Fill Down in Tableau Prep | New in Tableau 2023.3

0:00Hey, it's Tim here in 23.3.

0:01You can now fill down and do running

0:03calculations inside of Tableau Prep.

0:05It's an enhancement to some existing

0:07capabilities that were launched in the

0:09previous release.

0:10It's got the same beautiful interface, but

0:12I'm going to show you how it works.

0:13As ever, let's get stuck in.

0:15Okay, so if we go ahead and we drag in the

0:17sample Excel file that I've got, I'll just

0:20put it in here.

0:20It's called output.xlsx.

0:22We should see there's one sheet.

0:24And if we go ahead and connect to the next

0:27step here, you'll see that we have a lot of

0:30nulls in that first category column.

0:32And if I look at the data structure just

0:34below here, you'll see that actually what's

0:35going on here is that the labels, the

0:39values after the first line don't exist.

0:41And this is the actual data source order.

0:44The way we know this is if we go back to

0:46sheet one, something that it's sort of

0:48crossed out here is that it's got an auto-

0:50generated source row number.

0:52If I put my face to the left-hand side and

0:54actually bring that in by just removing

0:57this item here and including the field, you

1:01'll see the source row number comes back.

1:03And now if I go back into the clean step,

1:06let's go ahead and select clean one.

1:08You can see this is the source row order

1:10here on the left-hand side.

1:12And you can see we have got this sort of

1:14issue where we do need to fill down.

1:16Now, previously, what we probably had to

1:19have done is some sort of lookup function

1:22to the previous row if it's empty.

1:24And, you know, all this malarkey that's

1:26just honestly, it's just not necessary.

1:28So instead of having to look up blogs and

1:30look up resources, you can just do this

1:32instead.

1:33Go ahead to the column that needs this

1:35solution.

1:36And what you want to do is go to the create

1:37calculated field option.

1:39Now, it's kind of interesting because you

1:41've got this sort of list of what I call

1:44funky calculations and it's starting to get

1:46quite busy there.

1:47It's actually behind my face.

1:49So let me move it up there.

1:50And if you see here, you know, fill down

1:52difference from these are these are sort of

1:55table calculations.

1:56I wish they just call them that, but it's

1:58just got calculated fields.

1:59But anyway, I think this is getting busy.

2:01Maybe this grouping is going to come up and

2:03the language will develop over time.

2:05Let's go ahead, select fill down.

2:07And what you'll see here is that we get

2:09this option to essentially look at this.

2:11Now, I included the source row number so

2:14you can see the original source row order.

2:17So let's go ahead and let's bring this back

2:19over here.

2:19Well, let me drag this.

2:21Go on, go on.

2:22Let me let me let me grab it.

2:23No, won't let me grab it.

2:24And never mind.

2:25Oh, God.

2:26Some of these small UX things can be sort

2:28of frustrating.

2:29But nonetheless, let's keep pushing.

2:31So we've got this field here and the

2:32interface to do this is actually kind of

2:34interesting.

2:35So what we want to do is we've got this

2:37fill down option here, group by order by

2:40and compute using this.

2:41And the result is that and it's just done

2:44it actually didn't have to think too hard

2:46because I selected the fill down on this

2:48particular column.

2:49It's gone and done the actual hard work.

2:52And so that source row number ends up being

2:55pretty fundamental.

2:56If you don't have that, you kind of can't

2:59do this in the in the order that the data

3:01comes in.

3:01And if you do it in any other order, you

3:03can't be certain that the rows that are

3:05null should be getting the value from where

3:08they get in the value from.

3:09So that source row number previously

3:10released in Tableau prep is super important

3:13here,

3:13because it then allows you to do this,

3:15which then gives you a value and you get

3:16the results.

3:17If we go ahead and hit done, what we'll get

3:20is a new column, which will have no nulls.

3:23And it will actually be able to when we

3:24click on these, you'll see the nulls that

3:26it's filled across all the rows.

3:28So that's a pretty dead easy for fill down.

3:31This is about time.

3:32I'm so glad this is here and you can just

3:34go ahead and use this feature.

3:36So that's fill down Newman Tableau 23.3

3:40inside of Tableau prep dead easy to use.

3:42It took me less than four minutes to show

3:44you how to do it.

3:45Go ahead and use it in the next video.

3:47I'm going to show you how to do running

3:49calculations inside of Tableau prep.

3:51Thanks for watching and I'll see you in the

3:52next one.

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