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what's new in Tableau 5.0
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You're in for a treat: more than 60 new features in Tableau 5.0
Tableau Desktop 5.0 helps you explore data better and author killer visualizations.
Tableau Server 5.0 is faster, more secure, and easier to manage. And it scales to very large implementations, so your entire company can share data and explore visualizations.
Welcome to Tableau 5.0
Tableau Desktop, Tableau ServerWe’ve developed more than 60 new features across four themes, all designed to let you better ask and answer questions of your data. You can learn about all the new features here.
Other ways to learn about Tableau 5.0:
- sign up: What's New web seminar
- watch a What's New training video
- read about active dashboards
- download the What's New pdf
- find other Tableau 5.0 resources
Explore and enjoy!
Introduction: Active Dashboards
Tableau Desktop, Tableau ServerThese features keep the attention where it should be: in rich and interactive views of data. They help you find and tell the stories in your data.
New features in Tableau 5.0 include:
- Make selections pop with new visual selection model
- Highlight and filter related data (called brushing and linking in academic research)
- Work across data sources with new highlighting and filtering features
These features work with only a few clicks, no development needed. Highlighting and filtering is authored in Tableau Desktop and displays in both Tableau Server and Tableau Desktop.
From a beta customer: "When I highlight the product category in one legend it highlights that category in both worksheets, allowing us to rapidly see how mix varies across the regions and how it’s changed over 5 years." Chris Fort, Manager, Strategic Market Information Group, Mannington Mills, Inc
Make Selected Data Pop
Tableau Desktop, Tableau ServerWhat’s this?
A new visual selection model now makes your data pop, making it easy for you to find and explore data.
What’s happening?You’ve selected several points of interest for the last three years. Those are highlighted, keeping their colors, and the other marks fade back.
Why is it important?As you’re exploring your data, the software makes it abundantly clear where you are. By isolating the selected marks you can more easily recognize patterns and focus on related data.
Highlight in Dashboards
Tableau Desktop, Tableau ServerWhat’s this?
This lets you easily discover related data in different views, so you can identify relationships and trends.
What's happening?Select data in any view. Because Salesperson highlighting is activated, data related to that Salesperson (Nelson) is highlighted in each pane of the dashboard.
Why is it important?You can now answer questions like, “How is Nelson performing relative to the rest of the team?” (bottom left), or “Which accounts are Nelson’s and how large are they?” (bottom right).
Filter in Dashboards
Tableau Desktop, Tableau ServerWhat’s this?
This automatically selects the data in each view that is related to the selection in the master view.
What's happening?Here, the top view is set as the filter. When you select a salesperson (Nelson), the views below automatically filter Sales to Date and Accounts to Nelson’s data.
Why is it important?You can browse through large data sets with only a few clicks. Filtering becomes part of the exploration process, not a separate event. This is useful when there is a lot of data and you need to filter rather than highlight data.
Highlight Across Views
Tableau Desktop, Tableau ServerWhat’s this?
This automatically highlights the same data points across different views.
What's happening?When you select one or more data points in the top pane, Tableau automatically highlights the associated data points in the pane below.
Why is it important?It allows you to see, for instance, that the orders with the highest revenue amount did not tend to have the highest discounts. Hence, heavy discounting is not needed to bring in large orders.
Highlight by Category
Tableau Desktop, Tableau ServerWhat’s this?
This feature lets you highlight a category across multiple views.
What's happening?When you select "Western" for 2008, that territory is highlighted in the bar charts for 2007 and 2006 also.
Why is it important?It allows the user to see, for instance, that the Western territory has made a lot of ground in manufacturing and automotive, but that retail is shrinking.
Highlight Across Data Sources
Tableau Desktop, Tableau ServerWhat’s this?
Because your data isn’t always in just one place, highlighting and filtering works across data sources.
What's happening?You're working with a dashboard that uses data from three different data sources. You can highlight by store, state, or another category.
Why is it important?Finding related data is often most valuable when you're working across data sources. This feature lets you link views of data and find trends that would otherwise be hidden.
Highlight Date Trends
Tableau Desktop, Tableau ServerWhat’s this?
With one click, you can highlight across multiple views that show time or date.
What's happening?You've got a dashboard that is all based on dates: sales daily and quarter-to-date, by territory. You've turned on date/ time highlighting and selected December, so across all the views December data is highlighted.
