about

0:17this is it allows you to create a

0:19connection on server

0:20that you can then democratize through your

0:23organization. It works very similar to

0:25something

0:25like a published data source except for

0:26this is nothing like a published data

0:28source. This is its

0:29own thing, its own completely different

0:31type of asset in Tableau. And it allows you

0:34to essentially

0:34create a connections and apply row level

0:37security to it and policies as well to it

0:39and then move

0:40that onto a folder or project, put it in a

0:42collection, connect to it in desktop, set

0:45it up

0:46in a web edit video. It's basically the

0:48dream connection you could possibly create

0:51with Tableau.

0:52It does require the data management add on,

0:54but nonetheless, let's find out how this

0:56works. So

0:57I'm going to go here to the new button here

0:58and you'll see that the option there is

1:00virtual

1:00connections. When we do that, it does open

1:02it in a new window for me. So I'll bring it

1:04onto screen

1:04so you can see. Now, when I scroll down

1:07this list, you'll see there's a few data

1:09sources. And if you

1:09can't see the one that you need in here, it

1:12's a good sign that Tableau is calling out

1:14the

1:15developers that are building this. And

1:16currently it's just a list of Tableau

1:18essentially. So

1:19it's a good hint that other people will be

1:21making these connections in the future. So

1:23if you can't

1:24see what you need here, then petition Table

1:27au or go to the Tableau exchange where no

1:29doubt these

1:30connectors will live. And you should be

1:31able to sort of start using this once

1:33connected apps and

1:34all of this stuff starts to roll out. Now,

1:36if I go ahead and select Snowflake, I'm

1:38going to connect

1:38to a Snowflake instance here. To do this,

1:41in a previous video, I showed you how to

1:43set up this

1:44demo database for this particular use case.

1:46So for this one, we're just going to set up

1:48the virtual

1:48connection. We're going to connect to it in

1:50desktop and web edit and show you how it

1:52all

1:52works. But for now, let's go ahead and let

1:54me type in my details. I'll switch to the

1:56authentication

1:57page after I've typed in all my details

1:58here, because I want to keep those secret.

2:00Okay, so

2:01I've logged in here, everything's working.

2:03I'll close my password manager down and you

2:05can see

2:06that we've set up the connection part of

2:08the virtual connection. Now the next thing

2:10I need

2:10to do specifically for Snowflake is choose

2:12a warehouse, select a database. This is

2:14going to

2:14be the Tableau demo database. And you can

2:16see here on the left hand side that once it

2:18's loaded up the

2:20data tables in this particular connection,

2:22just give it a second to connect, you'll

2:25see that here

2:26we have employees, invoices and orders.

2:28These are the tables that I set up in the

2:29previous video.

2:31Now what's cool about this is you can also

2:33use a custom SQL connection as well, like

2:35you can

2:35normally do in Tableau desktop as well. So

2:37that's something to be aware of. I'll

2:39select all three,

2:40because what I want to do is enable users

2:42to be able to create a relationship between

2:44these three

2:44data sources. And in the next video, I'm

2:46going to show you how row level security

2:48works using one of

2:49these tables, the employees table as an

2:51entitlement table. But nonetheless, let's

2:53drag all three into

2:54the view and you can see that they drop in.

2:57Now the nice thing here is you get some

2:58metadata about

2:59these tables. The table name, the

3:01visibility, this is a feature within the

3:04virtual connections that

3:06allows you to hide or show them when a user

3:07connects to them. I'll show you what this

3:09means

3:09a little later on. The database that it's

3:12coming from, the schema in the database,

3:14whether the data

3:15is live or as an extract, you can change

3:17that for all these connections or you can

3:20change it for

3:21each connection one at a time. So be

3:23absolutely sort of clear about what you

3:26want that to do,

3:27generally speaking. Now the data policy, we

3:29have none at the moment, that will be in

3:31the next video

3:32and then you've got the original table name

3:34, this is nothing new. Now one thing I didn

3:36't realize

3:37when I started playing around with this is

3:38that there's a whole other section down

3:40here and it's

3:41not obvious that you can sort of drag this

3:43up. So if you just hover your mouse over

3:45that sort of

3:46bottom lip, you'll see that you can then

3:48drag this up and you get the table sort of

3:50coming through.

