Tableau 2026.1 Desktop Features including Rounded Corners

0:0026.

0:011 is coming soon.

0:02We're gonna go through all the features in this video.

0:05If you're new here, my name is Tableau Tim.

0:07I've been using Tableau for over a decade.

0:09I've been teaching Tableau here for the last five years

0:13And what I like to do is break down every release and go through some of the features that are coming up.

0:17And then when it drops, I go through each of the features in separate videos.

0:22But in this video, I just want to break down each of the releases and let you know what's coming in the next release.

0:27If I look at the list just off the top, it's a very short list.

0:30It's quite compressed.

0:31If we sort of synthesize down what's specifically available in desktop or the

0:36standard authoring experience, it's a little less.

0:39Tableau Next dominates a lot of these feature releases.

0:42So Tableau is a very big and expanded platform.

0:45I actually have a course on LinkedIn that covers the whole entire platform

0:48Including Tableau Next and all of this uh wonderful stuff so go ahead and check those out.

0:53What I will say is this little drop down here gives you a list of all the different parts of the tableau ecosystem in a product breakdown, which is actually quite handy because then you can take the thing

1:03that I think most of you are here for, which is Tableau Desktop.

1:06And when you list just the desktop features, then you get a really focused list of what's available, what's coming in this release.

1:13So this is an incremental release.

1:15It's

1:15Building on what was released in 25.

1:183.

1:18Tablo only do three updates a year.

1:20Now they used to do four, they've dropped down to three, and Tableau Server gets an update every other update.

1:26So if you're wondering

1:27Hey, why isn't there a server release for a specific version?

1:29It's because they skip versions and for server updates.

1:33So let's look at the desktop features.

1:35Rounded corners.

1:37I think for the community this is a big deal

1:39Rounded corners are an aesthetic thing that I think a lot of clients have asked for because they think that it adds a little bit of visual flair to the dashboard, maybe just you know takes the edge off a certain

1:50certain aspects.

1:51And what people have done to date is they've been creating images in Figma or been using hacks to try and create this capability.

1:57And now it's just supported natively.

1:59So you can have it as part of your formatting capability.

2:02Additionally, Tableau have been incrementing the formatting capability.

2:05abilities to introduce things like starsheets.

2:07So what's gonna be good about this is that if round the corners are supported then you may be able to get these into templates, which then means you have to spend no time on this.

2:15To me that's a good thing.

2:17I personally hated how much time we spent

2:19uh rounding off corners when actually we're analytics professionals but nonetheless it's a personal taste thing um rounded corners is now available in twenty six dot one when this comes out which is going to be nice it's available

2:31in desktop cloud and tableau public.

2:33If you're wondering hey how is it available in Tableau Cloud, it's because there's a web authoring component in Tableau Cloud.

2:39So this feature will exist in the web authoring and in the desktop offline version.

2:44And Tableau Public has a separate version, which is entirely free by the way.

2:48Tableau Public Desktop Edition, all the same capabilities of desktop

2:52just doesn't let you connect it to a database.

2:54Works with flat files, works with csvs, works with statistical files, works with mapping files, all of those work and you're going to get this feature in that release as well

3:03When that updates to 26.

3:041.

3:05Really handy capability.

3:06Next one up: AI assisted color palettes.

3:09So color palettes were added in the previous releases, and what I'll add here is that

3:13Salesforce or Tableau like to ship things over multiple ship points.

3:17So if you see a feature and it's a very big new feature, color palettes being one of them.

3:21What they'll tend to do is follow up with quick succession in following releases, uh, improvements to that feature.

3:28This is one of those.

3:29So we had color palettes in the last release.

3:31In this release, what they've done is given you the ability to use AI

3:35to actually use this capability.

3:36Now the thing about this feature is that I do believe it requires you to have the AI component available on your Tableau Cloud instance.

3:43It does use a specific type of credit, a consumption credit in in essence.

3:47So

3:48You're going to need to have Tableau AI enabled on your platform.

