Add dashboard extensions directly in Tableau: New in 2021.1

0:00Hey, it's Tim here. In today's video, I'm

0:01going to be taking you through a new

0:03feature in Tableau 2021.1,

0:05and that is the ability to add dashboard

0:07extensions directly to your dashboard

0:10inside

0:10of Tableau without having to leave and go

0:12add a t-rex file elsewhere. Essentially,

0:14they've brought

0:15the extension gallery into the tool, so it

0:17makes it much, much easier to use. Now, I'm

0:19also going to

0:20sort of give you an insight into why you

0:22might not see this feature immediately

0:23inside of your

0:24organization, because there are a couple of

0:26security things to be aware of. So I'll go

0:28over

0:28that as well so that you have some context

0:30if you don't see this feature but do have

0:322021.1. All

0:34right, let's get stuck in. I'm just going

0:36to open up this Superstore workbook. This

0:38time, I'm not

0:38connecting to the data source. I'm going to

0:40start with a workbook that everyone has in

0:41their Tableau

0:42installation. That's Superstore right here,

0:44the very first sample workbook. And when we

0:46open that,

0:47you'll see that we get a very simple

0:49dashboard. Now, in 2021.1, what they've

0:52done is they've

0:53brought the ability for this extension

0:55section here to bring in the extension

0:57gallery from the

0:58internet. Now, if you've never been to the

1:00extension gallery, that's fine. It's not

1:01something

1:02that's commonly been advertised in the

1:04product. But now, when you drag this

1:06extension icon here

1:07onto the dashboard, you can just see I'm

1:09dragging it across the right-hand side, and

1:11I drop it in,

1:12you get this nice new interface that asks

1:14you to add an extension. Now, this

1:16extension area is

1:17essentially really, really brand new to the

1:20product. A lot of work has gone into

1:22categorizing

1:22the extension, and a lot of work has also

1:24gone into the back-end way in which these

1:26extensions

1:27work. So there are some categories here on

1:29the left-hand side. You can actually click

1:31through

1:32these. There's a weird empty one there.

1:34That might be a bug or something that gets

1:36updated

1:36in the future. But you can actually group

1:38these based on different capabilities. So

1:40you can

1:40bring in new vis types, custom vis actions,

1:44advanced analytics, custom filters, vis

1:47formatting

1:48parameters. There's a whole range of things

1:50here. Now, the really interesting thing

1:52here is that

1:53some of these are actually done by Tableau.

1:55And some of them are intended for Tableau

1:57Public,

1:57primarily, because they replicate things

1:59that we can sometimes do in desktop. But it

2:01's really,

2:02really interesting to see some of these

2:04features being built by Tableau, because it

2:06starts to hint

2:06they're going to be able to add more

2:08capabilities in the near future. So let's

2:11have a look at some

2:12of these. Let me show you a couple of these

2:15and how they work. If I just click here and

2:18just see if we can find one. Here we go.

2:20Filter Bookmarks. To this particular filter

2:23here,

2:23Filter Bookmarks is kind of interesting. It

2:25's made by Tableau. And another thing to be

2:27aware of is

2:28that you'll see this sort of this icon here

2:30on the right-hand side. This essentially

2:32means this

2:32extension is sandboxed. Anytime you see

2:35this icon, it essentially means that this

2:37extension is

2:38actually running on Tableau's own

2:40infrastructure. If I was to scroll down,

2:42you'll see that this one,

2:43particularly here by Bistri, doesn't have

2:45that feature. So essentially, this

2:47extension is running

2:48on Bistri's server. So that's a really

2:51important extension to be aware of, because

2:53anytime you see

2:54a sandbox extension, essentially the only

2:56two people involved in the interaction with

2:58your data

2:59is your own organization and Tableau's

3:02sandboxed environment. However, if you don

3:04't see that icon,

3:05essentially the only people involved in

3:07that transaction is basically based on

3:10trust. So it's

3:11your organization and whoever has access to

3:15the server that's running that extension on

3:18behalf of

3:19whoever's built the extension. So it might

3:21not even necessarily be that company,

3:22depending on

3:23what other third-party systems they've used

3:25, like Google Analytics or anything else

3:27like that,

3:27to sort of track what's going on. So it's

3:29just something really important to be aware

3:31of. I'll

3:32cover it in more detail at the end. But let

3:33's just go back to this Filter Bookmarks. If

3:35we click on

3:36it, you'll actually get another page which

3:38gives you a lot more information and detail

3:40about this

3:40particular extension. And as you scroll

3:42down, it gives you some sort of context.