3:50So now this has got a bit more space, this

3:53is really nice. I really wish that what

3:55they did is

3:56if you put three tables in, it just moved

3:58this up to sort of match the three tables

4:00like this.

4:01So you didn't have a scroll bar but you

4:02could immediately see that you had some

4:04metadata here

4:04to view, that would be a really nice sort

4:07of addition to the feature. Now if I go to

4:09this

4:09little section here, you can see that I

4:11have these Tableau prep like icons here and

4:13actually this is

4:14good to see. Tableau bringing some things

4:16we've asked for from Tableau prep into the

4:18connection

4:19experience for virtual connections and this

4:21has been a big ask. I personally don't

4:23agree with

4:23that sort of way of thinking, maybe that's

4:25another video but nonetheless the features

4:27here and so you

4:28can see when I click on this table view, I

4:30get a Tableau view of this particular table

4:32. Now if I

4:34switch from employees to invoices, this

4:35preview will change. I'll let it load first

4:37and you can

4:38see that actually happening. There you go,

4:40we've got the employees table there and you

4:42can see here

4:43that everything is pretty nicely set up.

4:45Now what I did in the SQL statement when I

4:47was loading the

4:48data into Snowflake is I actually changed

4:51one of the usernames here to match my name

4:54because for

4:54row level security this has got to work. So

4:57Laura over here in Seattle was the

4:58unfortunate candidate

5:00and I actually changed her full name to

5:01match mine, Tim Neguenna and that's because

5:04that's the

5:04name that I've actually got on Tableau

5:06server for the row level security to work.

5:08So we'll come back

5:09to that a little later on but nonetheless

5:11if I go over to invoices you'll see that

5:13again we load up

5:14a preview at 2155 rows of the data set. So

5:18everything is working as expected, this is

5:21sort of doing the

5:22right job and again you can see there that

5:24I have the salesperson name in there. So

5:27everything is

5:28working fine, the connection's good, now it

5:30comes to sort of actually saving them and

5:32making them

5:33sort of available to users. Well there's a

5:35save button up here and there's a publish

5:37button up

5:38here. Now I kind of got fooled into this

5:40when I first used this, the save button

5:43actually saves

5:43a draft and it's sort of a different

5:45behavior. So when I click save here you'll

5:47see that it says

5:48saved draft virtual connection but when I

5:51hit publish that is actually when the

5:53change is made

5:54so you can now see it's asking me where to

5:55save this. So this is what you want to make

5:57sure you do,

5:58a publish saves the actual details and save

6:01saves the draft. It's kind of a weird sort

6:04of meta but

6:05nonetheless that's just the way it is. I'm

6:07wondering if that will change in the future

6:09,

6:10maybe the draft could be automatically

6:11saved and then you can just hit publish

6:13once and that can be

6:14it. But nonetheless that's now saved, the

6:16virtual connection is available. If I go

6:19back to my list

6:21you can see that Snowflake is now available

6:23here and if I click on that I'll actually

6:25get the three

6:26tables available. So this virtual

6:28connection is set up, it's ready to be used

6:30and we can start using

6:31it. I'm going to show you how to do that

6:33next. Now I know most of you are using

6:35Tableau Desktop still,

6:36WebEdit is picking up pace, I can't tell

6:39you enough, really start using WebEdit,

6:41you'll be surprised that some parts are

6:43actually getting to feature parity with

6:45Tableau Desktop.

6:46But if you're still using desktop that's

6:48absolutely fine. Let me show you how to

6:50connect to that

6:51virtual connection. Now what you have to

6:53remember is that this is a server-based

6:54connection so you

6:56have to go to the top here and select Table

6:57au Server. I'm actually already logged in

6:59and what

7:00I can do is I can go down to this drop down

7:02and immediately select virtual connections.