3:51If you have Tableau Pulse, then you probably have the same capability already set up.

3:55And you can see that it's actually quite nice.

3:56Being able just to type something and get a color palette immediately is going to be quite good

4:01Again, taking away time that we spend formatting.

4:03So this is good.

4:04Generally available in desktop while you are signed into a Tableau Agent Enabled site.

4:09So that's the detail I was calling out there.

4:11A Tableau Agent Enabled site will have Tableau AI enabled.

4:15Which in itself will link to a SKU or a license that has AI enabled, so bit of a tenuous link, but it's gonna be there, which is great.

4:22So in the previous release, 25.

4:243

4:25They gave you the ability to look at view they gave you the ability to view data models.

4:29Actually I lie.

4:3025.

4:312 gave you the ability to use and look at view data models and it allowed you to do this on a sheet specific level.

4:37Now um

4:39There's a little sort of improvement here, so let's just read through this to understand what exactly they're improving.

4:43Be aware of how Tableau data models are used within a visual worksheet, which

4:47Table supplied data to which pills in a viz.

4:50If a complex calculation is used within a pill, hovering over the pill highlights the participating tables in the view.

4:56So this is actually really good.

4:59What they're saying is before you could look at a sheet and see the data model components that it was using.

5:05That was fine, but you see the calculations in the view are separate from just necessarily the logical components

5:12So if you use a calculation that spans multiple components of the view model that you're seeing in that specific sheet, you can see here we're looking at sheet number 10.

5:21If you hover over a calculation, you'll actually get to see which components of the logical model are being used.

5:27So essentially another level of perspective, one the data model, which then allows you to compute and understand how that data model is resolving.

5:35This is helpful if you're trying to fix a broken relationships or you're just not getting the right number and you try and understand why.

5:41This should help map that

5:43issue out a lot easier.

5:44V data model is generally available in Tableau Cloud, Desktop and Tableau Public.

5:48They're almost talking like it's already available.

5:51So and this might be something you can see in Tableau Cloud already

5:54But not necessarily in Tableau Desktop.

5:56So we'll we'll we'll go have a check of that and once I've pushed this video.

5:59We'll see what's what and then we can start making the videos

6:02Smart filter on table names.

6:04So table names were uh not previously available in the smart filters.

6:09In the smart filters you could search for measures, you could search for calculations, but you couldn't previously search for tables.

6:16So here

6:17They're adding that capability with a naming convention which is the letter T.

6:22And so you can type the letter T and then type the table.

6:25and then it will shorten that list on the left hand side to that specific table.

6:30So really nice touch here.

6:35Tableau maps makes geometry supports.

6:37This is interesting.

6:38We haven't had mapping updates in a long, long, long time.

6:41There have been like subtle cues, subtle tweaks, but this is going to be interesting.

6:45Stop pressing with rigid data and start mapping the real world as it is.

6:48Mixed geometry support estimates tedious data prep, um eliminates tedious data prep by allowing Tableau to visualize points, lines and polygons simultaneously from a single column

6:58Oh, this is very nice.

7:00Spatial objects, if you're doing mapping, um there are three types of geometries.

7:06You've got a point

7:07Points come together to form a line, and a line that draws around an object and closes is known as a polygon.

7:16So those are the three types of visual elements or spatial elements.

7:20in spatial sort of analysis.

7:23What used to be a limitation in Tableau is you couldn't have all of these in one column.

7:27So when we're talking about a column what we're talking about is

7:30dimension or something like that.

7:31So previously if you say had latitude and longitude, you'd create a point out of those and that would sit in one column.

7:38Then if you wanted to create a path based on a series of points, you'd create another column for that

7:42And you'd you'd you'd you'd give it a series 1 to 10, and then you'd say 1 to 10 is my polygon, and then you could turn that into a polygon.

7:49That would be in a separate column.

7:51What this feature allows you to do is essentially have

7:55everything in one column and not have to split those out into different polygon types into different columns, making it that much

8:03Easier to actually get into visualization.

