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]
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