Creating an Ask data lens: New in Tableau 2021.2

0:00Hey, it's Tim here. In today's video 2021.2

0:03is out and I'm going to be covering the new

0:05feature, the very top of the page about ARS

0:08data.

0:09Now, when you start to unpick ARS data in

0:11this release, there's actually a couple of

0:13things that are sort of worth breaking out

0:15into separate videos.

0:16And so that's what I'm going to do in this

0:17one. The thing I'm going to touch on today

0:19is this specific thing here called ARS data

0:21lenses.

0:22Now, ARS data lenses have been added to

0:24essentially make it easier for viewers to

0:26engage with ARS data content.

0:29Essentially, the problem that you used to

0:31have before is as an editor or creator, you

0:33'd publish up a data source to ARS data.

0:35But sometimes some data sources just have

0:37so many fields.

0:39So you had to do a lot of your work on

0:40desktop before you publish the data source

0:42up to make that work.

0:44Now, the problem then is that your

0:45published data source couldn't be used for

0:47anything else.

0:48So you ended up with this sort of really

0:49weird economy of data sources.

0:51And so what they've done is they've

0:52essentially separated those two things out.

0:55You can go ahead and publish your full data

0:57source with all the fields that you want.

0:59And then you do something called creating a

1:00lens, which basically allows you to narrow

1:03in on the questions that a viewer might ask

1:04of that data source into just a few fields

1:07with some synonyms and some obviously, you

1:09know, some prep done in advance to make it

1:11easier for the user, even down to things

1:13like recommended chart types.

1:15So in this video, I'm going to show you how

1:17that works.

1:18And in other videos, I'll obviously talk

1:20about ARS data.

1:21But if you're sort of really keen on ARS

1:22data, I've already made lots of videos

1:24about how it works.

1:26And there's obviously some nuance to that.

1:28Some of it has been improved and updated

1:29over time.

1:30So again, we'll cover that in future videos

1:31.

1:32But today, we're just going to be creating

1:34an ARS data lens.

1:35And so if you're a creator, this is

1:36essentially a video for you.

1:37I'm going to go right from the beginning.

1:39I'm going to create a data source in

1:40desktop, publish it up, and then we're

1:41going to go from there.

1:43OK, let's get stuck in.

1:45OK, so I'm obviously on the Tableau

1:46homepage.

1:47I'm just going to switch over to Tableau.

1:49I am actually indeed running.

1:50I need to make sure I'm running the right

1:51version of Tableau here.

1:53So let's go and make sure. Yes, there you

1:54go.

1:55You got 2021.2.

1:57Now, I'm going to connect to Superstore.

1:59I'm going to connect to the American one,

2:00which is the second data source here.

2:02Sometimes you have one, sometimes you have

2:03two.

2:04But essentially, I'm going to create to

2:05connect to this one because it's a little

2:07bit simpler.

2:08OK, now what I want to do is before I

2:09publish this data source up to my Tableau

2:12online or Tableau server,

2:14I just want to do some work to create some

2:16fields that people would commonly need.

2:19So I'm going to create two lenses and these

2:21think of these as two perspectives.

2:23I'm going to create a profitability

2:24perspective and a shipping perspective so

2:26we can sort of make it easy.

2:28So I need to do the pre-work to make sure

2:29that those fields and calculations are

2:32already done and embedded in the published

2:35data source before I publish it up.

2:36So we've already got a profit ratio

2:38calculation.

2:40But what I don't see if I go to ship date,

2:42we've got the ship date and we've got the

2:44order date.

2:45And so what I'd like to do is create a new

2:46metric, which is essentially just a date

2:48difference between those two.

2:50So let's go ahead and create a calculated

2:52field.

2:53I'll just bring the dates and now I've got

2:55my little emoji keyboard that's fired up

2:57here and the globe key.

2:59So let's go and create dates here.

3:02And oh, it doesn't doesn't want to know

3:03about that. So let's just let's type an

3:05order date and let's type in ship date.

3:09OK, so we've got those two in.

3:11I'm just trying to think which is the best

3:12way to do this.

3:13I think it's normally a good idea to do

3:15that this way around.

3:18And so I'm not done here yet. I'm just

3:19bringing the field so that I know what I

3:21need to do.

3:22And if I then just type date diff here, you

3:25'll see that this is the function that comes

3:26up and it shows you how it works.

3:28Date diff, the part, start date, end date,

3:30start of the week.