8:05Sometimes what you had to do is do data prep outside of Tableau to get this to happen, or write SQL to get this to happen, which would then move the relevant records which had

8:15different polygons to different columns and then once you've done that you can work with it easily in Tableau.

8:20So this is again a nice feature just doing what we were doing anyway but doing it in the product natively making it that much easier to work with this.

8:28Perfect

8:29So REST API Connector.

8:30Now I don't actually know what this is.

8:32Normally I have a little clue what a feature is, but I don't know.

8:34So you get to see my reaction to this for the first time.

8:37Connect the data from your REST API endpoint without writing custom code.

8:41The new REST API connector unlocks API data for business users without developer resources, enabling self-service.

8:47Oh this is nice.

8:48This is very nice

8:50Connectors the int intended to replace with the deprecated web data connector option.

8:54Okay, I was gonna say.

8:56So history lesson

8:58Web data connectors came out I want to say six years ago, uh maybe seven years ago, and they were designed to allow you to connect to web data sources.

9:07For example, if you wanted to query the Strava API for all your run data

9:11you'd use a web data connector and build a connector for Strava.

9:15What this is saying is that you don't need to build that connector, you don't need to build that sort of code base.

9:20What instead you can do is you can put the details

9:22of the Strava API directly in the connector and pull that data from the API, meaning you don't have to do any development.

9:30You still need all the information.

9:31So you need the API URL, you need the response format, the JSON path, the authentication.

9:36In the world of AI, these are genuinely very easy to figure out.

9:40If you don't know them, I guarantee you Claude Chat GPT will be able to sort of help you pass through this.

9:47Put those in and you should be able just to connect the data freely.

9:49This is this is generally a big big lifesaver.

9:52It saves a lot of people having to do development.

9:55It's extremely powerful

9:56Okay, Google Looker Connector.

9:58Combine the robust data modeling of Google Looker with Tableau's industry leading visualization.

10:03Now for a history lesson

10:04Google Looker is actually a competing visualization capability from Google.

10:10But one thing it has is a way of building semantic models using something called LookML.

10:16Now LookML is proprietary to the Google Looker platform.

10:19So what happens is organizations have Google Looker for various reasons.

10:23There are actually some parts of Google that require LookML to process and work with big data sets.

10:30And what this allows you to do is to put Tableau on top of that.

10:33So if we just read through this, combine the robust data modeling of Google Looker with Tableau's industry leading visualization.

10:40So here you're letting Google do all the semantic modeling

10:44and Tableau is doing the visualizations.

10:46Organizations can now instantly access their governed looker data with within Tableau.

10:51No manual exports required.

10:53This allows business analysts to visualize pre-model data in Tableau using Looker's business rules.

10:58enabling a seamless workflow across both platforms.

11:01So really nice time saver again generally available in cloud, desktop and tableau prep.

11:07Actually that's quite nice.

11:07You can bring them into Tableau Prep.

11:09Tableau Prep lets you prep data so you can actually do some additional

11:13Let's say data prep on top of the Google Looker connection.

11:15That's actually quite a nice little touch.

11:17So yeah, look out for that.

11:18Okay, new Amazon S3 connector.

11:21And beta actually connect to and analyze S3 data and tableau with a new S3 connector now in beta.

11:27Essentially just improving the connector.

11:29Amazon S3 is a cloud bucket storage solution.

11:33S3 stands for simple storage solution.

11:35That's sort of

11:36The acronym, hence it's called S3.

11:38It's essentially a way of storing information in the cloud, and it's done through this process of buckets.

11:44And so what you see here on the right is a form that basically asks you for the detail of the bucket.

11:49You give it a region, the name, access key.

11:51Key, secret access key.

11:52Once you've done that, Tableau can connect to any data that's in that bucket.

11:57Now, when it comes to data types, I think there's going to be a requirement here.

12:00So if I just read into this, Amazon S3 data files, CSV and Parquet files.

