0:00In Tableau 2020.1, Tableau have added the
0:06ability to add animated Mark transitions.
0:10This is a really important feature because
0:12it fundamentally changes the way in which
0:14authors need to think about how interact
0:16ivity works on their dashboards.
0:19In order to show you the range of options,
0:21let's just jump straight into Tableau.
0:24You'll see in this workbook I have three
0:26sheets.
0:27The first one is a bar graph, the second is
0:30a simple line chart showing sales over time
0:34,
0:34and the last one is a scatter plot.
0:36What I want to do is show you the different
0:39behaviors that you get when you enable
0:41animations.
0:42Now I'm just going to simply change the
0:44sort on this and you can see that this is
0:45the standard
0:46behavior that we've been used to up until
0:48the latest version of Tableau.
0:50You just get this almost instant behavior
0:52when you sort or when you change the
0:54ordering
0:55on any particular dashboard.
0:57If I bring in the filtering capability here
0:59on the right hand side and I remove
1:01something,
1:02you'll see that it instantly appears and
1:05disappears.
1:06If we enable those back in, they come back
1:09in almost instantaneously.
1:11In order to enable Mark transitions, you
1:13just need to go over to the Format tab at
1:15the very
1:16top and then down to Animations.
1:18When you click on that, it opens up a pane
1:21here on the left hand side.
1:24You can see here that on this particular
1:26workbook, the default is off.
1:28But certain charts will have a different
1:30default.
1:31Just bear in mind that you check that
1:32behavior if you want to make sure that
1:33these are either
1:34on or off.
1:36I'm going to switch them on across the
1:38entire workbook.
1:39And now I'm going to go back to the sorting
1:41capability you saw me do earlier on.
1:43And now notice that as I do this, the
1:46behavior changes.
1:47There's now an animation that's applied to
1:49this effect.
1:50It's a very nice addition and it makes this
1:53slightly smoother and sort of nicer
1:55aesthetic
1:56to your charts if you're visualizing or
1:58interacting with them.
1:59To go deeper into the settings, you can
2:02change the duration of a particular
2:04animation.
2:04You can set it to one second.
2:07But notice this adds a little bit of lag to
2:09the interactivity.
2:10So if you set it to something like two
2:12seconds, just be aware that your users
2:14might not be
2:15comfortable waiting too long for something
2:17they used to get almost instantaneously.
2:20The last thing to bear in mind is you can
2:22also set a custom duration.
2:23If I set this to ten seconds, you might
2:26actually have instances where maybe you
2:27want to narrate
2:28something and this would be a perfect
2:31transition sort of duration.
2:33Because what you can do is you can narrate
2:34a discussion or a particular point whilst
2:36it's animating in the background.
2:38And that just allows you to have sort of
2:40slightly better interaction with your
2:42audience.
2:42You can see that happening here in very,
2:45very, very slow motion.
2:47Now the last thing to bear in mind is the
2:50style of the animation that you've got here
2:53.
2:53I'm going to set this back to 30 seconds,
2:56maybe actually one second so you can just
2:58see this a little bit better emphasized.
3:00And if I just filter out art, for example,
3:03you'll see here that everything happens
3:06simultaneously.
3:07The item is removed and then all the
3:10remaining subcategories sort of move up to
3:13fill the
3:13space.
3:14If I set it to a little bit slower here and
3:17we do the same thing for, let's go for
3:19chairs
3:20here in the middle.
3:21Let's just do that.
3:22Let's remove that.
3:23You'll see that a bunch of different
3:24animations happen all at the same time.
3:27They all sort of start at the same time.
3:29That's the key meaning of this style
3:32simultaneous.
3:34If I change this to sequential, what Table
3:36au will do is it will do each of those
3:38behaviors
3:38one after the other.
3:40So let me add chairs back in.
3:42It will first add chairs back into the mix
3:45and then it will animate that back into the
3:48mix.
3:49So you get this sort of slightly staggered
3:50behavior.
3:51And again, this allows you to maybe
3:53emphasize a particular point or emphasize a
3:56particular
3:57behavior.
3:58But fundamentally, you've just got to be
4:00aware of these sort of subtleties because
4:02they can
4:02actually help the way you talk about your
4:04visualization to others if you're maybe
4:06showing
4:07your visualization.