3:44Now, this has been

3:45available for some time, so you can see

3:47here works with 2019.4 and later.

3:50Essentially, there's been

3:51some backwards compatibility built into

3:53some of these extensions, even though they

3:55're new. And you

3:56can see here that it's actually hosted in

3:58the sandboxed area on the Tableau servers,

4:02essentially.

4:02So you can get a little bit of information.

4:04You've also got some terms of service,

4:06which I think is

4:07always important to look at if you're an

4:09admin and make sure these things work. And

4:11you get a bit of

4:12a demo to show you how it works. So let's

4:14just go ahead and add it to the dashboard.

4:16When we click

4:17on that, it actually opens up the

4:18configuration panel for that extension. So

4:21in this case, it's

4:22a text button. And the thing to bear in

4:24mind here is that most extension developers

4:27will have used

4:28familiar Tableau designs in these

4:30extensions. But fundamentally, this little

4:32window here,

4:33this little window, if I just draw a square

4:36around it, is actually a little window with

4:38a browser

4:39system running inside of it. So this bit is

4:41actually the web. Now, there's a bit of

4:43context

4:43here that a lot of Tableau is actually

4:45moving over to the web. So there are the

4:46other parts of

4:47Tableau that feel like a browser. But

4:49essentially, this is all built in the

4:50browser. So this works

4:51pretty much like a web page. You select the

4:53things you want to do. So in this case, I

4:55'll have a text

4:56button. We'll just call it reverse filters.

4:58You can do a couple of other things. You

5:00can save the

5:01settings and then hit OK. And now you can

5:03see that it's actually popped here just

5:04behind my name.

5:05Let's drag it up just below region, and

5:07then we'll drag region down. And we'll just

5:10put that there.

5:11And now we're pretty much good to go. And

5:13we can do a few more things. We can

5:14actually change the

5:15colors. So I want to get it to match the

5:17background color that I've actually got

5:19there. So you can see

5:20here that I can actually just go use my

5:22color picker here on the Mac, click OK. And

5:25now that

5:25matches the side panel that I've got there

5:28on the left. I can change the text box

5:30color. So

5:31I can even change this to black if I prefer

5:33that. I think I prefer that. Or actually,

5:35let's change

5:36it to something that matches the

5:37visualization, something like this. Let's

5:40see how this blue works.

5:41It's not ideal. I think actually, you know,

5:43white is probably the better option. So let

5:45's open that

5:46configure panel again, hit text button

5:49color, and just let's go back to white. I

5:51think that was a

5:52much better choice in the first instance. I

5:54choose this sort of off gray here, click OK

5:56. And that,

5:57that I think is better. And then now we're

5:59pretty much good to go. Now there's a weird

6:01thing where

6:02these don't behave like typical sheets, so

6:04they don't sort of compress themselves. I'm

6:07thinking

6:07that's probably maybe just a launch day

6:09sort of bug. And you'll see that now this

6:12is sort of size.

