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Tableau | Data visualisation | Tool strategy

How to use the Play button in browser in Tableau 2020.1

I dusted off a crazy 2014 Volvo Ocean Race workbook to show how the new play button finally works right in the browser.

Tim Ngwena •26 February 2020 •1 min read •6 min watch •4.8K

Part ofWhat's new in Tableau 2020.1

Watch on YouTube

Tableau 2020.1 brought the parameter play button to the online/server browser experience, not just desktop.
The browser play button runs slower than desktop, so design your visualisation with larger, less frequent time intervals to make the animation read well.
Enabling animations can hide certain mark behaviours, such as the mark history effect used to trail the boats through the water.
Combining animations with the play button on Tableau Server leads to slow performance, so use them with care.
Refreshing an old workbook can be as simple as switching to a newer map style, adding map context, and adjusting font sizes to fit.

0:00In Tableau 2020, Tableau have added the

0:05play button to the online experience of

0:09Tableau

0:09server.

0:10So what I'm going to do to show you this

0:12feature is I'm actually going to download

0:14an old workbook

0:15that I created back in 2014.

0:18It was absolutely crazy.

0:20So I built this as part of a challenge to

0:23try and visualize the Volvo Ocean Race.

0:25And you can see here that it needs a bit of

0:28love because the fonts don't quite fit on

0:30the screen.

0:31But what you can see here is a parameter

0:33that sort of slides all the way across and

0:35it changes

0:36the state of the visualization as it goes

0:38all the way across.

0:40So I'm going to download this workbook and

0:41then I'm going to publish this back up to

0:43Tableau online and we're going to see how

0:47the new play button works.

0:51Now I've already got the workbook on my

0:52desktop.

0:53So let's just open that.

0:57There you go.

0:58There you have it.

0:59I last opened this workbook in version 8.3

1:03of Tableau.

1:04It's absolutely crazy.

1:05But let's dive back in and this is the work

1:08book.

1:09So just pretty much as I left it a long

1:12while ago.

1:13And you can see here now that I'm in here,

1:14there's a couple of things we need to fix.

1:16Firstly, the map is actually quite an old

1:19style map.

1:20So what we can do is we can hop into this

1:21sheet and I'm actually going to change the

1:24map styles to slightly different color.

1:27I'm going to probably use the satellite

1:29version of the maps.

1:30I think that's probably the best.

1:32And I'll just see if maybe we can...

1:35No, let's actually just leave the washout

1:39kind of set to bright color and let's add

1:43some context for the map and then let's

1:45head back into the visualization.

1:47That's already so much better.

1:49Now the next thing is the font.

1:51So let's hop into that.

1:53And you can see here the font is just a tad

1:55too big.

1:56So what I'll do is I'll head in here and I

1:58'll just set it to about 14 and just hit

2:01apply,

2:02click okay.

2:03Now that should fit inside of the

2:05visualization.

2:06So let me just show you how this

2:07visualization works.

2:09If I just bring the slider, you can see

2:11here that I have this sort of parameter and

2:13it's

2:14got this play button.

2:15So what I can actually do is set the play

2:17button to fast and hit play.

2:19And you can see that it animates through

2:21each of the steps of the boat race.

2:24Essentially the boats were logging their

2:26location over time and I've just put those

2:28individual

2:29timestamps into some data prep and I've

2:31numbered them and then it's just playing

2:34through this

2:34sequence.

2:35So yeah, apart from the map that we've just

2:37changed, the visualization has remained

2:39pretty

2:39much exactly the same.

2:41So now let's publish this up to Tableau

2:43Online and see how this play button works

2:46on Tableau

2:46Online.

2:47Now I'm going to sign out and then sign

2:49back in just to make sure that I get into

2:52the right

2:52Tableau Online instance.

2:55And I'll just hop right into this.

2:59And I want to go to my test environment.

3:01So let's head on over to the test online

3:04environment.

3:05And now that I'm logged in, I can just go

3:07ahead and publish this workbook.

3:09So as soon as I publish this workbook, it

3:11will actually open the browser on the

3:13specific

3:14page.

3:15So I'm going to put this into my example

3:17visualizations folder.

3:19And I'll show sheets this tab just to make

3:22it easy to navigate between them.

3:24We'll publish this back up and then we'll

3:26try the new play button.

3:28Okay, so here we have it.

3:31This is the new workbook published to Table

3:34au Online.

3:35You can see the individual tabs available

3:38here.

3:39And I'm just going to go over to the

3:41homepage and we're just going to navigate

3:43this like

3:44I intended to navigate it.

3:45So if you actually hit this map icon, it

3:47should take you to the overview tab, which

3:50is what

3:50we have here.

3:51And you can see here when I publish this up

3:54, I left the slider right on the very top.

3:57But now what I'm going to do is I'm going

3:59to hit this play button and let's see what

4:01happens.

4:02So you can see it's a little bit slower

4:04than on the desktop experience because what

4:06it's

4:06having to do is it's using the browser

4:08capability to sort of play through this.

4:10But actually, if you know this in advance,

4:13you can actually design your visualization

4:15to make use of this speed so that it plays

4:18in a way that sort of makes sense.

4:20So maybe having less frequent intervals and

4:24having it sort of play larger chunks of

4:26time

4:27so the actual change is a little bit sort

4:29of more enticing.