Why is it important?With only one click, you can highlight date/ time data across multiple views. This is a powerful form of perspective linking that helps you understand multi-dimensional data more easily.
One-Click Highlighting
Tableau DesktopWhat’s this?
This feature lets you highlight across categories with a single click.
What's happening?You’ve clicked on the highlighting menu and chose to highlight all views by opportunity owner.
Why is it important?Highlighting is a powerful tool that lets you explore data by linking perspectives across views. With Tableau, you can enable this with a single click, so you get all the power of highlighting without needed to do any programming or custom work.
New Dashboard Styles
Tableau Desktop, Tableau ServerWhat’s this?
The background on quick filters has changed to white and the titles on dashboards have been reformatted.
What's happening?You’ve created a dashboard with one view, a quick filter, and a legend. The background on the quick filters is white and the title is a light grey that keeps the focus on the data.
Why is it important?By making quick filters and titles blend into dashboards better, the focus stays on your data and you can visually analyze it without distraction.
Video: Active Views & Dashboards
Introduction: Rich Authoring
Tableau Desktop, Tableau ServerThese features let you guide your users through an analysis and allow greater control over the visualization.
New authoring features include:- Manage your data: use powerful new filters, including relative date filters
- Create guided analytic workflows: design links, highlights and filters to create custom workflows
- Customize views: change Quick Filter and legend titles, customize tooltips and add parameters to titles and captions to present exactly the right view
- Create dual axes charts: show related data on dual axes
These features work with only a few clicks, no development needed.
Relative Date Filters
Tableau Desktop, Tableau ServerWhat’s this?
This feature lets you apply date filters for time periods by dates relative to now.
What's happening?You’re filtering by date, but selecting relative time periods rather than absolute dates. Here you've chosen to see the last 180 days.
Why is it important?Viewing the last six months or six weeks of data is a common need. Now those views stay up to date automatically when you set a relative date range. Tableau keeps your views up to date as time passes and you add new data.
One-Click Date Filters
Tableau Desktop, Tableau ServerWhat’s this?
This feature lets you apply date filters simply by clicking on that time period in the Quick Filter.
What's happening?You’re filtering by date: in the one-click relative date filter on the top left, you’ve chosen to view the last year of data.
Why is it important?This allows you to easily browse periods to see how your data is changing. This is available with just a click– no programming and no customization required.
Search Within Filter
Tableau Desktop, Tableau ServerWhat’s this?
This feature lets you search within a Quick Filter list for any string.
What's happening?In the first example, you’re searching a large product list to find all products that include “Cycling” without searching for them individually. By the time you’ve typed the first five letters, you’re found three options.
Why is it important?This allows you to search and filter quickly in large data sets and to do ad-hoc filtering.
Wildcard Match in Filter
Tableau Desktop, Tableau ServerWhat’s this?
This feature lets you search for a string without showing the entire filter.
What's happening?You’re viewing stimulus project proposals for airports and are interested in airfields, as opposed to terminals or infrastructure. You select a pattern match filter and enter “airfield” to see all the programs with that term.
Why is it important?This allows you to search and filter quickly in large data sets. You can perform free-text searches, like in this example. You can also find families of records easily: for example, all sales records for “Toyota Motor co,” “Toyota Parts,” etc.
Compact Filter
Tableau Desktop, Tableau ServerWhat’s this?
Filter to one of several options with a small control that saves space on your dashboard.
What's happening?You’ve chosen to filter on Region, but you only want to select one at a time. Here you’ve selected the Midwest to see all the programs in that region.
Why is it important?This gives you control over the filtering behavior of your view, as well as the aesthetics. As an author, you may want to chose a compact list over a single-value list to save space and make the view more appealing.
This control also works for single-select attributes in cubes.
Slide Through Categories
Tableau Desktop, Tableau ServerWhat’s this?
This feature lets you filter to one of several options in a slider, so you can easily browse your data.
What's happening?You’re filtering Stimulus data, and you’re interested in how the proposals change by region. You add a slider control to be able to browse through the regions.
Why is it important?Sliders encourage clicking through data in a series. Like the compact filter, you can restrict the filter behavior to one selection at a time while guiding the user.
Set Default Sort Order
Tableau DesktopWhat’s this?
