# Season 5 Episode 2: Byte: 2024 Tableau Conference Debrief

> 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:** 2024-05-27
- **Format:** Video · 66 min watch · transcript available
- **Topics:** Data visualisation, Industry trends, Tool strategy
- **Tools:** Tableau (ai, composable data sources, data modelling, extensions, public, relationships, table extensions)
- **Canonical:** https://just-tim.com/posts/season-5-episode-2-byte-2024-tableau-conference-debrief
- **Watch:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WVfsayBr5g

Ravi and I debrief the 2024 Tableau Conference in San Diego, with Ravi attending in person as a customer and me covering it remotely through live streams and a keynote summary video. We dig into the new format, the carefully judged Salesforce branding, the headline features, and Tableau's wider vision for analytics.

## Key takeaways

- Tableau Public Desktop is effectively a free, offline desktop edition that could matter enormously for the huge Asian and Indian user bases who lack reliable internet or licences, though it needs a proper marketing push into Power BI territory.
- Composable data sources let you join published data sources together via a live connection, meaning you only refresh one extract while reusing it across many workbooks - with shared dimensions as a prerequisite to avoid self-referencing loops.
- Table extensions run R or Python at the point of connection or aggregation, while Viz extensions let developers add bespoke chart types (or even non-chart outputs like augmented video) via an API, opening up paid custom visualisation work.
- Read any feature release list by asking 'who am I and what can I actually use' - many headline items require paid add-ons like data management or advanced management, and Tableau always phases features in rather than perfecting them on first release.
- The conference format change worked well: a sessions-only first day, repeated and recorded talks, and Einstein AI transcribed summaries on Salesforce Plus for catching up remotely.

## Chapters

- 0:03 Returning for episode two
- 1:33 Covering the keynote remotely
- 4:47 New conference format and Salesforce branding
- 12:22 The remote viewing experience
- 13:45 Tableau Public Desktop
- 18:08 Composable data sources and shared dimensions
- 22:52 Table extensions explained
- 26:37 Viz extensions and bespoke visuals
- 32:45 Walking through the feature list
- 43:46 Tableau's vision and the Salesforce question

Watch the full video, read the transcript and use chapter deep-links on the page: https://just-tim.com/posts/season-5-episode-2-byte-2024-tableau-conference-debrief

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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