Tableau Desktop vs Public: A Complete Comparison and Guide for Data Analysts

0:00Hey, it's him here. This is yet another

0:01snippet from my Tableau desktop crash

0:03course. In this one,

0:05I explained the difference between Tableau

0:07desktop and Tableau Public. I'll go into it

0:10with quite a

0:11lot of detail. This is actually part of the

0:12crash course, so go ahead and check that

0:14out. But as

0:15ever, let's get stuck in. Now let's look at

0:18desktop and public. Okay, now to download

0:21them,

0:22Tableau Public is a little bit funny. And I

0:24'll start with Tableau Public first, because

0:26that's

0:26the version that most people can go ahead

0:28and do right now for free. There's two ways

0:30of using

0:30Tableau Public. The first way is to use it

0:33here in the browser. The second way is to

0:35download it.

0:36Now most people will tell you to download

0:38it. And if you want to kind of simulate an

0:40experience

0:40that you'd have at work, I would say also

0:42go ahead and download it as well. That's

0:45the best way to

0:45actually experience it. If I go to the

0:47create drop down up here, select download

0:49Tableau desktop

0:50public edition. It takes me to a page, it

0:53asks me to sign in if I'm not signed in.

0:55And if I click

0:56the button, it always asks for a few bits

0:58of information. This is just marketing. I

1:01can never

1:02get out of this. But go ahead, install, put

1:04your details in here. You can put like an

1:08alias if you

1:09want to and download the application. That

1:11will allow you to download the software for

1:12Windows and

1:13Mac. Once you've done that, run the

1:15installer. There's nothing to set up other

1:17than just

1:17literally clicking OK, agreeing with the

1:19terms and conditions and letting that run.

1:21And then once you've done that, you're

1:23pretty much good to go. You'll have the

1:24software ready to run.

1:25If you want to use it in the browser

1:28instead, if I go back to the homepage,

1:30all you need to do is go ahead and sign in.

1:32So let me go ahead and do that.

1:34And once I'm signed in, you'll notice that

1:37I actually have a profile. So my profile

1:41picture is just up here. If you're new, I

1:43think it walks you through the experience a

1:44little bit.

1:45And once you're signed in, what I actually

1:47encourage people to do is don't go and try

1:50and build something straight away. Do

1:51something a little bit more crazy, which is

1:54go find some

1:55of the trending visualizations right now.

1:57Priya Padam here is a colleague of mine at

1:59the Information

2:00Lab. So if I actually go to her

2:02visualization right now, any visualization

2:04which the author

2:05has made available to download, if you go

2:08to this button just right here, you can

2:10actually open it

2:11here in the browser and start to edit it

2:13straight away. So I can go ahead and click

2:15on that button,

2:16make a copy, and I'm immediately in the web

2:19editing experience for Tableau Public. And

2:22actually this is the same web editing

2:24experience you get for Tableau Desktop if

2:26you use it in

2:27Tableau Cloud or in Tableau Server. And

2:29check this out, I can even go into the

2:31visualization,

2:32I can open it up, and I can even see

2:34exactly how this has been built. This is

2:36just such a powerful

2:37capability. And so this is how easy it is.