4:08I still think if you're using a dashboard
4:10in its traditional sense, you're probably
4:12going to have these set to the fastest
4:14setting and you're probably going to try
4:16and minimize
4:17sort of too much animation on the page
4:19because some people suffer from motion
4:21sickness and
4:22so you don't want this to become some sort
4:24of all singing and dancing sort of circus
4:26show.
4:27So really think wisely about your
4:29selections when you use animations.
4:32The other thing to bear in mind is you can
4:34actually set sheet specific animation
4:36defaults.
4:37So you can see here all the defaults that I
4:39was working with before were across the
4:42entire workbook.
4:43That's sort of signified here at the top by
4:46this section.
4:47But I can actually change the behavior just
4:49for this particular worksheet.
4:50I can even switch it off and I can set a
4:52slightly different style on this particular
4:55worksheet
4:56in order to bring it together in a
4:58dashboard.
4:59Now let's switch over to this chart here
5:01where we have dates.
5:02I'm showing dates and sales.
5:05Dates on columns and on rows I've got sales
5:07and I'm basically just showing sales over
5:09time.
5:10What I'm going to do is I'm going to bring
5:12in the filter option again and I'm going to
5:14leave everything as it is.
5:16And we're going to go to the format option
5:18and enable animations once again on this
5:21particular
5:21sheet.
5:22You can see it's set to one second.
5:24If I filter out art, you can see the line
5:26animates.
5:27But in this particular case, notice that it
5:29's slightly harder to see because all that
5:31seems
5:31to happen is that the axis moves up and
5:33down.
5:34But the general shape of the data remains
5:36broadly the same.
5:37If we take out a slightly bigger category
5:39like chairs, you can see this actually
5:41starts
5:42to happen a little bit more.
5:44But fundamentally because the only thing
5:46that I'm taking out isn't actually sort of
5:48meaningfully
5:49changing the values in each year, I'm
5:51actually not noticing any change here.
5:53So you have to bear in mind that whatever
5:55you select needs to animate in a way that
5:57means that there's a meaningful difference
5:59when someone looks at it on the screen
6:01other
6:02than just the axis changing because
6:03otherwise it's really difficult to see how
6:06the patterns
6:06and so on are changing.
6:08If I change this to be colored by category,
6:11you can see now that that difference is
6:15much,
6:15much more pronounced.
6:17So you can see here I've got the three
6:18different lines.
6:19And by bringing in that option, you can see
6:22that line was animated in and then back out
6:25again.
6:26Okay?
6:27Now if I remove a particular item, let's
6:29say for chairs, which should affect the
6:31blue line,
6:32you can see that that line drops down.
6:34If I add that back in, it drops back to
6:36where it was.
6:38Now if I add sort of more detail to this by
6:40taking out the quarters, let's bring this
6:43to a continuous year, and then let's add
6:46sort of more context to this.
6:48Now as we filter out items, you'll see that
6:51this chart animates in a much, much more
6:53interesting
6:54way.
6:55And this animation starts to tell a story
6:57about where things are coming from and
6:59where
6:59they're heading and then what's happening
7:02in between those particular stages.
7:04That's the key thing here.
7:05You're helping people notice there's some
7:08sort of journey between one point and
7:10another
7:10point.
7:11That's the whole point of animations.
7:13If I go to a scatter plot in this
7:15particular case, you can see here that I've
7:17got a simple
7:17date filter here across the top on the
7:20right hand side.
7:21And what you'll see here is as I change
7:23these dates, you'll see these bubbles sort
7:25of change
7:26positions and change how they work.
7:28But here, I haven't actually set animations
7:31.
7:31So let's go back in.
7:32Let's go to format, animations, and let's
7:36make sure this is on by default.
7:39The key thing I want to make sure here is
7:41that I actually change this filter in a way
7:43that allows someone to sort of notice what
7:45's going on.
7:46And you can see here now because the change
7:48is sort of bigger and more accentuated, you
7:51can actually see where the circles are
7:52coming from and where they're going to.
7:55And so what you can actually start to do
7:56here is you can actually start to animate
7:58this
7:59in a sort of a very, very interesting way.
8:02So what I'm going to do now is I'm going to
8:03do something slightly different, which is
8:05I'm going to change this order date here to
8:08the week number.
8:09I'm going to just click OK on that.