4:31Now I'm going to stop that video and I'm

4:34just going to go back to Tableau.

4:37Now it's important to bear in mind that

4:39with the addition of this play button in

4:41the browser,

4:42Tableau have done this alongside animations

4:45.

4:45And so you just need to bear in mind that

4:47animations will cause this play button to

4:50behave slightly differently.

4:53Let me just head on over to the format

4:55options and let's enable animations.

4:57And the first thing that you'll notice is

5:00that whilst animations are enabled, certain

5:02chart items aren't visible.

5:04Let me just focus in here.

5:07Now in this mark type here, what I did is I

5:10enabled the history to show for a certain

5:14number of records and that kind of creates

5:16this effect like the boats are going

5:17through

5:18the water.

5:19Now watch what happens when I switch on

5:22animations.

5:23That feature disappears.

5:26And so whilst animations are nice, they do

5:30have an effect on other pieces of content

5:34on your dashboards, in particular this play

5:36button.

5:37Now the play button performs really well

5:40here on the desktop.

5:41You can actually see sort of the animated

5:43effect sort of happening and it's partly

5:46due

5:46to this duration that's set over here.

5:48So that partly controls how everything sort

5:51of works.

5:52Now the key thing here is that if you then

5:55publish this up to the Tableau server, the

5:58combination of animations and this play

6:00button will lead to slow performance.

6:02So just bear that in mind if you're

6:04building anything with this play button.

6:07Okay that's it.

6:08If you've enjoyed this video, drop a like.

6:10If not, drop me a comment below and let me

6:12know what kind of content you'd like to see

6:14in the future.

Rollup

Tableau 2020.1 brought the parameter play button to the browser (Online/Server), not just Desktop, so animated parameter-driven visualisations now work for viewers who never open Desktop. Tim revisits an old workbook to show how it behaves once published and where it falls down.

Tim dusts off a 2014 workbook built for a Volvo Ocean Race challenge, where a parameter slider with a play button steps through boats' logged positions over time. He refreshes it before republishing to Tableau Online to test the new browser play button.

The Breakdown

Old workbook, dated map and fonts 0:00

Tim opens a workbook last saved in Tableau 8.3 that uses a parameter slider with a play button to animate marks changing state over time — the same mechanism this video is about testing in-browser.
Refresh the map style and add context 1:17

As a quick tip when reviving old vizzes, swap outdated map styles for a current one and add map context layers before worrying about anything else — it's a fast visual win.
Resize fonts to fit the layout 1:43

Another independent tidy-up: if text overruns a dashboard, drop the font size (he uses 14) and reapply — simple but necessary before republishing so nothing looks broken to viewers.
Confirm the play button works on Desktop first 2:01

Before publishing, check the parameter's play button animates correctly on Desktop (speed set to fast, stepping through each recorded state) so you know the baseline behaviour you're comparing the browser against.
Publish to Tableau Online 2:42

Publish the workbook as normal, choosing which sheets/tabs to show; this step must happen before you can test the browser-specific play button behaviour that 2020.1 introduces.
Play button runs slower in-browser 3:28

On Tableau Online the play button works, but it plays more slowly than on Desktop because it relies on browser rendering rather than Desktop's engine. Design around this: use larger, less frequent time intervals so each animated step reads clearly at the slower browser pace.
Animations can hide certain mark effects 4:37

Turning on the separate animations setting changes how the play button behaves — in Tim's case it made a 'mark history' trail effect (used to show boats moving through water) disappear entirely. Test your dashboard with animations both on and off to check nothing you rely on gets suppressed.
Animations plus play button hurts performance 5:40

Animations look good on Desktop, partly controlled by the duration setting, but combining animations with the play button on Tableau Server leads to slow performance — use the pairing carefully, or avoid it if performance matters more than the effect.

Worth Knowing

The browser play button is noticeably slower than the Desktop version, so demo pacing on Desktop won't match what viewers see online.
Enabling animations can hide mark behaviours like history/trail effects, so check your visualisation carefully with animations toggled on.
Animations combined with the play button on Tableau Server specifically causes slow performance — a combination worth avoiding or testing thoroughly first.

Use It When

Reach for this when you're publishing a parameter-driven animated dashboard to Tableau Online or Server and need viewers (not just Desktop users) to be able to hit play — but test speed and animation interactions first rather than assuming Desktop behaviour carries over.

How this Rollup was made provenance & method

A Rollup is drafted by AI from the video's transcript, then reviewed and edited by Tim. Everything used to produce this one is listed below — the model, the exact prompt, and the source video — so the process is transparent and reproducible.

Transcription: On-device — NVIDIA Parakeet v3 for recent videos, OpenAI Whisper large-v3 for earlier ones. The transcript never leaves the machine or gets published.
Drafting: Claude Sonnet 5 in the cloud, from that transcript.
Prompt: The exact Rollup prompt (v2) — the full system prompt, unedited.
Source video: Watch on YouTube
Drafted: 5 July 2026 at 09:38
Reviewed & edited: 5 July 2026 at 09:41 · by Tim Ngwena

Model + prompt + video is everything you'd need to recreate a Rollup like this yourself. The one thing we don't share is the transcript.

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