2:40We've been streaming for such a short

2:42amount of time,

2:42but I've already shown you how you can get

2:44free access into Tableau just by using

2:46Tableau Public

2:47to go and see how other people are using

2:49their visualizations. Now granted, this is

2:52a little

2:52bit intimidating, okay, we've got a lot of

2:55things going on here. But later on today,

2:57we'll actually

2:58build this exact chart. We won't have it

3:00looking as nice as Priya has done here,

3:03because that

3:04formatting takes a bit of time. So this, we

3:05're not going to do that, there's no time in

3:07a crash course,

3:07but we will build this map with these

3:09circles. And I'll show you how to do all of

3:11that. And

3:12everything here should look a lot less

3:13intimidating by the time we're done. Okay,

3:16so let me just go

3:17back and close this. If you want to know

3:19what I'm doing, I'll just try and annotate

3:20it a bit more,

3:21I'll go ahead and close this up here at the

3:23top. And I don't want to publish this

3:25because this is

3:26not my work. I don't want people to think

3:28it's my work. It's Priya's hard work, and

3:30we'll leave

3:31it at that. Okay, so if you want to go

3:33ahead and create anything, you know, go

3:35ahead edit something,

3:36but you can also just go to create here at

3:38the top, select web altering. And it takes

3:41you to a

3:41blank canvas. And the blank canvas is great

3:44, because you can then go ahead upload data

3:46from

3:46your computer, if you've got a text file, a

3:48CSV, Excel files, these are all possible

3:51just through

3:51this. Okay. Now, that's the web experience

3:55of using Tableau Public. What about the

3:57desktop

3:58experience? How do you go ahead and install

4:00the software on your machine? Well, you go

4:03ahead and

4:04download it and install it. And then once

4:06you've done that, what I'm going to do is I

4:08'm actually

4:08going to swipe over to my Windows machine,

4:11because I have my Windows machine just

4:13behind my desk,

4:14and I'm remote desktop into it. And over

4:16there, I actually have the different

4:18versions of Tableau

4:19already running. So you can see the

4:21difference. So the first thing I'll do is

4:23open up Tableau Public,

4:25you can just install the software. And when

4:27you've done that, you can see it just

4:28becomes available

4:29to you to install over here. So you can

4:30just go ahead and click on that and you're

4:32pretty much

4:33good to go. And when you open it up, you're

4:35met with this interface. And this is

4:37actually the

4:38classic Tableau interface when you open

4:40that up for the first time, whether you're

4:42using Tableau

4:43desktop or Tableau Public, it's all the

4:45same. On the left hand side, you have what

4:48's called the

4:48connection pane, the connection pane allows

4:51you to connect to data. In the middle, we

4:53have the

4:54open pane. And this open pane is a bit

4:56different in Tableau Public, because what

4:59it shows you is

5:00some of your most recently worked on work

5:02is a bit like your recent documents in

5:04Google Drive

5:05or on your computer. The other thing that

5:08it also shows you is some of the work that

5:10you've pinned.