3:32So essentially what I can do is I can just

3:35put here in days and I can just say start

3:39date, which is the ship date and end date.

3:42Is that really the right way around?

3:45I'll go along with it. So what I'll do is I

3:46'll grab this. I'll grab this and put this

3:49here.

3:50I never really know how it's just calculate

3:52the answer and then figure things out.

3:54So days to ship. And what we can do is we

3:55can actually grab an order and check this

3:57and make sure this works.

3:59Let's just create that. It should be a

4:00numerical field, which is correct.

4:03And let's just grab an order ID and we can

4:05add all of them.

4:07This is totally fine on my machine. So I

4:09was going to bring in the order date.

4:11Let's just bring in the exact order date

4:13and that will take a bit of time.

4:15I'm obviously not building a very optimized

4:17view here and this is going to compute that

4:20a little bit.

4:21And then I'm going to drag the ship date. I

4:23'm going to actually I could have just gone

4:25for a discrete date to be honest.

4:26I didn't need the exact date.

4:28And it's being really sort of I was being

4:30really not smart in that instance.

4:32I can tell I'm a bit rusty. So let's let's

4:35just wait for this to load.

4:37OK, there we go. So let's let's just choose

4:41day in this case.

4:43And what we'll do is we'll keep that

4:44discrete in both instances. I could have

4:46just right click, drag this out and then

4:47chosen the exact date.

4:49I don't know why I didn't do that.

4:51Sometimes you have these habits and they

4:53kind of stick with you and you end up just

4:56being a little bit slow.

4:59And also I'm doing this to 5000 marks. So

5:01it's trying to draw this every single time.

5:04You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to

5:06be smarter and just keep only the first

5:08three orders.

5:10That will make everything a lot, lot

5:12smoother. And we can just go in here and do

5:15this so we can see the the order date.

5:19Now, what I should really do is do this,

5:20then I can better see what's going on.

5:23So here we go. OK, so we've got the two

5:25dates and if I just bring those to ship as

5:28a number, you can see that this is all

5:30negative.

5:31And it's because of the way we've done it.

5:32We've done the start date minus the end

5:34date, which obviously gives you a negative

5:36number.

5:37So if we just switch these around. So if

5:39you actually if we actually do this, let's

5:43do this so you can see the order in which I

5:44'm doing the math.

5:45So that's the start date and that's the

5:47date it ships. So it says minus six because

5:49that minus that is is is six less.

5:52So let's just go in here and just switch

5:54these around so we don't have to.

5:57The other thing we could do is we could

5:59just put a minus in front of this. We don't

6:01have to switch those around.

6:02I could be lazy and do that. And because of

6:03that, you know, amazing things happen. So

6:07seven to six, that's six days.

6:10So now we have that calculation there. That

6:12's really, really good to go. And I have a

6:14profit number, have days to ship.

6:16And the key thing to understand is

6:18obviously, you know, we need to be able to

6:21make sure that everything is set up.

6:24The other thing I'd love to know is the

6:26average order size. So for this one, I'm

6:29actually going to use an LOD.

6:30If you haven't used an LOD or you're not

6:32sure what they are, I've actually done a

6:34series of LODs.

6:36Go check it out. I'll put a link in the

6:37description or pop up on the screen for

6:39this for you to see.

6:41So anyway, for this one, we're going to do

6:43fix the order ID. I would love to know the

6:47average sales.

6:49This one, essentially, I want to just know

6:51the average value of items in the order.

6:54That gives me sort of an inclination about

6:55how big the order is.

6:57OK, so or I could just do I could just do

7:00the size of the order. Actually, that's a

7:03much better proxy.

7:04Let's just do some of sales in that case.

7:07So this just tells me the size of the order

7:10.

7:11And there we go. So size of the order as a

7:14LOD and we hit apply. And now we've got

7:17those two fills.

7:19So size of order, days to ship. We've got

7:21profit to profit ratio and profitability

7:23also.

7:24You could call it that as well. And now we

7:25're pretty much good to go. I'm not going to

7:26do much more.

7:28I'm going to go ahead and publish this to

7:29server. So I'm actually already connected

7:32to the Tableau Online instance that I use

7:34for demos.

7:35You'll see that it just pops up here. The

7:36way you know that, for example, is if you

7:39go up to the server and you just select

7:41this little little arrow here,

7:43just go to server there at the top, and

7:45then you'll see that it says you're signed

7:47in and even tells you which server you're

7:49signed into.