8:11And then I'm going to drag that up to the
8:13page itself.
8:14What this allows me to do is sort of step
8:16through each of the different weeks.
8:18And you can see here that it's animating
8:20the change.
8:21However, what I'm trying to do is recreate
8:23that sort of effect that you saw in Hans
8:25Rosling's
8:25sort of demonstration of sort of world
8:28economic indicators.
8:30And so in order to do this, I actually need
8:32to set these values to become running
8:34totals.
8:35So let's set this to a running total.
8:37And I need to make sure that this is
8:39computing using the order date.
8:42I wanted to add up the cells over time.
8:44So I need to make sure that it's using the
8:47running total and then it's using order
8:49date
8:50as the computation.
8:52And I need to do that also with this item
8:54here, which shows the sum of cells over
8:56time
8:56as a size.
8:57Again, do the running total.
9:00And I need to make sure that we set that to
9:03order date.
9:05And again, on this aggregation ratio,
9:07because I want this effect to be consistent
9:10over time,
9:10I need to make sure that I'm doing this
9:13consistently across all the values.
9:15So now you can see here that all the items
9:19here on the very first week start out tiny.
9:23And I'm going to animate this very, very
9:24quickly.
9:25I'm going to hit start now.
9:26But what I'll do is I'll stop talking and
9:28you'll actually see this animate through
9:30time.
9:31And I'll speed it up so you can see the net
9:33effect that you'd get if you maybe record
9:35this as a video or if you were to handle it
9:54as an oration.
10:02So you can see how this effect works.
10:05And it's a really, really handy feature.
10:07Now one thing to bear in mind is that you
10:09've got to be careful what animation choices
10:11you've
10:11used.
10:12I've already mentioned this.
10:13But also you have to bear in mind that if
10:15you're relying on animations, you have to
10:17bear in mind that the user might not
10:19actually see those animations.
10:21The individual user on Tableau Server gets
10:23the ability to switch off animations in
10:26their
10:26own account settings.
10:28Let me just show you that interface now.
10:30So I'm here on Tableau Online but a Tableau
10:32Server instance would have a very similar
10:35sort of interface.
10:36And over in the top right hand side I can
10:38go to my own account settings.
10:40And that opens this particular window that
10:42you see here.
10:43And at the very, very bottom you'll see
10:46here that this animation settings is over
10:48here.
10:48And actually as a user I can unbulk and
10:51disable that.
10:52And when I hit those changes it doesn't
10:54matter if you as an author have enabled
10:57animations.
10:58That specific user won't see those
10:59animations.
11:00So don't rely on those features if you're
11:03building a dashboard just yet because not
11:05everyone will see those changes if they
11:08have this particular setting enabled.
11:10The second thing is that Tableau Server
11:12admins themselves don't currently
11:14understand the
11:14impact of animations on their Tableau
11:17Server.
11:18And so they may also disable animations
11:20across the entire Tableau Server until they
11:23have
11:23a better handle on what performance impact
11:25that might have.
11:26So those are just two words of caution.
11:29Now that said, I want to point you to two
11:32bits of awesome content created by the
11:34Tableau
11:35community.
11:36In this particular case Mark Reed has done
11:38an absolutely brilliant job summarizing the
11:41new features in Tableau in a lot more
11:43detail than I've gone into in this video.
11:46It's a really sort of good historical
11:47journey of where animations can really add
11:50value.
11:50He mentions the example that Hans Rosling
11:53is most famously sort of known for.
11:55But he also talks a bit about how the
11:58implementation works in Tableau.
12:00And to finish the piece off, he's got his
12:02very own video here which you can watch on
12:05his channel.
12:06I'll put a link in the description below.
12:07But I'll also put it in the information tip
12:10that's coming across the screen now.
12:13He's actually simulated the Hans Rosling
12:15example in a Tableau workbook with some
12:18very, very
12:18nice actions enabled as well.
12:21So you can really start to see how this
12:24really starts to come to life in Tableau.
12:27It's a feature that's never really been
12:28possible before.
12:29But if you put together the right sort of
12:32story and background, then everything
12:34starts
12:34to fall into place.
12:36If you've enjoyed this video, hit like.
12:38If not, drop us a comment below and let us
12:40know what kind of content you'd like to see
12:43in the future.
12:43One by one.
12:44That one is done now.
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