5:11So once you start to do a lot of work, you

5:13can actually pin them to this location. So

5:15they're

5:15always visible as well. And then very last

5:18ly, the last thing we have on the right hand

5:20side is the

5:21discover pane. This discover pane

5:23essentially links you to a couple of things

5:26. Some getting

5:27started resources, which are just covered

5:29here at the top. These pretty much show you

5:31how to use

5:31Tableau. They're going to be hopefully just

5:34as good as my tutorials, if not better,

5:36because people

5:37who put them together make the product. So

5:39hopefully they'd be much better. You have a

5:41link

5:42to visit the day. Now we were just on Table

5:44au Public. Visit the day is essentially a

5:46visualization

5:47that's been voted as a community favorite

5:49or has been selected to be showcased for

5:51the community

5:52on that day. And sometimes they come

5:54through here in the product. And the very

5:56last thing is

5:57resources. So these are things like the

5:59Tableau blog, sample datasets you can get

6:02stuck in with,

6:03and the current status of Tableau Online

6:05and Tableau Cloud also available there. So

6:08sample

6:08datasets is really good because it's a

6:10really good way of understanding how

6:11everything works,

6:12and you can sort of bring it together as

6:14well. So that's the interface. Now you're

6:16probably wondering,

6:17well, how is this different from Tableau

6:19Desktop? And this is actually the best

6:21place to show you

6:22the big difference. When I go ahead and

6:24select more, you'll see that I get only

6:27three options

6:28here. So if I wanted to connect to a

6:30database such as, let's say, Microsoft SQL

6:32Server,

6:33or I wanted to connect to something like

6:35Snowflake, that's not going to be available

6:37here,

6:38because Tableau Public is limited. It only

6:40lets you connect to flat files, which are

6:43these files

6:43here at the top. So Excel, text, JSON,

6:46Microsoft Access, PDF, spatial files, and

6:48statistical files,

6:49essentially any file on your machine. And

6:52then the servers it lets you connect to are

6:54Google Drive,

6:55OData, and WebData connectors. Essentially,

6:58these are basically other places where you

7:00might store

7:01some of these flat files and/or web data

7:03that just doesn't make sense to put behind

7:05a price

7:06wall because Tableau doesn't build those

7:09connections. So that's the limitation here

7:11initially with data connections. If I go

7:14ahead and close that option, the other

7:17limitation is if I go

7:19over, let's say I go over to the data tab,

7:21you'll see that I have very few limited

7:24options up here

7:25at the top. And when we go over to Tableau

7:26Desktop, you'll see that you get a much

7:28bigger range of

7:29options. And one of the things you can't do

7:33is save to your desktop. So if I click on

7:36this little icon

7:37here on the very top left-hand side, let me

7:39just highlight that a bit more. When I

7:41click on that

7:42icon, what it does is it switches to the

7:45visualization building setup essentially.

7:48And that

7:48allows me to see the full range of options

7:51still in Tableau Public. But now if I go

7:53here and try

7:53and save the document, it's not going to

7:55let me save it to the computer. So here, it

7:58only lets you

7:58save to Tableau Public. So that is the

8:00limitation of Tableau Public in this

8:02particular instance.

8:03It's not going to let me save to my desktop

8:06machine. That said, if I go to Server, it

8:10will

8:11show me the options that I would expect to

8:13see. But in order to save this anywhere, I

8:15'm always going

8:15to need to go back here and select Save to

8:17Tableau Public or Save to Tableau Public As

8:20, which allows

8:20you to rename the file or write over an

8:22existing file. So those are the core

8:25limitations of Tableau

8:26Public. Everything else works exactly as

8:29you'd expect. There are some tiny, tiny

8:32quirks. For

8:33example, the behavior with Google Docs is

8:35slightly different in Public versus Desktop

8:37. Again, that's

8:38an intermediate thing. We don't need to

8:40worry about it. So that is Tableau Public.

8:42And I'm going

8:43to go ahead and click on this little Table

8:45au icon on the top left again to go back to

8:47this window.

8:48The only reason I'm clicking there now is

8:50because I haven't connected to any data. So

8:52that's the way

8:52to switch between the windows by just

8:54clicking that icon on the top. Right, let's

8:57switch to Tableau

8:58Desktop and show you how that's different.

9:00So let's go ahead and go down to Tableau

9:02Desktop,

9:03which is just over here. Now immediately,

9:05you can see there's a lot more going on. In

9:07my connection

9:08window on the left, we now get the full

9:10breakdown of things you can connect to. So

9:13we have the files

9:14that we had before. These are just here. We

9:16have the server-based connections. And we

9:18also have

9:19what are called saved data sources. And

9:21saved data sources are just things that

9:23have been saved for

9:24convenience. They're not necessarily data

9:26sources that kind of get, you know,

9:28organizations can put

9:30in in that folder for you. It's essentially

9:32just an easy place to put things you work

9:34on very

9:35frequently. A bit like your desktop, but

9:36you can put them there so they're very easy

9:38to access.

9:39We'll talk about that maybe in an

9:40intermediate session instead, but don't

9:42worry about them today.

9:44The server-based connections are a lot

9:46broader. So you'll definitely see that this

9:49list is a lot

9:49more impressive. And the thing to point out

9:52here is that you might have seen that a few

9:54of these

9:54loaded once the window opened. So these

9:57options here loaded once the window had

10:01opened fully. And

10:02that's because these actually live on

10:03another part of Tableau called the Tableau

10:06Exchange.

10:06Think of it as like a marketplace, except

10:08for right now, everything is free. So it's

10:10kind of

10:10like a weird marketplace where everything's

10:12free. At some point, they're going to start

10:13selling

10:14something. So for now, these are all free

10:16connectors made by these companies and/or

10:19Tableau.

10:19And you can go ahead and use them alongside

10:21all these other connectors. So I'm pretty

10:24certain

10:24you'll find your database in this list. If

10:27you don't find your database in this list,

10:29what's most

10:30commonly used to connect to those databases

10:33is sometimes ODBC or JDBC connector.

