# Tableau Conference’ish Devs at Desks Livestream Watchalong 2020

> 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:** 2020-10-08
- **Format:** Video · 3368 min watch · transcript available
- **Topics:** Data visualisation, Industry trends, Tool strategy
- **Tools:** Tableau (ask data, cloud, forecasting, lod expressions, maps, prep, row level security, server)
- **Canonical:** https://just-tim.com/posts/tableau-conferenceish-devs-at-desks-livestream-watchalong-2020
- **Watch:** https://youtu.be/I_f4AoVWJ7o

In this livestream Ravi and I watch along to the Tableau Conference 2020 'Devs at Desks' session, reacting to feature previews as they land. We cover forecasting model selection, map layers, easy LODs, spatial support in Prep, Ask Data 2.0 and a raft of Server and admin improvements, then debate where row-level security and the data management add-on are heading.

## Key takeaways

- Tableau previewed easy LODs, which let you right-click a dimension and measure to generate a level-of-detail calculation automatically rather than writing the syntax by hand.
- Map layers allow you to stack multiple geometries in a single view, reorder them, disable selection per layer and rename layers, with clear potential beyond maps.
- Tableau Prep gained spatial support, including connecting to shape and zip files plus spatial calculations like make point, make line, buffer and spatial join, alongside field hiding and group steps.
- Ask Data 2.0 introduced a redesigned search-style interface with word-by-word autocomplete, query interpretation highlighting and governance controls.
- Server admin wins include custom extract refresh schedules, stale content views and tagging, a managed custom views section, export to Excel crosstab in the browser and Smart Bridge selection.

## Chapters

- 0:00 Pre-show chat and brain dates
- 6:47 Hopes for Devs at Desks
- 11:34 Forecasting models, map layers and easy LODs
- 18:01 Spatial data in Tableau Prep
- 22:54 Ask Data 2.0 preview
- 26:38 Tableau Server onboarding features
- 30:51 Custom schedules and stale content
- 35:40 Recapping the demos
- 44:40 Row-level security and the data management add-on
- 52:04 Wrap up

Watch the full video, read the transcript and use chapter deep-links on the page: https://just-tim.com/posts/tableau-conferenceish-devs-at-desks-livestream-watchalong-2020

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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