0:00Hey, it's Tim here. And in today's video, I
0:02want to show you a nice new feature in
0:04Tableau
0:04Prep, which allows you to set up fiscal
0:06dates very easily just using the standard
0:08interface.
0:09Okay, I'm going to open up Superstore, the
0:11sample workflow here on the bottom left.
0:13And
0:13if you're familiar with Superstore Sales,
0:15if you're a Tableau user, you'll be very
0:16familiar
0:16with the data set. Essentially, there are
0:18four inputs here from different areas, they
0:21get brought together, and they basically
0:22come through into this particular section
0:24where
0:25we actually have all our data in one step.
0:27Now, if I go ahead and click on that step,
0:30Tableau will open up the data pane here,
0:33that gives me a summary of my data, as well
0:35as
0:35a table view of my data. You can see it's
0:37just rendering here on your screen. It's a
0:39little bit slow this morning, I don't know
0:41why. And but it can take a little while,
0:43especially
0:43if it's having to run the flow in the
0:45background. Now, the key feature here is
0:47going to need
0:48us to go to the order date column. And a
0:50little quirk with this feature is that you
0:52're actually
0:52going to want to create a duplicate.
0:54Because if you go ahead and create a fiscal
0:56date on
0:57this column itself, you'll lose your
0:59original order date. And typically, fiscal
1:01dates are
1:02brought in alongside the original date item
1:04that was used to create them. So I'm going
1:07to go ahead and click on these three dots.
1:10Click on duplicate field. And this will
1:13duplicate
1:14the field. Now you're probably wondering,
1:15well, where is it, it doesn't actually
1:16create
1:17it next to this column, it goes all the way
1:19at the very beginning. And you can just see
1:22here on the left hand side that we've got
1:24it right there. Now that we've got it there
1:27,
1:27we can go ahead and use this new feature.
1:29So I'm going to go ahead and click on these
1:30three dots. And I'm going to go to convert
1:33dates. And you'll see at the very bottom,
1:36there's a new feature here that says custom
1:37financial year. Now there's a little bit of
1:39an issue on launch where essentially table
1:41au online doesn't yet support these new
1:43features.
1:44So you'll get this little warning telling
1:46you not to use the feature if you want to
1:47schedule the flight, but we don't need to
1:49do that for this video. So I'll just go
1:50ahead
1:50and click Use features. And the feature
1:53interface pops up. What I need to do is
1:55select the date
1:56option. So essentially, it's asking me
1:58which component of the fiscal year would
2:00you like
2:01to create. And in this case, I just like to
2:04create the month, just to make it easy to
2:06see. And then here I can actually define
2:09when my fiscal year starts. So I don't have
2:11the
2:12level of fidelity to be able to choose the
2:15exact day of the year. And sometimes let's
2:18say if you're working in accounting in the
2:20UK, and the fiscal year might actually
2:22starts
2:22on the fifth of April, because that's
2:24exactly when the tax year ends. But if I
2:26just go ahead
2:27and choose April as an example, and hit
2:29convert dates, it'll actually take all the
2:31dates,
2:32and we'll go through and calculate the
2:34correct fiscal period. So if I click on the
2:36first,
2:37here, what I should see are order dates
2:40that are in April. So you can just see that
2:43that's
2:43worked really, really well just here in the
2:45order date column where I'm clicking, you
2:47can see that the order dates here for the
2:49selection I previously made, what I have to
2:51actually do is keep that selection sort of
2:54fired up, because when I deselected it, it
2:56didn't didn't appear. So if I just keep
2:58that one selected there, and just highlight
3:00your
3:00attention here, in the order date column
3:02where I'm moving my mouse, then you can see
3:04that
3:05this is actually only showing dates in
3:06April. So the features worked, and it's
3:08really, really
3:09nice. Now, if you want to create the year,
3:11you can of course do that as well. You can
3:14just click on order date here on the bottom
3:15, this will bring that into focus up top.
3:17And
3:17then if we go ahead and click on the order
3:20date column here, and again, we go to
3:22convert
3:22dates, custom financial year, I want the
3:26year number this time, and then I want to
3:28make
3:28sure this is April, I can hit convert dates
3:31, and we're good to go. Now, the nice thing
3:34here is if you've got maybe two
3:35organizations, maybe you've got a parent
3:38organization, and
3:39a smaller subsidiary that have different
3:41fiscal years, you can actually create those
3:43fiscal
3:43year columns in the same data set, and then
3:45just give the user the ability to switch
3:47between
3:48them in something like Tableau desktop.
3:50Okay, so it's a really, really nice feature
3:52to be
3:52able to do. And now you'll see I actually
3:55made a mistake there myself, what I did is
3:57actually converted the order date column
3:59myself into the years directly. So I
4:01actually lost
4:02the fidelity of the order date. If you want
4:04to get that back, that's super easy, just
4:06open up the left hand side pane, go down to
4:09the last step, which is converted the dates
4:11to years, and there's just delete that
4:13final step, and then you're back to where
4:15you were
4:16before, then you can go ahead and duplicate
4:18the order date field and this time actually
4:20do it correctly. So I'll go ahead and do
4:23that now. Click on the three dots can I
4:26need to
4:26first duplicate this is going to catch a
4:28lot of people out I think but first
4:30duplicate,
4:31then go back to the left. And once that's
4:36done, we can convert this to the year
4:40number,
4:40we can do this actually right here. And but
4:42if you want the custom financial year, you
4:45can go ahead and choose April, then choose
4:48the year there and then convert date. Prior
4:52to this feature, what you had to do is do
4:54some sort of date offsetting. So you'd
4:55shift
4:56the dates forward or back by the number of
4:58months that you offset compared to the
4:59calendar
5:00year. And then that would get your dates
5:02sort of in the right in the right realm,
5:03then you'd
5:04just go ahead and use the standard sort of
5:06features that are available. But that's the
5:08feature in a nutshell. It's pretty very
5:10simple, really nice quality of life
5:11improvement when
5:12you're handling dates inside a tablet prep.
5:14And it makes it much, much easier to work
5:16with. Thanks for watching this video. You
5:18know what to do if you liked the video. If
5:20you don't leave a comment below. Let me
5:21know what you'd like to see in the future.
5:23[BLANK_AUDIO]
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