0:00In Tableau 2021.2 Tableau finally added
0:04bulk rename for Tableau Prep in Tableau
0:06Prep Builder
0:07and Tableau Prep in the browser through web
0:09altering. In this video I'm going to show
0:11you
0:11how it all works. Let's get stuck in. Okay
0:14so we're going to do this in Tableau Web Al
0:16tering
0:16to start with. Once we're in the interface
0:18everything's exactly the same in Tableau
0:20Prep
0:20Builder. I'm going to go over here to the
0:22explore tab, I'm going to find my flows by
0:24going to the
0:25top level projects drop down and actually
0:27selecting all flows. This will show me
0:29three flows,
0:30I've got two drafts, one that I haven't
0:32finished and a superstore as well. So I'm
0:35actually going
0:35to open this one, I built this back in
0:37April and you can see it's a very simple
0:39flow, it gets data
0:40from superstore sales from different
0:42regions and blends them into one data
0:44source. It's actually
0:45the sample flow in Tableau Prep. Now if I
0:47go ahead and edit this flow, annoyingly it
0:49opens up a new
0:50tab so we'll just go with this and once we
0:53're in you can see that this interface is
0:55pretty much
0:55exactly the same as Tableau Prep Builder
0:58for the desktop. Now one of the things you
1:00might do is you
1:02might rename fields that come from a
1:04specific database or that have been prepped
1:07in a specific
1:07way. Let's say you're doing a bunch of
1:09finance calculations and you know these
1:11calculations are
1:12only for finance, you might add a prefix or
1:14suffix to say fr or finance just to make
1:17sure that it's
1:18clear that those are finance related. So
1:20what I want to do here is actually add a
1:22prefix to
1:23all the things that are coming from our
1:25different regions. So if I just add a
1:27little plus here you'll
1:28see that I get a range of new drop downs.
1:30Now this list of drop down items is
1:32actually getting bigger
1:33and bigger and it's actually quite
1:35impressive because Tableau is really
1:37listening to feedback
1:38and they're adding features to Tableau Prep
1:40all the time. So what I'm actually going to
1:42do is add
1:42a clean step. Now a clean step is just one
1:44of these sort of slim bars and Tableau has
1:47this sort
1:47of visual design language here that's
1:49always the same. So clean steps are always
1:51these sort of
1:52long bars and as it just loads this data
1:54you'll see that again this is exactly the
1:56same as Tableau
1:57Prep. Now you'll see the option to rename
2:00fields just right here. So this is really
2:03important
2:03because before what you had to do is
2:05manually rename fields. What does that what
2:07I mean by
2:08that? Well what I'd have to do is I
2:09actually have to go over here to the right
2:11hand side
2:12and have to switch to one of these views to
2:14get the field list in a much more sort of
2:16usable way.
2:17So I think this one on the right hand side
2:18is actually a list of fields and then what
2:20I could do
2:21is I could double click on each of them and
2:22then manually rename them. Now
2:24that's fine if you've only got a few fields
2:27but if you wanted to rename everything that
2:29was coming
2:29out of a particular output that was a right
2:32pain. So now that we have this feature I'm
2:34actually
2:35going to go back to my clean step. I'm
2:36going to go back to the standard view. I'm
2:38just going to
2:39select rename fields and what it will do is
2:41actually give me this nice new interface. I
2:44just highlight it to you here on the left
2:46and we have a bunch of options. So the
2:49first one is
2:50we have the ability to do this for each
2:52field. I can replace text, I can do a bunch
2:55of other
2:55things as well. I can add a prefix and I
2:57can add a suffix. So let's say it's got the
2:59terminology id
3:01and you want to change that to identifier
3:03you can do that. So you can see here that I
3:05have
3:06row id and order id and if I go ahead and
3:08replace text I'm going to say that I want
3:11to find id and
3:12I want to replace it with identifier. You
3:16can see that it applies the change and it
3:19shows you what's
3:20going to happen in real time. So it's a
3:22really really nice feature, it's really
3:24nicely done
3:24and just doing that felt good. I can't tell
3:27you how many times I've had to do this
3:30manually
3:31and I also can't tell you how many flows I
3:33now need to revisit and make sure that they
3:35're using
3:35this rather than the manually renamed
3:37feature. The reason I want to do that is
3:40because it also
3:41automatically rename new fields that come
3:43through. So the problem with the way that I
3:45was doing it is
3:45if a new field came in I'd have to open the
3:47flow again manually rename it. Now we've
3:50got an
3:50automated way of making sure that happens
3:53every single time. So this is a big feature
3:56, like it
3:57should have been there from the start and
3:59Tableau prep is still relatively new. We're
4:01now into our
4:02third year of the product and yeah this is
4:04finally here and we can start using it and
4:06this is great.
4:07So it's a really really nice feature. Now
4:09you can do a bunch of other things, you can
4:10obviously
4:11change this. I haven't actually applied
4:13these changes, let's go back and I could
4:15say add a
4:15prefix and because I'd already typed
4:17identifiers it kept that in there and now
4:19you can see that
4:20it's applied it to everything. If I just
4:22use my square here, everything here in this
4:24row which is
4:25kind of nice and of course you can add a
4:27space to that and you can add a dash and
4:30you can do
4:30whatever you want and you can see it's
4:32dynamically changing the text. Suffix
4:34obviously goes at the
4:35end so in this case I might want to move my
4:37hyphen right to the beginning. If I just go
4:40over here and
4:41I just put that in front you can see that
4:43that also works too. So this is nice and
4:45now let's
4:46rename everything. I'm actually going to
4:48just close this and actually go back to
4:50replace text.
4:51I'm going to type in id and I'm going to,
4:53can I, oh no I'm going to type in
4:55identifiers here.
4:56Let's do this, identifiers, I think I've
5:01sparked that right and we're just going to
5:03rename them
5:04and I've ticked the box to automatically
5:06rename fields and so you can see that once
5:09it's renamed
5:09them we actually get this new set of icons
5:11that shows that we've actually renamed them
5:14and this
5:14is applied as a step change. So of course
5:17if we go back to our interface as normal
5:20you can see that
5:20we actually have this new step change here
5:23that applies and of course this can be
5:25brought into
5:25context with everything else. If you've
5:27done a bunch of other changes you can
5:29actually drag
5:30this rename fields up and down this list to
5:32have it come into effect sooner or later
5:35depending on
5:36when you want to rename fields. Bear in
5:38mind if you do that and you've been relying
5:40on those names
5:40prior to the name change then you change
5:42them before then you're going to break your
5:44calculation.
5:45So just think about that before you do that
5:47you might end up sort of bumping into new
5:49instances where things change but again if
5:50you're doing data prep you're probably used
5:52to that,
5:52it's nothing to worry about but it's just a
5:54nice quality of life improvement. Thank god
5:57it's
5:57finally here I can't wait to use it but my
5:59god are there a lot of flows we're going to
6:01have to go fix.
6:02Thanks for watching if you've enjoyed this
6:04video you know what to do subscribe, drop a
6:06comment
6:06below let me know what you like what you
6:08don't like and I'll catch you in the next
6:10video.
6:11[ Mike ]
Tableau | Data prep