# How to find out what's new with Tableau: Friday Thoughts Episode 1

> This is content from just-tim, the data-and-analytics channel by Tim Ngwena (formerly 'Tableau Tim'). Tim has 12+ years of hands-on BI experience and covers Tableau most of all, plus Power BI, Looker, Hex, SQL and data modelling, the analytics industry, and the craft of doing the job — always tool-agnostic and honest about the trade-offs.

- **Author:** Tim Ngwena (just-tim, https://just-tim.com/about)
- **Published:** 2021-08-06
- **Format:** Video · 26 min watch · transcript available
- **Topics:** Tool strategy, Industry trends
- **Tools:** Tableau (cloud, server)
- **Canonical:** https://just-tim.com/posts/how-to-find-out-what-s-new-with-tableau-friday-thoughts-episode-1
- **Watch:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GE6BbFBWGlw

This kicks off my Friday Thoughts series, where I share my perspective on a topic rather than run a tutorial. Here I walk through every place I go to find out what's new in Tableau, from the beta process to the known issues page, and explain how I evaluate releases pragmatically and read the signals about where the product is heading.

## Key takeaways

- The beta process gives you developer-level insight into how features are intended to be used, but should only ever run on development, never production, software
- No two sources tell you the same thing: the marketing blog gives Tableau's narrative, while the official release page and product help pages hold the real detail and documentation
- Features often roll out in stages over six or seven releases (roughly two years), so staying in tune with a feature's future iterations matters as much as the initial launch
- Check the known issues page early after a release, since brand-new versions inevitably ship with bugs that can cost you days of wasted debugging
- Read features against Tableau's strategic direction and Blueprint pillars to judge whether a capability fits where the product is genuinely heading

## Chapters

- 0:00 Introducing Friday Thoughts
- 2:02 The beta process
- 4:46 The product marketing blog
- 6:47 The official product release page
- 10:23 The release summary video
- 11:27 Product help pages and documentation
- 12:58 The community and using it yourself
- 16:31 The known issues page
- 19:58 Reading where features are heading
- 23:19 Strategy and the Tableau Blueprint

Watch the full video, read the transcript and use chapter deep-links on the page: https://just-tim.com/posts/how-to-find-out-what-s-new-with-tableau-friday-thoughts-episode-1

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just-tim — Data and analytics, with a point of view. · https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7HYxRWmaNlJux-X7rNLZyw · https://twitter.com/TableauTim · https://www.linkedin.com/in/timngwena