This feature lets you set the sort order of any field to follow a logical pattern.
What's happening?You’ve created a chart about assets by age group, but your grouping “under 35” fell to the end in an alphabetical sort. You changed the sort to order it first.
Why is it important?When you present data outside of a logical sort order, the result can be very confusing for your viewers. This allows you to set an order when numerical or alphabetical sorts don’t work.
Customize Tooltips
Tableau DesktopWhat’s this?
This lets you select which data is included or excluded from the tooltip. You can even include data that isn’t in the view.
What's happening?You’ve added program, project, project link, and estimated jobs to the tooltip; and you’ve excluded latitude and longitude.
Why is it important?As an author, you want the ability to tell a story with your views. Now you can use the tooltips to focus the viewer on the most important data and add relevant details.
Edit Quick Filter Titles
Tableau DesktopWhat’s this?
Now you can change Quick Filter titles right on the view.
What's happening?Here, the left legend prompts you to select regions to view. The top legend title has been edited to prompt you to select tax type.
Why is it important?You may want to prompt the user with instructions about how to interact with a view. Or you may just want to provide some clarification on the legend title.
Edit Legend Titles
Tableau DesktopWhat’s this?
This feature lets you customize legend titles, just like you would titles on views.
What's happening?When you add a legend to a view, you can choose to edit the title.
Why is it important?As an author, you want the ability to tell a story with your views. Now you can use the legend to add important data to a view or explain your use of color.
Add Parameters to View
Tableau DesktopWhat’s this?
You can add parameters to your titles and captions: for example, date or categorical information.
What's happening?Here, the title has been edited to include the year of the data. If the year of the data changed to 2006, the title would also change automatically.
Why is it important?Parameters can help you provide clarity for views, especially views that change often or use filters.
Show Data on Dual Axes
Tableau Desktop, Tableau ServerWhat’s this?
You can plot two variables, which have different units or scales, on the same axis.
What's happening?You're viewing a dual axes chart. In this case, the NASDAQ close price is in orange on the right axis, and the Dow Jones (DJIA) close price is in blue on the left axis.
Why is it important?You can see how the relationship between variables is changing, even when the variables use different scales. For example, the Nasdaq peaked about 7 years earlier than the Dow Jones, but at the same relative level.
Create Action “On Click”
Tableau DesktopWhat’s this?
This feature allows you to control the actions that occur when users click on defined areas of your workbook.
What's happening?The user is browsing stimulus projects and clicks on a project. Because you defined a link to that project’s URL, the user sees the web page.
Why is it important?This allows you to define actions related to the selection of your viewer. As the author, you have a good idea of what information is useful once the user has gotten to a certain point. With actions you have fine-grained control over the results of user actions.
Create Action “On Hover”
Tableau DesktopWhat’s this?
This feature allows you to control the actions that occur when users hover on defined areas of your workbook.
What's happening?The user is browsing stimulus projects and hovers over a project. Because you defined a link to that project’s URL, the user sees the web page.
Why is it important?This allows you to define actions based on the selection of your users. As the author, you have a good idea of what information is useful once the user has gotten to a certain point. With actions you have fine-grained control over the results of user actions.
Create Guided Analytic Workflows
Tableau DesktopWhat’s this?
This feature allows you to control the actions that occur when users click, hover or select in the view.
What's happening?The user is browsing stimulus projects and selects a project. Because you defined a link to that project’s URL, the user then sees the web page.
Why is it important?This allows you to define analytic workflows to guide your users through certain actions. As the author, you have a good idea of what information is useful once the user has gotten to a certain point. With actions you have fine-grained control over the results of user actions.
Customize Details View
Tableau DesktopWhat’s this?
This feature allows you to show users exactly the details you want to show, by creating a pane in your dashboard and filtering to details there.
What's happening?The user is browsing Stimulus projects by city in Washington State and selects Everett. The pane below serves exactly the details that you’ve authored.
Why is it important?This gives you another level of control over information presented to people who use your workbooks.
Video: Guided Analytic Workflows
Introduction: New Data Options
Tableau Desktop, Tableau ServerThese features let you answer any question, no matter what the data is.