10:36Essentially,

10:37it's an open source way of connecting to

10:39certain data sources using a certain

10:41protocol. And the

10:43other option is the web data connector. If

10:45it's web-based data, you might instead use

10:47a web data

10:48connector to connect to those sources. But

10:49pretty much everything else is going to be

10:51in this list.

10:52And if it doesn't exist, well, typically

10:54either someone has built an ODBC connector,

10:56or there's going to be a connector down

10:58here that lets you connect to it. So pretty

10:59much everything

11:00is covered. Okay, so let me go ahead and

11:03minimize this list because it's quite a

11:05daunting list. And

11:06to be honest with you, most people when you

11:08open Tableau first time, don't try and

11:10connect to a

11:10database, just connect to the sample data

11:12source that's being given to you. We'll get

11:14to that in a

11:15second. If I go to the bottom, you'll see

11:17something called accelerators. Now, I don't

11:20know why Tableau

11:21tries to confuse people, but accelerators

11:23are just templates. Think of them as pre-

11:25built dashboards

11:26that you can use to, you know, accelerate

11:28your work. Essentially, someone's done the

11:31work for

11:31you, so you don't have to, except for the

11:34fact that these three dashboards here were

11:37never built

11:38with that in mind. These three dashboards

11:40are actually sample workbooks. The best way

11:43to think

11:44of these sample workbooks from, let's say

11:46from a professional perspective, is there

11:49are a good

11:49benchmark for understanding how things

11:51should work in Tableau when it comes to

11:53speed and performance.

11:55So if you open one of these three workbooks

11:57, let's go ahead and do that now, I'll open

11:59up the

11:59Superstore workbook. If you click on them,

12:01it opens them up in another window. If you

12:03open one

12:04of these up and your laptop or computer is

12:06really struggling to work with these

12:09specific dashboards,

12:11it probably means your laptop or computer

12:12isn't appropriately specced, and that

12:14happens really

12:15rarely. But if these are slow, your whole

12:17experience is going to be slow. But if

12:20these

12:20are working fast, they're interactive, they

12:22're working quickly, you're clicking on them

12:24and

12:24things are happening like you'd expect a

12:26normal tool to work, then things are

12:29working pretty well.

12:30Now, right now, this is taking a bit longer

12:32because I'm on an M1 Mac and everything's a

12:34bit weird. Actually, no, this is on Windows

12:36. It's just taking longer. I don't know why.

12:37But this should just work. So for example,

12:41when I hover over these data points, I

12:43should get nice,

12:44fast tool tips. When I click on them, the

12:46whole visualization should react. You

12:48should get a nice

12:50sort of snappy experience switching between

12:51the tabs. And of course, we haven't

12:53published this

12:54up to the browser. But if you were to

12:55publish this to the browser, generally

12:57speaking, you should be

12:58seeing roughly the same sort of performance

13:00. So that's why these are a good benchmark.

13:02Again,

13:03I don't want to confuse you too much by

13:04clicking around and doing a bunch of

13:05different things.

13:06I just want to show you what to expect when

13:08it comes to performance and load times and

13:10how

13:10things should work. Okay, let's go ahead

13:12and actually close this because we don't. I

13:15've

13:16actually ended up opening this again. So

13:17that's fine. What we'll do is we'll keep

13:18this open for

13:19now. We'll keep it here. We don't need this

13:21window for the next step. But if I go back

13:23to the

13:24connection window, just by clicking on that

13:26icon again at the top, you can see that we

13:28have the

13:28accelerator still here on the bottom. And

13:31you can now see we have an item here in the

13:33open pane.

13:34Now when I hover over it, you have this

13:36little pin icon that you can click on. It's

13:39really,

13:39really small. I'll try and highlight it

13:41here for you right there. That keeps this

13:44workbook in this

13:45position. So essentially, this won't move

13:47anywhere. If anything gets opened, that

13:49will always stay on

13:50that top row. If you have a lot of them,

13:52you can arrange them as well. You can move

13:53them around,

13:54just to sort of get things nice and tidy.

