Don’t miss out on these features on Tableau Server/Online
That can save you a lot of time!
Today we’ll be going through some cool features that we miss out on tableau server or tableau online.
1. Lineage
This is awesome to do an impact analysis. Now think of a situation where you’re making a change to a dashboard data source and you need to understand where the data come from. That’s one situation where lineage helps you track it.
How to navigate? Open the workbook on server --> Navigate to Lineage tab
You can also identify which other workbooks, sheets, Dashboards and Owners that are using this data source.
How does that help? Well, what if you are making changes in a data source and this will impact all those dashboards? You need to inform those owners.
2. Subscription
Do you know how you subscribe to newsletters that are sent to your email daily? This is similar to that. Tableau lets you subscribe to a workbook that is sent directly to your email that is being used in tableau server/online. This saves you the effort to manually log in and check every time.
How to set it?
You’ll find the option to subscribe on the top bar
Click on it to see the menu.
• You can add multiple users and groups
• Choose between This view and the Entire Workbook
• The format in which you want to receive it — Image, PDF & Image and PDF
• Add a subject. This will help you easily find your subscription. Along with this, it is useful to have a description.
3. View
As per Tableau, a custom view is a saved version of the view with your selections and filters applied. Since views are interactive, custom views let you save your filters, sorts, or selections, without making changes to the underlying view.
That means if you are only interested in your theater and region, then set up a view with those filters which will avoid you do this process every time.
How to create a view?
Select your desired filter values then click on views. Save your view. If the same view can be used by other members of your team then “Make visible to others” so that this can be reused. And set it to “Make it my default” if you only care about your filter values.
This would save you so much time.
4. Alerts
This is my favorite 😄
When data reaches important thresholds for your business, data-driven alerts automatically send email notifications to key people you specify.
Let’s take a situation — I want to know if an order isn’t shipped within 5 days. But with my busy schedule, I sometimes forget to check the dashboard. So that’s where data alerts will do it for me. I set up an alert to be notified when this happens.
How to create an alert?
Click on Alert
You’ll see this if you haven’t selected an Axis
Now select an Axis (Alert can be only applied on an Axis) and then click “Create”
You’ll see a pink highlighted portion that shows based on the condition you select. You can set a frequency based on your requirements. This is actually a wider topic that I plan to cover in a separate post.
5. Comments
This is probably the most underrated feature on server/online. Back to a situation — You notice something odd while drilling through the dashboard. What you would probably do is tell the developer that after applying these filters you see this odd view.
But what if there was an easier way? There is! Comments can let you share your exact notes with a user.
I want to share this with the developer.
So click on the comments on the toolbar
You can add a note and mention the person who needs to see this. Also attach the snapshot -
When you click on view, you would see the view with all the filters and actions applied by the person who commented.
6. Metrics
As per Tableau, Metrics are a type of Tableau content that tracks the value of an aggregate measure, such as sum of sales. Because metrics refresh frequently and display their current value in an easy-to-glance format, they are useful for monitoring data.
Now if I want to track only the phone sales then I can click on the sales of phones and then click on metrics to open up this window
Now the metric would be displayed separately and can also be easily viewed on a mobile
7. Revert
I was recently asked for a way to clear all the selected filter values. There are hacks to do this in tableau but do you really need to? Nope!
Server and Online has a Revert button that lets you revert to the original view.
If you have selected a different view then the values revert to the default values in that view.
8. Revision History
This is a really great way to track all your versions for the dashboard.
If you need to go back to any of your older versions on the server, then you can find them here
That brings us to the end of this post. I hope you found something useful. I’m sure I have a lot more to learn so if you have any other options/features on server/online then do share them in the comments.
Thanks for reading my looooong post! :)
Have fun and stay safe! :)