12:05So

12:05It has to be explicitly CSV and Parquet files.

12:08Parquet is a compressed data format that's extremely efficient.

12:12To give you an example, a client sent me a file.

12:15that was 83 megabytes that contained everything in a specific sample dataset.

12:20When I uncompressed and turned it into CSV

12:23The resulting file was about 1.

12:252 gigabytes for the CSV, so actually a very, very good compression format.

12:29Very similar to the Tableau data extract actually, very efficient.

12:33But yeah, if you put a parquet file or CSV in an S3 bucket, you give the S3 bucket details, boom.

12:38you can connect to it.

12:39This is nice because sometimes getting data in an S3 bucket is the default method for some enterprise companies.

12:45So just being able to leave it in the bucket.

12:47and connect directly to it makes it much much easier and it means I hope that you can update the contents of the bucket dynamically using a process using some sort of uh capability in Amazon

12:58And you can just have tablet update on a refresh because the connector is just going to check that bucket and get the latest information.

13:04So again, a really, really nice capability.

13:06Custom OWAT for Microsoft OneDrive and SharePoint Online

13:10in government cloud.

13:11Now government cloud is a capability that's specifically for government and I think government based organizations, so education, healthcare, all of those kind of sit in the government cloud capability.

13:20So just bringing this OAuth capability for OneDrive

13:24to that platform.

13:25It was already available in the general platform, but I think the government cloud has a couple of additional um capabilities that the standard Tableau cloud

13:33instances don't.

13:35I don't know enough about this, so if you know a lot about this, please drop something in the comments and yeah let me know.

13:39OAuth for Cloudera Impala

13:42There's a data source I know nothing about.

13:44But let's look.

13:45Streamline authentication with OAuth support for Cloud Area Impala by configuring PAL instances to use OAuth, organizations can move away.

13:52from legacy authentication in favor of modern cloud-friendly higher secure method for connecting to Cloudera Impeller.

13:59So basically a better connection, much easier, much more modern, and a bit more consistent with the enterprise setups we have today.

14:06Last one, removal of Marquito and Oracle Iloqua connectors.

14:11So connectors actually being removed.

14:12I've never seen this for a long while.

14:14To ensure a more secure and performant experience, the Market and Oracle Eloqua connectors are officially deprecated and will be removed in version 26.

14:231.

14:24So if you use this

14:25version if you use these connectors don't upgrade if you're one of the last few people still um using these old maybe databases then yeah

14:34Yeah, don't if you can update.

14:36Removal of uh uh Makita and Oracle liquor connectors generally available in Tableau Desktop replacement for Makita and Oracle

14:43JDBC base connectors are now available for download via the Tableau Exchange.

14:48So if you're wondering what is the Tableau Exchange, let's just go have a look.

14:52Tableau Exchange.

14:54This is an ecosystem.

14:56tableau or Salesforce run that has templates which they call accelerators, dashboards which are just essentially a dashboard extension, sorry, which

15:04add capability to your dashboards, Viz extensions which are visualizations that you can add to your dashboard and connectors which allow you to connect to data.

15:11If I click on connectors it takes us to the list of all the connectors in here and if I actually type in

15:18Iloqua, a Eloqua.

15:21There we go.

15:22You can see the JDPC connector they mentioned is right here.

15:25So it is already here and has actually been there.

15:28since 21.

15:292 so it works all the way back so even if you're on an older version of tableau and you don't want to update you can go back

15:37five years with this version so you can just put this in 21.

15:412 and newer and it will work and a lot of these versions are still supported there's a certain sort of support period

15:4721.

15:472 won't be in the support period, but something like 23 and 24 will be in the support period and you could just update to those and they'll already have this capability.

15:56So it's super easy.

15:57Okay, so that's it for desktop.

15:58What I'm actually going to do is stop this video here.

16:00If you want to see the features for desktop and prep, I'll put them in the next video that will follow this one just to break these up and make it easier to digest.

16:08Thanks for watching and I'll see you in the next one.