13:57Now, if you want more templates, you can go

14:00over to

14:00this right hand side and select more

14:02accelerators, templates. And when you do

14:05that, you'll actually

14:06find that there have been some dashboards

14:08that have been made that already try and

14:10answer certain

14:11questions. And actually, just like we did

14:13with Tableau Public, where we went to find

14:15different

14:15dashboards you can work with, here, you can

14:17go and find dashboards that you can

14:19actually use at work

14:20that connect to things that you might be

14:22familiar with. For example, Salesforce.

14:24Maybe you're in a

14:24finance team and you want to go and see

14:26what other corporate finance teams are

14:28building.

14:28The only word of caution I'll say to you is

14:30that some of these dashboards have been

14:32built by

14:33everyday people in the community that build

14:35fantastic work. And you can tell because

14:38they

14:38look really, really good. And some of them,

14:40let's just say that the jury's out on

14:42whether they look

14:43good or not. But the work that's been done

14:46in the connection has been fantastic. So

14:48they are set up

14:49correctly and you can really generally

14:51trust how they brought the data models

14:52together to support

14:54the visualizations that you want to build.

14:56So if I, let's say I want to search for a

14:58dashboard that

14:59talks about a wealth investment or

15:01insurance broking. So let's go ahead and

15:04search insurance.

15:05I can't type, so let's go search insurance.

15:08Insurance. Is that actually correct? No

15:11matching

15:12content. Insurance. I can't spell, can I?

15:15Let's just type this. Let's type in, sure.

15:18No matching

15:19content. There's nothing on insurance. That

15:21's so weird. Okay. Let's go to corporate

15:23finance instead

15:23and just look what's here. So the most

15:25recent one here is this executive KPI

15:27dashboard by Bistri.

15:29I actually know who built this, but it's a

15:30really, I think it's a really nice

15:32dashboard. I think it

15:33has actually been, this is one of the sort

15:35of better aesthetics that you get on the,

15:38on the

15:38Tableau exchange. And this one's actually

15:40customizable. You can click on it and do a

15:42bunch

15:42of stuff with it, download it and use it.

15:44And it's got a how to use page and

15:46everything. So you can

15:48really kind of do some awesome things with

15:50them. If I scroll back up and I go back,

15:53let's, let's

15:54find one more. Let's go back here. Let's

15:57find one more. Let's just go back down. Let

16:01's go see what

16:02else do we have? These are all a little bit

16:04, a little bit strange. Let's go somewhere

16:06else. Let's

16:07see if we do have an insurance section. I

16:09don't know why it wasn't coming up in the

16:12search.

16:12If I scroll down, I'm going to looking for

16:14these ones, cause these are the ones, the

16:16information

16:16I've built where I work. So of course I'd

16:19look for them. So let's go look at this

16:21insurance

16:22underwriter performance. I also know who

16:24built this is a colleague of mine called

16:26Ellen Blackbird,

16:26Blackburn even. Her work is fantastic. She

16:30's just really got a great eye for design.

16:32And

16:33these are dashboards that really excel at

16:34showing you what's possible with Tableau.

16:36So if you want

16:36to use these absolutely get stuck in and

16:39get involved. Anyway, I'm here to teach you

16:42how to

16:42use the tool, not how to use templates. So

16:44the very last thing is the discover pane on

16:47the right hand

16:47side. The only way this is different from

16:50Tableau Public is we have a little bit more

16:52of a training

16:53section, slightly longer list of resources,

16:56and you often get updates from Tableau

16:58marketing

16:59on the bottom, right? So you can actually

17:01sometimes see things like conference

17:03announcements

17:04and so on and so forth in there. Now, if

17:06you're really sort of advanced in your

17:08organization,

17:09it is possible to change this whole right

17:12hand side section to point to a webpage

17:15instead. So

17:16in this right hand side section, you can

17:18actually point to a specific page in your

17:21organization.

17:21And so you can put information for people

17:23who use Tableau straight away. Maybe it's

17:26guides,

17:26maybe it's information about who runs Table

17:28au, status updates, all of that can live on

17:30the right

17:30hand side of that. And again, I've done a

17:32video explaining how that works. And it's

17:34really,

17:34really good to see. Okay.

17:36Thanks.

17:36Bye.

17:41[ Silence ]