7:49If you're signed into the wrong site, then

7:51you're also able to go in and change that

7:53just by going to the arrow section that's

7:55up there.

7:56So anyway, we're back here in Tableau and I

7:57'm going to publish this to the 2021.2

8:00folder.

8:01I'm going to call this sample superstore

8:03data source.

8:05OK. And this is this is a prerequisite of

8:09lenses.

8:10You can't create a lens from a data source

8:12that's embedded inside of a workbook.

8:15It's really, really important to be aware

8:16of. OK, so just call this test lens data

8:20source.

8:21Data source. Great, great, great.

8:24Everything looks good.

8:25So now when we publish that, this is going

8:27to send up this data source up to Tableau

8:30online in this case.

8:32And we're pretty much going to be ready to

8:34go.

8:35So now that we're here, we're ready for the

8:37next step in terms of creating this lens.

8:39Now, we can obviously schedule an extract

8:40here. We don't need to do that.

8:42If you're connected to a database, you

8:44might be able to do that and do whatever

8:46you need to do.

8:47Now, previously with our state, this was

8:49actually the place you started to ask.

8:52Our state just sort of dropped you hot into

8:53all of these fields and you could do some

8:55customizations.

8:56But even so, it kind of meant you had to

8:58publish separate data sources for our state

9:01to compare to the other data sources.

9:02So what you can now do if I just go over

9:05here, if you just see where it says new, if

9:07I go to this dropdown,

9:09you'll see that I now have a new option

9:10here, which is the ability to create a lens

9:11.

9:12Now, this is really interesting because it

9:13's like a perspective.

9:15It's like a window into your data. And what

9:17you're doing is you're creating these sort

9:19of perspectives in these windows.

9:21So people can have very focused set of

9:22questions and actually also makes it easier

9:25for people to sort of contextualize the

9:26kind of topic they have in mind when you

9:28create a lens.

9:29And these lenses can be saved and they're

9:30just like any other asset in Tableau.

9:33So permissions and everything work

9:34alongside them.

9:36And yeah, they're just this nice sort of

9:37way of focusing people's attention.

9:40I think that's always something that's

9:41lacked.

9:42You've just had a world of data source in a

9:43world of workbooks, but it's always been

9:46hard to really narrow in on a specific sort

9:48of problem.

9:50You know, we build dashboard sometimes for

9:51that, but sometimes you don't need a

9:53dashboard.

9:54You just need like a sort of a filter on a

9:56set of rows and lenses on that.

9:59But you'll see what you see what they can

10:00do with them in a second. So I'm going to

10:02go ahead and create a lens.

10:04In this case, I'm going to call this twenty

10:07twenty contact twenty twenty one hyphen to

10:10the lens example.

10:12And actually, no, what I'm not going to

10:15call it, I'm going to call this twenty

10:18twenty one to shipping lens.

10:21Let's just call this shipping lens.

10:23And now that we've done that, we're going

10:25to put that in this folder and say for

10:28shipping inquiries.

10:30OK, great. And I'm going to publish the

10:34lens now.

10:35When you publish this lens, it's obviously

10:37going to go and send you off to a page.

10:40It's almost like you've published a work

10:41book. And now here we have our shipping lens

10:44and notice that it's different to last day

10:46because you have this sort of icon.

10:47And this icon is sort of consistent across

10:49all of Tableau.

10:51OK, so you can see that this is now a new

10:53asset type that you can work with now.

10:56Now that I'm in my lens, I can do a bunch

10:57of different things. I can obviously

10:59minimize and close this window.

11:01You see the fields that we sort of saw

11:03before. You can obviously go in here and

11:05start typing questions.

11:07So average duration to ship and you'll see

11:10that it guesses that I'm talking about the

11:14days to ship number.

11:18And so if I just do that and then enter, it

11:22will obviously think about it and go off

11:25and hopefully build a visualization or

11:27return a number.

11:29And you see that the average days to ship

11:30is three point nine five eight.

11:32Now, what I've just done there was

11:33basically the old experience with last data

11:35.

11:36I just used that type to question. I didn't

11:37look for a lens. I haven't even customized

11:39anything here.

11:40So let's go ahead and actually I'm going to

11:42go back to my lens and we're not going to

11:44use this just yet, but you can start to see

11:45some of the benefit here.

11:47So now now we have our lens. You can see

11:50that it has all the same capabilities so

11:52you can move them, you can manage their

11:53permissions.

11:54When you go into the permissions, you've

11:56got all the same capability that you used

11:57to have with permissions in Tableau.

