0:00Hey, it's Tim here and in today's video I'm
0:02going to be taking you through how to use
0:03Tableau shortcuts in Tableau desktop.
0:06This time I'm making the video for Windows
0:08users. If you haven't already checked it
0:09out and you're a Mac user, go and find my
0:11video for Mac shortcuts.
0:13I'm going to put it in the description
0:14below and it's also popping up on screen
0:16right now.
0:17Right now I'm on the documentation which
0:18actually goes through all the shortcuts I'm
0:20going to be talking about today.
0:22This is not anything original. I haven't
0:23stumbled into any of these shortcuts on my
0:26own.
0:27In fact, when I first found this space and
0:28realized there were this many shortcuts, it
0:31was a really humbling moment for me because
0:33I thought I knew the product well and here
0:35I was learning hundreds of things that I
0:37didn't even know existed.
0:39But this is a great page. I'm going to put
0:41it in the description. Let's get stuck into
0:42these shortcuts.
0:44I'm going to fire up Tableau and we'll get
0:46started with our first one.
0:48Okay, we're here in Tableau desktop and the
0:51first shortcut I'd like to show you is the
0:54ability to open up a new workbook. That's
0:57control N. So if you hit control N, what
0:58that does is it opens up a new workbook.
0:59Now you only need to have Tableau open for
1:01this to actually work and it will
1:02essentially open up a new workbook.
1:05Now the use case here is if you're working
1:06on a workbook already, you're doing
1:08something complicated and you just want to
1:11try something out with another data set or
1:13you just want to check something in another
1:14database.
1:15I often use Tableau to go and interrogate
1:16databases myself. So actually opening up a
1:19new workbook, connecting to the data,
1:20checking the thing you need to check.
1:22Then if it actually works out into
1:23something you want to use, you can import
1:25that back into the main workbook using
1:27something like a bookmark or exporting the
1:29sheet and then importing it again into
1:32another workbook.
1:33So that's pretty much it. Control N opens
1:34up a new workbook.
1:36Okay, now we're in a workbook. I know there
1:38's nothing in here, but what I'd like to do
1:40is show you another one, which is the
1:41ability to create a new sheet.
1:43Typically, you might grab your mouse and go
1:45down here to hit the new sheet icon or you
1:46might go up to the worksheet section and
1:48create a new worksheet.
1:50You can see right here that it actually
1:51says Control M is the worksheet option.
1:54So let's go ahead, click the new worksheet
1:56there, but then let's hit Control M
1:57ourselves and you'll see that it opens up a
2:00new worksheet.
2:01Now this is really, really fast. You can
2:02just smash this as many times as you like.
2:05And so if you're in the real flow of
2:06analysis and you don't want to sort of
2:08reach for the mouse and do something, you
2:10can just hit Control M, try something new
2:12there and then incorporate that into your
2:14dashboard.
2:15Now this next one is really fascinating. I
2:18don't use this that often, but it's useful.
2:21It's kind of a weird shortcut.
2:23So the reason you don't use it is because
2:24it actually goes ahead and describes what
2:26you're looking at in any given worksheet.
2:29So for this, I'm just going to hop into one
2:31of the sample workbooks. I'm going to go
2:33into this monthly sales segment chart here
2:35and I'm just going to open that sheet.
2:38Now once in this sheet, I'm just going to
2:39close Show Me here so you can see the sheet
2:41in its full view.
2:43If I go ahead and hit Control E, what this
2:45actually does is it opens up something
2:47called the sheet description.
2:49And this is basically Tableau's best
2:50attempt at describing what exactly is in
2:53this sheet.
2:54Now there's quite a lot of information here
2:56. In fact, it's sometimes very, very useful.
2:59Let's say you're documenting something on a
3:00particular sheet or you need some
3:02information to know how a calculation is
3:03done.
3:04Instead of looking at the marks pane,
3:06filters pane and figuring out how
3:07everything works, you can just open this.
3:10And if you sort of assimilate text a lot
3:12better than you assimilate the interface of
3:14Tableau, then you've got everything in a
3:16really nice structured format here,
3:18including even the data source, the way
3:20calculations are done and the specific
3:22format and data types for a particular
3:24field.
3:25OK, this next one's really easy. What this
3:27will let you do is cycle through the
3:29different tabs very easily.
3:31So if you make sure you're inside of Table
3:32au, sometimes if you click outside of Table
3:34au and you try a shortcut, it won't work.
3:36You need to make sure you click inside of
3:37Tableau, then go ahead and try the shortcut
3:39.