New features that support working with data include:
- Custom geocoding: create specialized regions or map international data by customizing map areas
- Broad data: connect to even more file formats; more support for cubes
- Data anywhere: work offline with exactly the data you need in extracts
- Secure data: support for SSL
- Data faster: Cut, paste and analyze directly from the web or email into Tableau
All the new data types are supported in both Tableau Desktop and Tableau Server. Authoring features such as custom geocoding and cut, paste and analyze require Tableau Desktop.
Add Custom Geocoding (1)
Tableau DesktopWhat’s this?
This feature allows you to augment Tableau’s maps by generating your own geocoded areas.
What's happening?You’ve created custom areas in Tableau that correspond to the major US airports, then mapped inbound revenue.
Why is it important?You may want to encode data on a map according to areas such as Metropolitan Statistical Areas, watershed areas, sales territories or other custom areas. You can also add region data for countries other than the U.S., which Tableau currently does not include.
Add Custom Geocoding (2)
Tableau DesktopWhat’s this?
This feature allows you to augment Tableau’s maps by generating your own geocoded areas.
What's happening?You’ve created custom geocoding for store locations in France. Now you map revenues by size with profit margin shown on color.
Why is it important?You may want to analyze data by stores, facilities or other custom entities. Now you can create those entities as geocoded locations in Tableau and analyze any data that refers to them.
New File Formats
Tableau Desktop, Tableau ServerWith Tableau 5.0, you can now access 4 new types of files:
- Tab delimited
- Space delimited
- Colon delimited
- Pipe delimited
New Database Versions
Tableau Desktop, Tableau ServerWith Tableau 5.0, you can stay up to date with upgrades from major database vendors.
- Postgres 8.3
- Oracle11g
- MySQL 5.1
- Vertica v3
- Teradata 13
- DB2 v9.5
Tableau connects natively so you don't have to do any custom development or integration.
Keep Excel & Text Files Open
Tableau DesktopWhat’s this?
This feature lets you keep your data files open while you’re working in Tableau, and refresh as needed.
What's happening?You’re working with unemployment data right in Tableau while you have the Excel file open.
Why is it important?You often need to see or change the source data as you work. Tableau makes it easy for you to work across files, without opening and closing your source data.
Extracts: Aggregate Data
Tableau DesktopWhat’s this?
This feature allows you to extract only the fields needed to construct your views.
What's happening?You’re choosing to aggregate data for visible dimensions. Now only the data that is visible in your views and other fields that you select will be included in the extract.
Why is it important?This allows you to use extracts to reduce the size of your data, while keeping the most critical data available.
It also lets you present private data, such as survey results or compensation reports, in aggregate without showing the underlying detail such as names and salaries.
Extracts: Roll Up Dates
Tableau DesktopWhat’s this?
This feature allows you to roll up multiple date records to any time period that you specify.
What's happening?You’re rolling up all data to the month level. Now each month will have one record in the extract, no matter how many individual records fall in that month.
Why is it important?The allows you to use extracts to reduce the size of your data, while keeping the most critical data available.
Hide Columns On Extract
Tableau DesktopWhat's this
This feature allows you to extract only the fields needed to construct your views.
What's happening?You’re choosing to aggregate data for visible dimensions. Now only the data that is visible in your views will be included in the extract.
Why is it important?This allows you to use extracts to reduce the size of your data, while keeping the most critical data available.
It also lets you present private data, such as survey results or compensation reports, in aggregate without showing the underlying detail such as names and salaries.
Better Data Access for Cubes
Tableau DesktopMost Tableau 5.0's new features work with data cubes so you can work the way you normally do, with no development or custom integration needed.
New filter types for single-level attributes and sets:- Pattern matching
- Slider
- Combo box
- New filter type for multi-level hierarchies: radio button list
- “Relevant values” for single-level attributes and sets
- Highlighting for cubes
- Actions for cubes, which can be used to create effective filters
Support for SSL
Tableau ServerUsing Tableau 5.0 with SSL provides client/ server authentication so that you can communicate securely.
- Tableau SSL works with certificates from RSA or Thawte
- SSL makes both the publish and the view process secure
- The Tableau Server Configuration tool is used to authenticate
Cut, Paste and Analyze
Tableau DesktopWhat’s this?
This allows you to instantly create visualizations by pasting any data set into Tableau.
What's happening?When browsing the web or an email attachment, copy any table of data (here, Olympic medal data). Open Tableau and paste right in. It’s that easy.