12:00Now, when you go to each individual field,

12:02you can start to be a little bit more

12:05specific.

12:06So, for example, you can see here that I

12:08have customer names and I can just say this

12:10another synonym for this could be a

12:12customer.

12:13And I can click like that and I can go in

12:15here and you see location here as obviously

12:18a hierarchy and it tells you what it is.

12:21You can go in and see the location. That's

12:22kind of important for shipping the order

12:24date, the order ID, the product.

12:27I don't need to know much about the

12:28profitability, if I'm honest.

12:30So what I could decide to do in this lens

12:32is sort of hide this particular field.

12:35So what I'm going to go and do is click on

12:37this data field and you'll see that I get

12:39this ability to select fields.

12:42Now, there's a little bit of sort of weird

12:43ness with the tablet documentation that

12:45calls it fields here, but there it says

12:48data.

12:49So it's sort of not obvious that that's

12:50where you go.

12:51You might think you're going to edit the

12:52data, but actually it should be filled.

12:54I think this is probably just a hangover or

12:55bug or something that hasn't been sort of

12:57cleaned up.

12:58And this is actually a modal window so you

12:59can move it around, do whatever you want.

13:02And now you can actually choose what you

13:03want to focus in on.

13:05I don't need anything to do with

13:06profitability in this particular data

13:09source.

13:10I've obviously got the ship date and the

13:11ship mode.

13:12I don't need anything about discount,

13:14profit.

13:15I would like to know the quantity. I would

13:17like to know the sales and size of order.

13:20And then I need to know whether the I don't

13:21really need to know where the items return

13:23because that's for the returns department.

13:25OK, I don't need to know about profit ratio

13:27or the top customers by profit.

13:30Now, when I do that and I submit, you'll

13:32notice that my list on the left hand side

13:34is now a lot more narrow.

13:36I don't have anything to do with profit and

13:37that's ready to go.

13:39And now I can start using this to sort of

13:41gain some sort of insight.

13:43Now, as more people use this, as more

13:45people ask questions, you will see that you

13:48have recommended visualizations.

13:50And these are sort of semi smart.

13:52So the most obvious ones appear once our

13:54status analyze your data.

13:56You can obviously go in and it will change

13:58those.

13:59You've obviously got some day and time

14:00questions.

14:01You've got some filters here and you can

14:03essentially create these and edit these as

14:05you like.

14:06So, for example, if I want to maybe change

14:08the this type.

14:09So let's say I want to get rid of pie

14:10charts because I don't like pie charts.

14:12So I can go ahead and remove that and you

14:13'll see that that sort of disappears

14:15straight away.

14:16If I go ahead and collapse that, that's all

14:18fine.

14:19If I click on this edit title, you can

14:20obviously change this sort of group of

14:22recommendation types.

14:24This is sort of just sort of it's just a

14:26way of nicely grouping the questions.

14:30They're not the sort of although Tableau is

14:32giving you a suggestion that these are

14:34filtered, these are date and time.

14:36You could actually rename these groups and

14:38put your own set of questions sort of into

14:40these areas.

14:41Now, the way this actually works is when

14:43asked data is used by someone and someone

14:45actually clicks on it.

14:47It's like they validated that that's a

14:48valid question to ask.

14:50And then the visualization that sort of

14:51captured there is sort of captured with

14:53that.

14:54Now, the list of visualization that that

14:55comes from, I'll show you where that is.

14:58So let's just say let's just go back to our

15:00average days to ship question and let's

15:03just hit that.

15:05And if we go and just hit submit on this

15:07particular lens, another thing you'll

15:10notice when I do that is now the context of

15:14where I started my question is actually the

15:16shipping lens.

15:17So in terms of just browsing, it also makes

15:19it a lot easier.

15:20Notice my fields are still the same reduced

15:22set of fields.

15:23Just focus on shipping.

15:24Now, the list of visualizations you can

15:25choose from depend on what you build.

15:28So you can see here that I've asked a very

15:29basic sort of question here.

15:31So you get bar chart, text table and hist

15:33ogram.

15:34However, if I was to say average days to

15:39ship by location.

15:42OK, and I can obviously add some context to

15:44this because you'll see that it suggests as

15:46a map because it thinks locations and maps

15:48that sort of go together.

15:50So let's do that and let's hit that.

15:53And to now your search can't be applied to

15:54this visualization because, of course, it's

15:57in this sort of particular context.