6:13Now, I think the minimum height for this

6:15extension is probably something around 50

6:17pixels. So let's

6:18just try that. And I just want to get rid

6:20of this scroll bar. So there we go, we've

6:22kind of spaced

6:23that properly. And now you can see

6:24everything is pretty nicely designed. Now

6:26what this extension

6:28does, if I set some filters here, let's say

6:30I go to North, and then I drag this profit

6:33ratio

6:33percentage down. So I just look at my un

6:35profitable items, you'll see I've made a lot

6:37of changes here,

6:38and it's sort of zoomed in. And for some

6:39people, they just sort of don't know how to

6:41reset this. So

6:42what they'll typically do is go refresh the

6:44browser, or they'll sort of open and close

6:46the workbook without saving it to kind of

6:47get back to where they were before. What

6:50this will do is it

6:51remembers the state at which you dragged in

6:53everything into the visualization. And now

6:56when

6:56I hit reverse filters, it actually goes

6:58back to the very beginning without me

7:00having to do anything

7:01else in the visualization. So it's a really

7:03, really nice reset button to be aware of.

7:05And it's a really

7:06powerful thing. And don't forget this one

7:08is sandboxed. So it's, you know, the

7:10extension could

7:10actually just be working locally on your

7:12machine. But it also might be working off

7:14Tableau service.

7:15So there's a little bit of context there.

7:17Let's try one more extension. Let's drag

7:19one from my

7:20colleague, Craig Bloodworth, the

7:21information lab, you'll see here that I

7:23have some sort of quick

7:24access extensions, things that I've already

7:27browsed already. So if I click the export

7:29all function,

7:30you'll see here, this is a nice little

7:32extension. And this one is not a sandbox

7:35extension. So it's

7:35using another system essentially, to go off

7:38and do that, you can find out more about it

7:40at the URL,

7:41you can get stuck in. But if I click OK, I

7:42know this is an extension that's been used

7:44by lots and

7:45lots of people. And once we essentially get

7:47stuck in here, when you click on a quick

7:49access extension,

7:51it opens it straight away, it doesn't give

7:53you that sort of story about what it is. So

7:55if you

7:55want to go check out this extension, by all

7:56means, go check it out. But lots of people

7:58use this

7:58extension. And if I click on sales map and

8:01total sales, you'll see these are basically

8:03charts in

8:04my visualization, okay. And if I just

8:06choose each and every one, I'm able to sort

8:08of choose

8:09which order they come in. So if I was to

8:11export this to Excel, I'm essentially

8:13specifying the

8:14order of the sheets that it's going to go

8:16out in. Okay, so now if I hit Save Changes,

8:19you'll see

8:20that that's pretty much good to go. I can

8:21now close this, and you'll see that the

8:23export all

8:23function is just sitting right there. And

8:25we're pretty much ready to go. Now when you

8:27click it,

8:28you'll see opens up this window, and it's

8:30asking me to put it in my downloads folder.

8:32Let's hit

8:32Save. And then once that's saved, we'll go

8:34over to my downloads folder and check it

8:36out. So you

8:37can see it happens really, really quick.

8:39Let me go to my downloads folder and open

8:41that up for you.

8:44So here's the Excel that was created. You

8:46can see it's very, very fast. It's

8:48basically got the

8:49summary table from that particular

8:51visualization, and you've got a couple of

8:53other things there as

8:54well. So extensions are going to be really

8:56powerful. They're going to open up the

8:57capability of

8:58Tableau to lots and lots and lots of users.

9:00I'm really excited for this to come to

9:03Tableau Public

9:04as well. This is going to be available when

9:06Tableau Public goes web first as well. So

9:08again,

9:09a really exciting time for Tableau. I think

9:11now is probably a good time to talk about

9:13some of the

9:14security concerns you might sort of see in

9:16the context of an organization, because of

9:18course,

9:19when I talked about sandboxed extensions

9:21and also non-sandboxed extensions, there's

9:24a little bit of

9:25context to be aware of. So I'm not going to

9:27pretend to be a security expert. I'm going

9:29to, of course,

9:29send you to the most reliable source for

9:31all of this stuff, and that's Tableau's own

9:33documentation.