3:40So this one's Control, Shift, Tab. OK, so
3:43Control, Shift, Tab will shift through the
3:46workbook.
3:47It's a really nice, simple shortcut. Now,
3:49that one went backwards.
3:51If you just want to go forward, you can
3:52just hit Control, Tab, and that will take
3:54you forward.
3:55So Control, Tab takes you forward. Control,
3:57Shift, Tab takes you backwards.
3:59OK, for this next one, I'm going to need
4:00you to really pay attention because this
4:02shortcut is a little bit subtle, but it
4:05really, really helps when you're in the
4:06flow of analysis.
4:07OK, let's say that I'm over here in the row
4:10shelf. So I'm going to double click in the
4:12row shelf to open up an ad hoc calculation.
4:14An ad hoc calculation is essentially when
4:16you start just typing a calculation
4:19straight into the rows shelf or the column
4:22shelf or pretty much any of the other
4:24shelves.
4:25You can just start typing formulas and it
4:27will start allowing you to type a
4:29calculation.
4:30Now, I haven't written this one properly,
4:32so let's go ahead and just type in S with a
4:34capital S. Hit Enter and that will auto
4:36complete.
4:37Now, the thing that this shortcut does is
4:40it changes the focus from this ad hoc view
4:42to the search pane on the left.
4:45And the search pane is over here. I've just
4:46got my mouse on it there.
4:48So just watch what happens. If I hit
4:50Control, F, it changes my focus to the
4:53search pane on the left.
4:55Then I can use some of the search operators
4:57to find a measure, let's say, called Profit
4:59.
5:00And then I can then take the Profit item
5:03there, drag it into my still open ad hoc
5:06calculation and we're working.
5:09So this shortcut allows you to basically
5:11quickly switch the data search pane and do
5:13a little search, find the fill that you
5:15need and then bring it in.
5:17In case you forget or you're not sure, you
5:18can do a little bit of contextual search
5:20without taking your hands off the keyboard.
5:23So it's really, really, really powerful. It
5:25's one of those things that's kind of hard
5:27to get your head around the first few times
5:29.
5:29But actually, once you start using it in a
5:31calculation, you'll find that it's quite
5:33useful.
5:34The other thing to bear in mind, though,
5:35with this is that it doesn't work if your
5:37focus is on another modal window that's
5:39already been created.
5:41So in this particular case, if I put my
5:43cursor here and I just type cursor here,
5:46then I hit Control, F, you'll see it doesn
5:48't move.
5:49My cursor stays inside of the calculation
5:52window. And so this is really, really
5:55important.
5:56You have to make sure that your cursor is
5:58outside of the window because this is modal
6:00.
6:01Once your cursor comes out of here, when
6:02you hit Control, F, it does start working
6:05and then you can start doing search
6:07parameters.
6:08And you can even just use your cursor to go
6:10up and down between these, hit profit and
6:13enter.
6:14And then you basically got the fill that
6:16you need.
6:17OK, now I've broken this view a little bit.
6:19So let's go ahead and fix this before we
6:21move on to our next shortcut.
6:23Let me just remove that. And for this next
6:26one, this is a really simple one.
6:27You often do this in the browser. You hit
6:29Control, R, Control, F5 or F5 to refresh.
6:32In Tableau, you can pretty much do the same
6:33thing. Hit Control, R.
6:35And it basically just does a refresh of the
6:37data source.
6:38So if you're connected live to a database,
6:40this is kind of handy if you've got things
6:41that are changing quite frequently.
6:43Or maybe you're looking at some cached data
6:44, you know it's cached because the queries
6:46have been running in the background.
6:48Hit Control, R just to make sure there's a
6:50fresh pool of data and you're pretty much
6:52good to go.
6:53Now, another shortcut whilst we're on the
6:54topic of data, if you hit Control, D, this
6:56allows you to open up the data pane.
6:59Simply go to your data source and hit
7:00connect whatever you might be connecting to
7:02, whether it's an actual database,
7:05Access, Excel or any of the very many
7:07database sources that Tableau has available
7:11to you.
7:12Just hit Control, D wherever you are in the
7:14worksheet and that will open up straight
7:16away.
7:17Now for this next one, we're going to
7:18switch over to a different sheet.
7:20In fact, we're going to build one. Let's go
7:21ahead and build a very simple view so we
7:23can see what's going on.
7:25I'm going to start by dragging cells onto
7:27rows, then bring in something from the
7:29product hierarchy onto columns.
7:31Let's bring in category.
7:33And we're going to rotate this 90 degrees
7:35just to make sure that it works really well
7:36.