Why is it important?Tables show up when you're browsing the web, in email attachments, documents and everywhere. Now you can visually analyze any table instantly just by dropping it into Tableau.
Video: Cut, Paste and Analyze
Introduction: Performance
Tableau ServerWe've made a huge investment in Tableau Server 5.0 so that it can scale up to the demands of any environment.
New features in performance and scalability include:
- Scalability: distribute server load to scale to thousands of users
- Responsiveness: multithreading so users spend less time waiting for results
- Performance: improvements in data shaping and connections
- Ease of maintenance: new management and monitoring tools mean you can use your IT staff efficiently
Tableau is scalable, easy to deploy and maintain, and it fits with your existing IT environment. It’s an enterprise-ready BI solution.
Distribute Server Load
Tableau ServerWhat’s this?
This allows you to add additional servers to support the same instance of Tableau Server.
What's happening?This customer found itself with more users than it could support on one server. So it simply added additional hardware to improve performance.
Why is it important?Now it’s much easier to add new users to your deployment– simply add additional computers whenever the load on your system becomes too great.
Multithreading
Tableau ServerWhat’s this?
This feature allows parallelized, rather than serial, requests to each VizQL server.
What's happening?Five users are working on different views on the server. They are each submitting server requests based on how they are filtering and sorting views. Tableau is able to serve all those users much more quickly by using multithreading on the server.
Why is it important?User wait time is much shorter, and users don’t have to wait for long-running processes to complete before getting a result.
Improved Logging and Monitoring
Tableau ServerWhat’s this?
Updated views in Tableau Server allow you to see user activity, space usage, server activity, task history, or customized views.
What's happening?As an administrator, you’re viewing Server Activity, one of the new administrative reports right on Tableau Server.
Why is it important?You’re able to get important information about activity on your server. For example, you can find out which workbooks take up the most space, which users are accessing the server most often, or what your peak request times are. You can also find opportunities to optimize your server.
Query the Server Repository
Tableau ServerWhat’s this?
This allows you to do your own reporting and analysis of Tableau Server usage by connecting to the database of repository tables.
What's happening?This administrator is connected right to the database that monitors Tableau Server, and created a view to show the average duration of tasks, by status.
Why is it important?You may have specific questions that are not answered by the standard views in Tableau Server. This allows you complete flexibility over the questions you ask and how you present the data.
Improved Query Performance
Tableau ServerWe've made multiple improvements in Tableau Server 5.0 to speed up query performance.
Extracts optimizes for data storage
- Faster extract creation
- Smaller extracts
- Higher-performing filters
Judicious use of join logic across tables: Now only the joins necessary to create a view are created, speeding up database queries dramatically.
Optimized Teradata & Oracle connections: We've optimized queries for these database to support faster rendering.
Local Extract Engine
Tableau ServerWhat’s this?
This feature allows you to automatically load all extracts on Tableau Server into a single local database.
What's happening?Three users are accessing the same view on Tableau Server and working off a shared extract of the data.
Why is it important?This allows you to increase the performance of Tableau Server by opening only one version of an extract. The extract is stored in a local database which handles the query load from multiple users.
This feature also lets you leverage more hardware to improve performance and enables a true multi-user server. This works with SQL Server, Firebird, MySQL, and Postgres databases.
Schedule Extract Updates
Tableau ServerWhat’s this?
This allows you to update data on Tableau Server according to a regular schedule. This means that users get the most recent data but the database server is not taking prime-time queries.
What's happening?You’re working with a large database. To increase speed, you schedule an extract update every week. Your users can have current data and good performance, without overloading the database.
Why is it important?You’re able to control the timing of updates, while still getting users the latest data. For example, if your data is updated weekly, you can schedule updates for Sunday nights so the most recent data is always ready for use.
New Server Command Prompt
Tableau ServerWhat’s this?
This is a server automation utility that lets you manage users and groups, publish workbooks, sync with Active Directory, and get images from views.
What's happening?This administrator has run the “tabcmd” utility and is now in the command prompt for Tableau Server.
Why is it important?Now you can automate common server tasks to reduce errors and save administrators time.
Improved Human Efficiencies
Tableau ServerWe've added a number of features in Tableau Server 5.0 that make it easier for you to manage and monitor your system.
- Data source management
- Set a default landing page
- Rename projects
- Remember last display state and filters