9:33Now they have a really good page here that

9:35's updated for 2021.1. I'll put a link to

9:38this in

9:38the description. It talks a lot about how

9:40to use extensions in the dashboards if you

9:42've never used

9:43it, but it's been updated to reflect some

9:45of the new capability. Now there's a small

9:47section here

9:48on data and security, which talks about

9:50network-enabled extensions and sandbox

9:52extensions. So here you can see that

9:54network-enabled extensions run on web

9:56servers located outside of

9:58your local network, okay, and sandbox

10:00extensions run in a protected environment

10:02without access to

10:03any other resource or service on the web,

10:05okay. And that sandbox environment is

10:08actually run by

10:09Tableau. If you click through to this

10:11extension security best practices for

10:13deployment, you go

10:14over to this page and there's a little bit

10:16more context about how that all works. So

10:17essentially

10:18you can see here that the sandbox extension

10:21is basically a Tableau-hosted environment

10:23for sandboxed extensions and essentially

10:26has no access to the internet, okay. So

10:29whereas these

10:30web servers and these other third-party

10:32tools will have some sort of capability

10:35because you

10:35essentially have to connect to whatever

10:37service they use and in order to do that,

10:39you know,

10:40they need access to the internet, okay. So

10:42it's really important to sort of really get

10:44familiar

10:44with these security concerns. Now if you're

10:46an admin and you want to know how you can

10:48control

10:48these extensions, enable them, disable them

10:51, this page also has more detail and

10:53information.

10:54It gives you a whole bunch of information

10:56about mitigating security threats with

10:57network-enabled extensions, managing

11:00extensions and how they use ways of

11:03deploying it as well,

11:04and you can sort of, when you install Table

11:06au, you can actually switch on specific

11:08settings

11:09to disable certain types of extensions. So

11:11you might only want to enable, for example,

11:13sandbox extensions. On your Tableau server

11:15on Tableau Online, you might as well want

11:18to also

11:18disable certain extension or add certain

11:21extensions to your organization because you

11:23've

11:23gone through some sort of vetting. And the

11:25key thing to bear in mind is that Tableau's

11:27own

11:27sandboxed extensions have been security

11:29tested by a third-party company. That's

11:31sort of the

11:32confidence you have there. And so there

11:34will be information about that. I'm sure

11:36that you can

11:37request off Tableau. It's probably on this

11:38page. I just haven't had enough time to

11:40really get into

11:41it. So again, I'm not a security expert,

11:43but you know, if you're in an organization

11:45and for some

11:46reason extensions aren't enabled or you can

11:48't see the feature, this is probably why.

11:50Because

11:51for security reasons, the organization

11:53needs to do sort of a little bit more

11:55thorough testing to

11:56enable extensions before they just let

11:58people go loose, sending their data to

12:00random servers

12:01across the internet. Okay. So that's pretty

12:03much the feature in a nutshell. It's a

12:05really nice

12:06feature. I think this is going to be

12:07powerful because it's going to open up a

12:09whole world of

12:10options for Tableau dashboards. Because for

12:13a long time, we've often wanted certain

12:15chart types and

12:16certain capabilities. And with extensions,

12:18that's sort of opened up. And extensions

12:20aren't new.

12:21They've been around for a while actually.

12:23But the problem is the extension gallery

12:25has not been in

12:25the product. So it's not been something

12:27obvious for people to sort of explore. So,

12:29you know,

12:30literally having this box right here and

12:32having it just one click away here in the

12:35bottom left

12:35corner, I think that's a really big sort of

12:38value add for features in terms of Tableau.

12:41Okay. So

12:41that's pretty much it. I won't try and go

12:43on and on about this, but check it out, try

12:45it out for

12:45yourself, play around with it. Let me know

12:47what are your favorite extensions. Let me

12:49know what

12:49you're trying out. Maybe you want to build

12:51an extension. Check out the Tableau

12:52developer program

12:53that's got lots of support there for how

12:55you can build extensions just for your

12:57organization,

12:58as well as extensions generally for the

13:00community. So hopefully,

13:01we'll see you building something soon if

13:03you're a developer. Okay. Thanks for

13:05watching. And I'll

13:06catch you in the next video. [Music]