7:37I'm going to show you a shortcut on how to
7:38do that a little bit later on.
7:40Now, the key thing here is this shortcut
7:42actually allows you to move an item from
7:45the data pane here on the left,
7:47straight to the marks pane or the columns
7:49and rows or even filters and pages without
7:51using your mouse.
7:53Yes, you're probably saying, how is that
7:54even possible? Well, this is how it works.
7:57Simply select the field you'd like to move
7:59to one of these positions.
8:01So I'm going to hit subcategory and now you
8:02can see it's selected, it's highlighted in
8:05blue.
8:06And then all we need to do, let's say I
8:07want to move this to the color shelf, all I
8:10need to do is hit Alt Shift.
8:13So Alt Shift and this time O and it moves
8:15it onto the marks pane and puts it onto the
8:17color shelf.
8:19Now you're probably wondering, well, how do
8:20I know what these shortcuts are?
8:22Well, if you head over to the documentation
8:24that I've put in the description below, it
8:26actually has a range of these.
8:28So O will put it onto the color shelf. L
8:31will put it onto detail.
8:32So let's go ahead here and put product name
8:35onto detail, Alt Shift L and you'll see
8:37that's added it to the detail and it's
8:39changed our colors a lot more.
8:41Let's say I wanted to put segment onto the
8:43filter pane. It's Alt Shift and of course F
8:46for filter and there we go.
8:48It actually asks me how would I like to
8:50filter this. I can hit consumer here
8:52because I've actually got an option here.
8:54This isn't as good. I kind of wanted to put
8:55it there and just show me the filter.
8:57That would probably be a much nicer little
8:59tweak for that feature.
9:01This is a nice way of adding fields onto
9:03the visualization without taking your hands
9:05off the keyboard and moving them around.
9:08Once you get to know this, it also gets
9:09really quick.
9:10For example, if I want to add profit onto
9:12the columns, well, the columns is typically
9:16the Y axis.
9:17So if I hit Alt Shift Y, then it will add
9:20that onto the Y axis which is of course
9:23columns.
9:24And of course if you do, let's say, let me
9:27take segment, we do Alt Shift X, the X axis
9:30, well of course it puts segment onto the X
9:32axis.
9:33And because we've filtered it to consumer,
9:35we're only seeing the consumer ones.
9:37So this is not a great sort of showcase of
9:39visualization or anything like that.
9:41But just bear in mind, we've added pretty
9:43much all but two items onto this view
9:45without using a mouse.
9:47My mouse is still in the same place it is
9:48over here on the left-hand side where we
9:50started.
9:51So that's a really cool set of shortcuts.
9:52Check out all of them.
9:54There's about seven that you'll probably
9:55want to use quite often.
9:57Actually just knowing they exist means you
9:59can add it into your workflow and make
10:00things a lot easier.
10:02Now I want to clean this view up and then I
10:04'm going to show you a shortcut that will
10:06help you change and rotate what's on
10:08columns and rows very, very quickly.
10:11Let me just clean this up. So I'll remove
10:12profit and remove segment. Just make this a
10:14lot simpler.
10:16Remove product and just return it back to
10:19one set of colors.
10:21What I'll also do is just increase the
10:22space here per category so that it's a
10:24little bit easier to see what's going on.
10:27Okay, so this is a great shortcut. What it
10:29does is it rotates the chart 90 degrees.
10:31It's essentially the same as hitting the
10:33shortcut up here, but you don't actually
10:35have to go and hit your cursor with the
10:37mouse.
10:38You don't actually have to use the mouse to
10:39find that and then click on it to get it to
10:41do what you want.
10:42The shortcut you're going to want here is
10:44control W. Okay, so this just switches this
10:46around.
10:46And here's the thing, watch how fast this
10:50is.
10:51I can go really, really fast. I can
10:53literally spam it and it works. I've got
10:54control W all over my screen now.
10:56They're going to slowly start to disappear,
10:57but you get the point.
10:59It's much, much faster than me finding the
11:01cursor and hitting this and rotating it
11:02every single time.
11:04So if you're in the flow of analysis and
11:05your hands are in the keyboard, just hit
11:07control W. That will rotate it for you.
11:09Now, once we're here, we might as well also
11:11see how to flip the orientation of column
11:13labels at the bottom of the view.
11:16So column labels are these fields here at
11:17the bottom of the view. Sometimes you want
11:19them to be horizontal as they are now,
11:21and other times you want them to be
11:22vertical. So again, for this one, it's
11:24control L and all that does is it rotates
11:25them.