7:04You can

7:04see that this connection is already here, I

7:07can select connect and when we do that we

7:09get the

7:10three tables. So at this point the server

7:12is actually sort of using my access and

7:14delegating

7:15access to this virtual connection and this

7:17virtual connections comes with these three

7:20tables. So me

7:21as a user I'm now empowered to go ahead and

7:23create my own data model and I can actually

7:25go in here

7:26and bring the invoices in. For this

7:28particular one I know this should be

7:30employee ID. Let's go ahead

7:32and actually match those two up so you can

7:34actually see this working. Let's bring in

7:36orders

7:36and let's do exactly the same thing

7:38employee ID and let's get that working as

7:41well. So that's a

7:42virtual connection pretty much set up. I

7:44can go to sheet one and there we have it

7:46the virtual

7:47connections working inside of Tableau

7:48Desktop. I can start working with it. In

7:50the next video

7:51we'll look at row level security so I will

7:53save this workbook and keep it available

7:55for the dat

7:56demo but nonetheless we've seen pretty much

7:58everything you need to see here in terms of

8:00connecting to a virtual connection. Now

8:02what is interesting is that it doesn't come

8:04up as a

8:04published data source as a server-based

8:06connection. It's got a standard connection

8:08here so you've got

8:09this sort of database icon. So what's

8:12actually happening here is that the user is

8:15first going

8:16after Tableau server and then from Tableau

8:18server Tableau server is managing the

8:19permissions

8:20and then passing on that live connection

8:22over to Snowflake or whatever and so that's

8:24a really

8:25important sort of mechanic to be aware of.

8:27I think these icons need sort of a bit of

8:29an update because

8:30I would still expect to see the server icon

8:32here so a user knows where to go and debug

8:34this because

8:35of course if I right click on this and I

8:37select edit data source and I go in here

8:39you'll see that

8:39it actually gives me the edit connection

8:41and it's going to throw a bug here because

8:43essentially I

8:44need to go and do this over on the server.

8:46It's not going to sort of be working over

8:48here so it's

8:49like a really interesting sort of challenge

8:52here that I think Tableau have to kind of

8:54keep

8:54everything consistent. Maybe this is sort

8:56of a launch bug, maybe it's because I'm

8:58using the

8:58pre-release version here but nonetheless I

9:01would expect sort of that visual icon use

9:04to be

9:04consistent so if I'm connecting to server

9:06to use a virtual connection I would hope to

9:08see a server

9:09icon there but nonetheless this is working

9:12fine. Now let me head back to the area that

9:14I was in

9:15before in fact let me head back to this

9:17browser window here because you can see

9:18everything is

9:19still set up. Now one of the nice things

9:21you can do is of course you can make

9:23something

9:23hidden for a temporary period so in this

9:27case I'm going to hit publish now the invo

9:29ices table is

9:30hidden but I can still work on this. I can

9:32still now make it available and hit save

9:35and now I'm

9:35saving the draft it's not yet been

9:37published. I can test something make sure

9:39everything works and

9:40then when I'm done I can go ahead hit

9:42publish and now the virtual connection is

9:44up to date.

9:44This allows you to come back to a virtual

9:46connection and edit it over time add data

9:48policies and centralize row level security

9:51policies to it over time as well. So these

9:53are

9:54these things are going to have longevity

9:55and unlike other connections they're not

9:57going to die a death

9:58because there's actually some weight behind

10:00these and hopefully they'll start to

10:02collect the

10:02metadata that people have always wanted.

10:05Now the last place I'll show you how to use

10:06this is of

10:07course web edit. So how do we do this well

10:09let's go to the 21.4 folder here and let's

10:12just go ahead

10:12and create a new workbook. Now when we

10:14create a new workbook of course it's web

10:16edit we do exactly

10:17the same thing select virtual connection

10:19select snowflake connect and now we're back

10:22in here we've

10:22got the web edit version of this we can go

10:25ahead drag in the employees table and we

10:28can essentially

10:28do the same thing as we did before. There's

10:30nothing really new here but nonetheless

10:32this is how it

10:33works and people always ask for these

10:35things if I don't cover it someone will say

10:37hey you didn't

10:38show us how to do it and here I am. So

10:40there we go that's the connection setup

10:43super simple exactly

10:44the same thing we've got web edit here we

10:46've got desktop over here the exact same

10:48setup and that's

10:49pretty much virtual connections for you. So

10:51thanks for watching check out the next

10:53video on centralized

10:54row level security to see how that works

10:56that's a bit more of a complicated video

10:58but I think

10:59you're going to like it so check it out

11:01thanks for watching and I'll catch you in

11:03the next one.