Tableau Conference 2024 Unveils Platform Enhancements

For years, Tableau has been known for its simple mission statement: “We Help People See and Understand Data.” At Tableau Conference 2024, the massively popular data and analytics event, Tableau is announcing improvements to its platform that will delight data analysts and expand its user base beyond data professionals, giving everyone across every organization the ability to grow and benefit from data-driven insights.

Today, only 30% of workers say they use data to make business decisions. To help every worker tap into data that helps their businesses grow, analytics must be more approachable and more automated, so workers can follow data-driven recommendations. Tableau sees AI as an opportunity to lower the barrier for entry: according to a 2024 report by Forrester Research, 59% of data and analytics decision makers whose organization is using AI technologies report significant cost savings from using AI in operations, and 47% say they have AI-based data products that are generating revenue.

Tableau’s latest announcements include analytical enhancements that improve usability for data analysts, AI that unlocks data for more people, and scalability improvements that ease IT administration and governance tasks in a comprehensive update to the platform.

Improvements for the data analyst featured in engineering showcase Tableau’s analyst fanbase flocks to the annual conference to hear about the latest innovations in the application that they love. Over a dozen new features will be showcased in “Devs on Stage,” where Tableau Developers demo new innovations in a live keynote presentation. The session features quality-of-life improvements highly requested by Tableau’s core group of analyst users. Highlights include:

• Viz Extensions - Tableau’s passionate base of analytics aficionados constantly stretches the boundaries of the application to draw complex diagrams like Sankey Charts and Network Diagrams. Viz Extensions expand the visual libraries Tableau can use to create these graphics faster: a new Sankey extension allows an analyst to build the chart in three clicks, avoiding the complex data preparation or calculations required without Viz Extensions. 

Viz Extensions are also exposed as an open API that anyone can use to build their own visualization templates. Tableau is featuring partner-built Viz Extensions, showcasing the rich ecosystem of Tableau Developers bringing custom visualizations to the platform. Tableau partner AppsforTableau has a KPI decomposition tree, plus rich text tables with data writeback for users who prefer to interact with data in a spreadsheet. Another partner, LaDataViz, has distributed a tree diagram that can be used to show hierarchical visuals.

  Tableau’s native and partner-built Viz Extensions make it easier for analysts to create complex visualizations

• Shared Dimensions and Composable Data Sources - Another frequent challenge for analysts is working with complex data. Data coming from different sources with differing levels of detail can force analysts to spend more time preparing and modeling data than actually generating insights.

• Shared Dimensions allow analysts to create more complex data models, including those with multiple fact tables.

• Composable Data Sources expand the capability further, allowing analysts to supplement centrally defined data sources with their own additions without changing the underlying model.

Using these capabilities, an analyst or data curator can create a single underlying model that can source dozens or hundreds of data visualizations. For example, a manufacturing company could combine machine data from its assembly line, worker data on shifts and time off, and data about shipments to and from suppliers in a single model, and create dashboards and applications on topics ranging from IoT data, supplier management, worker productivity, and executive reporting all from one source with one set of underlying metrics.

• Tableau Desktop Public Edition - Tableau is investing in building the next generation of data analysts. Already known for its academic programs, which have enabled 3.2 million students and teachers with free software and learning resources since 2011, Tableau is now expanding its free offering with Tableau Public. Tableau Public is a free platform to explore, create, and publicly share data visualizations online with over 9.5 million published workbooks, where analysts go to hone their skills and express their passion for data. To further its mission of helping everyone see, understand, and act on data, the company is expanding Tableau Desktop Public Edition to allow users to work with and save data securely and locally on their desktop, or share it online with the Tableau Public community. Now, even more learners, data enthusiasts, and non-profit users can explore the data that matters to them most.

Expanding the audience for data to line of business workers with AI innovation As AI makes the experience of working with data more approachable, Tableau is seeing its impact expand from analysts to knowledge workers in lines of business. Tableau Pulse, launched in February, brings data to the masses with personalized, automated insights powered by AI. Today, Tableau is announcing new capabilities for Pulse and Einstein Copilot for Tableau, an AI assistant that allows novice analysts to explore and base more decisions on data.