11:26So again, it saves you having to switch
11:28those around yourself and it makes it much,
11:31much easier to get that done very quickly.
11:33One thing to note, though, if you change
11:35this to custom rather than automatic, then
11:37it doesn't work.
11:39If I hit control on now, you'll see it's
11:41not working. Change this back to automatic,
11:43hit control L and it works.
11:46I actually think that's a bug. I think it
11:47should work regardless.
11:49You're basically just changing the
11:50orientation and 90 degrees, a bit like
11:52turning something on a swivel.
11:54So that's pretty much the feature. But just
11:56be careful that if you've changed them
11:57manually, then this shortcut isn't going to
11:59work.
12:00Now, let's say I want to clear this works
12:01heet really quickly. You just need to hit
12:04alt shift backspace, alt shift backspace,
12:07clears the sheet.
12:08Nice and clean, ready to go for the next
12:10view. Now, the next one hurts me a lot.
12:13You know, I just don't understand people
12:15who fly objects on their dashboard. It's
12:18like a crazy world.
12:19If you haven't already, check out my layout
12:20containers videos. If you watch that, you
12:23'll never ever float an object on the
12:24dashboard again.
12:26But if you do fly objects on the dashboard,
12:28well, there's a little my shortcut here
12:30that I'm going to show you.
12:32So if you bring the object onto the view
12:34and then you just, you know, use your arrow
12:37keys to move it up and down one pixels.
12:39It's very, very subtle, but it's perfect.
12:41But here's the thing. Why would you do this
12:44? Why would you punish yourself like this?
12:46This is crazy. Why would you punish
12:47yourself like this? I mean, moving things
12:50one pixel at a time is just crazy.
12:52Create layout containers, create structure,
12:54create organization, and things will
12:55naturally just fall into the right place.
12:58You'll even be able to get away with five
13:00pixels here and there and it'll still look
13:02great.
13:03But in case you forgot what this video is
13:04about, it's about shortcuts and the up,
13:07down, left, right arrows will help you n
13:09udge content on a floating dashboard.
13:12Now, if you want to resize a floating
13:14object, you just hit alt and then you can
13:16do the same thing and it actually changes
13:18the size again.
13:20Now, it does it one pixel at a time. And
13:22again, this is specifically for people who
13:24are punishing themselves on floating dash
13:27boards.
13:28But yeah, it's exactly the same as moving
13:29things a pixel around. But this time you
13:32just, you know, shifting the size one pixel
13:35at a time.
13:36It's just a really painful way to work.
13:38Okay, for this next one, we're on the water
13:40forecast because we're going to be talking
13:42about tables.
13:43So this is a nice little shortcut. If you
13:45're in the table, hit control, then an arrow
13:47, and it basically changes the size of the
13:49individual cells.
13:51So I'm holding control right to make the
13:53columns wider, control left to make the
13:55columns narrower, control up to make the
13:58rows taller, control down to make the rows
14:01shorter.
14:02And there you go. That's pretty much a
14:04really nice sort of set of shortcuts for
14:06your tables.
14:07Just to give your tables that sort of
14:09little bit of extra spacing.
14:11It doesn't work so well here because this
14:12is a very large table. But you know, if you
14:14have to build tables, that's maybe a
14:15shortcut just to get to know.
14:17Probably only need one or two tweaks to a
14:19table to just get it right.
14:21And then of course, you can still always
14:22make the manual adjustments to the
14:24individual rows if you need to.
14:26Just head on over to the table. You have to
14:27find your cursor right on that sweet spot.
14:30And then once you space one, it actually
14:32makes them all equally sized.
14:34So just by changing one, a lot of people
14:35will kind of come here and try and move
14:37this to where they think March should end.
14:40Then they'll realize they've made the whole
14:41thing too small. And then you get a bunch
14:43of hashtags.
14:44What you actually want to do is just assume
14:46the size of one is going to be what's
14:47applied across the board and you're done.
14:50OK, that's pretty much it for the shortcuts
14:51. I hope you really enjoy the video.
14:54If you want some shortcuts for Tableau
14:55Online and Tableau Server, head on to my
14:57video for Max.
14:59At the very end of that video, I actually
15:00went through and I did some shortcuts for
15:02Tableau Online and Tableau Server if you're
15:04using WebEdit.
15:05So check out the end of that video if you
15:06want a few more shortcuts you can put to
15:08use.
15:09Otherwise, if you've enjoyed this video,
15:10you know what to do. Drop a comment below.
15:12Let me know what kind of content you'd like
15:13to see in the future. I'll catch you in the
15:15next one.
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