15:59So let's just clear everything.

16:01Let's try this again. Average days to ship

16:07by city.

16:09I think that's a valid question you would

16:11ask.

16:12And this time it's worked.

16:14I think the problem was is that I was

16:15trying to do it having already asked the

16:16question.

16:17I needed to clear it first.

16:18Maybe that wasn't as obvious to me.

16:20But you can see here that it's drawn a map.

16:22And obviously, when I go to do the dropdown

16:23now, you can see the thing I was trying to

16:25show you a few minutes ago is that this

16:28question is now up to date.

16:30And you can see the chart types have sort

16:32of popped up.

16:33So if I then choose a chart type here, let

16:35's say a heat map doesn't really make sense

16:38in this context.

16:40A map is really the best one.

16:42And if I do a tree map, it's going to be

16:43basically all going to be generally the

16:45same because the size of the box represents

16:47the average days to ships.

16:49That's not really that interesting.

16:51But what I'll do is I click a few of these

16:52anyway so you can sort of see the output.

16:55And then what we're going to do is actually

16:56clear all of this and go back to our

16:58shipping lens.

16:59And when we go back to our shipping lens,

17:02essentially what's happened is I've given

17:03Tableau some information so it knows, OK,

17:06someone's asked some questions here and

17:08they've asked for these specific chart

17:09types.

17:10So you can start to see that if I go to the

17:13vis types, you can see it's all it keeps it

17:16keeps defaulting to some.

17:19But you can see that it's obviously

17:20starting to look at the questions I'm

17:22asking and it's sort of bringing those in,

17:23which is quite nice.

17:25So that's essentially a lens in a nutshell.

17:27It's very, very simple.

17:28Now, the great thing is you can create

17:29multiple lenses.

17:31So what I can do is I can go back to my

17:33data source and I can go ahead and create

17:35another lens.

17:37And this time I'm going to call this 2021-2

17:42Profitability Lens.

17:44OK, and I go ahead and publish that lens.

17:48And now that it's published, you sort of

17:50have to create the lens before you can do

17:52stuff with it.

17:53Right. So now that you've created the lens,

17:55you've now sort of jumped into your little

17:57sort of spot of focus.

17:59Go ahead, hit the pencil icon.

18:01If you're wondering where that was, it was

18:03just I brought the wrong thing in there.

18:05Let's grab the arrow and just point it out

18:07there so you can see that there it is.

18:10Now, what I can do is I'm obviously still

18:12interested in things like location, the

18:14order.

18:15I might be more interested in the customer,

18:17but I definitely don't need the shipping

18:18mode and the shipping date,

18:21because that's sort of not really relevant

18:23for me.

18:24The discount, profitability, quantity and

18:26size of order are all useful and I don't

18:28need to know whether it's returned or not.

18:30So let's just hit submit.

18:32And now you'll see that my list updates

18:34have now got no information there about

18:36shipping and it's all been driven off the

18:38one data source.

18:39So if I go back to my 2021-2 folder, you'll

18:43see that I have my data source.

18:45I have two lenses, profitability lens and

18:47shipping lens, and you're now ready to go.

18:50OK, so that's a very simple video on how to

18:51create the lenses.

18:53Now, what I've actually been having over

18:54here on the right hand left hand side of my

18:56screen, sorry, actually, you're you're

18:58probably right hand side.

19:00So if I actually open this table, I have a

19:01nice guide. I'll put this in the

19:03description below about creating lenses,

19:05everything you can do, everything you can

19:06create. And I think it's a really good

19:08place to go.

19:09And then the next video I'm about to record

19:11now, which is about our data and adding

19:14that lens to a dashboard.

19:16The really important thing, I can't stress

19:18this enough, is that you can't use this

19:20lens feature on a data source that's

19:22embedded inside of a workbook.

19:24So if you want to use as data lens to a

19:26dashboard, you have to start with a

19:27published data source in your workbook in

19:30the first place.

19:31You can't just connect to a data source and

19:32only have that embedded in the workbook.

19:35It has to come from Tableau server. And

19:37that is a big sort of workflow change.

19:39So that's just something to be aware of and

19:41make sure that you sort of get into.

19:43So that's pretty much it. I'm going to stop

19:45this video here and then the next one, I'll

19:47talk about adding an ask data window into

19:50your dashboard.

19:51So you can obviously let viewers and

19:52everyone else use this amazing feature

19:54because in this release, viewers now have

19:57access to it.

19:58Catch you in the next one.