• Einstein Copilot for Tableau, now available in beta, allows novice analysts and people who do not often explore data to investigate and visualize data with AI assistance. New features include:

• AI-assisted data transformation, which can automate a data transformation pipeline with step-by-step suggestions that an analyst can employ with a single click. For example, the user could enter a prompt like “Look through this product’s reviews and help me determine which ones are the most positive.” Einstein Copilot for Tableau will then guide the user through the steps needed to prepare the data for analysis.

• Using Einstein Copilot for Tableau Catalog, people can automatically generate descriptions of data to make their data sources easier to find and explore. For example, someone working in hospitality can click “Draft with Einstein” for data about travel, and receive a detailed description of the data, using the data source’s metadata and field names to help other analysts easily reference these insights.

Einstein Copilot for Tableau Improvements include guided data transformation and the ability for AI to automatically draft a data dictionary.

• Tableau Pulse automatically identifies and delivers insights based on a user’s personalized set of KPIs. Users receive these findings in email, chat, and on mobile devices, with the ability to interact, explore, and filter their insights. New Pulse capabilities include:

• “Ask” Q&A, which helps anyone explore their metrics with natural language. For example, a marketing executive could ask “which market is contributing the most to lead gen in my campaign?” Tableau Pulse will then surface insights for that metric directly in the marketing executive’s preferred communications platform like Slack, in email, or on their mobile device.

• With Metrics Bootstrapping, users working within a Tableau dashboard can save their calculations to Tableau’s metrics layer, helping them track and monitor the information over time. This triggers Tableau Pulse to start generating and pushing proactive insights to users based on these metrics, such as whether the data is trending in a positive direction, or what’s driving the trend.

• Metric Goals gives users the ability to compare progress on a metric to a benchmark or goal. For example, a sales manager could track their pipeline versus their targets at various points during the quarter.

Hyperforce leverages Salesforce’s infrastructure to scale Tableau faster Tableau can’t deploy new AI capabilities to every user without the support of IT administrators who govern the system. Tableau announced a scalability update to its Tableau Cloud platform with Hyperforce, Salesforce’s modern, trusted cloud infrastructure, that allows Tableau to develop faster and meet customer data residency requirements. In addition, Tableau has new licensing and support options with Tableau+, a new premium bundle, and Success Plans, an updated support model.

Tableau Cloud, Tableau’s leading software-as-a-service platform for analytics, is increasingly being asked to meet the needs of large and complex enterprise implementations as customers deploy Tableau’s AI-driven analytics capabilities to every user. Tableau is accelerating the growth of this platform with Hyperforce. Hyperforce improves the availability and agility of Tableau Cloud by allowing growth into new regions and data centers faster. This helps customers whose data must be hosted in their country. It also provides an easier pathway to additional compliance certifications like FedRAMP.

Perspective on the news:

• “Tableau Conference is the data event of the year, and critically, a chance for us to say ‘thank you’ to our community who have been so supportive and made us successful as a business. We’re expressing that gratitude by bringing dozens of new features to market that we believe our customers will love,” said Ryan Aytay, CEO of Tableau. “I’m excited for the future and to also share the vision for the next generation of Tableau.”

• “At Merck, we are constantly looking for new ways to innovate so we can better serve our patients, customers, and partners,” said Walid Mehanna, Chief Data & AI Officer, Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany. “Data and AI are an integral part of our strategy, and leveraging Tableau Pulse to access critical insights in real time is going to make our decision-making faster and more precise than ever before.”

• “Customers must consider a variety of factors when selecting data and analytics technologies,” said Chandana Gopal of IDC Research. “They need to leverage modern tools powered by AI or they’ll fall behind their competitors. But they also need systems that are easy to manage at scale. And they need confidence that their platform of choice is supported by talent in the market to build out the staffing and processes required for a data-driven business. Platforms that offer all of these components, packaged in a way that customers can consume, are increasingly valued in today’s technical environment.”