Tableau notifications in Slack: Alerts, mentions & comments: New in Tableau 2021.3

0:00Hey, it's Tim here in this video, I'm

0:01finally showing you how the new

0:03capabilities with Slack and Tableau go

0:05together. I'm actually super excited about

0:07this, not just because of the feature set

0:09that we're going to see today. But actually

0:11some of the features that were announced

0:12that Dreamforce 2021 were really, really

0:15cool. I think it's going to make Slack a

0:16really exciting place to be if you're a

0:18tablet user. Anyway, let's get stuck in and

0:20find out how to use this feature. Now, if

0:23you're a server admin, or you're just

0:24looking to find out how to set this up,

0:26because you're a Slack admin, and you want

0:27to figure out how this should be done in

0:28Tableau online,

0:29this is going to be a great video for you

0:29as well stick around to the end or check

0:29out the timestamps to see how this is all

0:29set up. If you're here to see how the

0:29feature works, let's get stuck in. So how

0:29does this feature work in Tableau and Slack

0:29? Well, you can see here that I'm logged in

0:29as my self, I'm actually logged in as an

0:29explorer here. So you can see that I have a

0:29content that's been shared with me. And I

0:29have a few other bits of content that I've

0:29created over time. If I go to the Explore

0:29tab, you can see that I have access to

0:29pretty much everything I would have access

0:29to that I've been given access to. And if I

0:29scroll down,

0:59I want to look for something

1:00straightforward, like the Superstore work

1:02book. And you want to make sure this isn't

1:03an impersonal space, because of course, you

1:05can't share content, it's in a personal

1:07space. Once I get to the piece of content,

1:09I'll just go ahead and click on a standard

1:12chart here. So you can see that this is all

1:14set up. And if I go to the sharing options

1:17here at the top, one of the things I can do

1:18is obviously share the items. So let's go

1:20ahead and hit my email and hit my name here

1:24. I've got several messages here, and

1:27several emails that I can use. So let's

1:28type in a

1:29message, say, Hey, Tim, nice. Nice visit in

1:33slack, okay. And when I hit share, this

1:35will obviously send that off, I'll get that

1:37specific message. Now, the thing to bear in

1:40mind here is that I'm actually sending this

1:42to myself, you can see here, hey, Tim, nice

1:45visit in slack. And if I actually go to the

1:47slack application, you can see that I

1:49actually have a few items that have already

1:52been created. And this one that I've just

1:53shared has come up. So what I did here is I

1:56send something to myself, and it's

1:57triggered a notification.

1:59You get a little preview, which is really,

2:01really nice, you can click on it to see it

2:02in more detail, which is great to see. But

2:04then of course, when I hit the overview

2:06icon there, it sends us back to that work

2:08book. Now, I have had a couple of niggles

2:10with this, I think they had one instance

2:13where this didn't load up. But I think it

2:14was to do with permissions and me being

2:16signed into the wrong tabla online account.

2:19Essentially, the way tabla online knows who

2:20to send the message to is it checks the

2:22email addresses across both. So if you're

2:24not signed into slack and tabla online

2:26using the exactly the same email, this is

2:28probably not going to work. So you

2:29want to make sure those two things are

2:31aligned and everything is working well. In

2:33essence, this tabla app is only

2:35communicating with you directly. So not

2:37everyone can see this, these notifications

2:39are personal to you. And therefore, they're

2:41only going to be referencing things that

2:42you can see. So that's the first thing we

2:44've done, we've created a message, we sent

2:46it to

2:46ourselves. Now what we're going to do is go

2:49to a comment. And this is one of the other

2:51things you can do, I can go ahead here and

2:53mention at Tim, at Tim, now you can see

2:55there's three versions of me. So I'm going

2:57to actually select Timothy Neguero, because

3:00I assume that's my actual for proper slack

3:03version, testing to see if this is you in

3:07slack. And what I can do is I can attach a

3:10notification

3:12to this with an image. So it takes a

3:14screenshot of this almost like an action.

3:16And then when I hit post, it sends it off.

3:18And you can see that that appears there.

3:20And if I go back to the slack app, you can

3:23see that this also comes up. So this time,

3:25the mention is there. So at Timothy Neguero

3:28, they're testing to see if this is you in

3:29slack, this has also come up. So the cool

3:31thing about this is now when I click on

3:33this, it goes back to the same viz overview

3:36. And, and of course, my message and my

3:39notification come up. So this actually

3:41opens up

3:42ready to go because it knows that that's

3:44something that's been triggered. Of course,

3:46I also get them here in the bell and the

3:48notification menu was improved in a

3:50previous version of tablet. So you can

3:52actually see that these improvements are

3:54now starting to pay off because we now have

3:56a centralized home for all these

3:58notifications. And we can mark them all as

4:00red and essentially that bell at the top

4:02will stop behaving like it has with that

4:04with a red icon. So we're pretty much good

4:06here. We've done a message, we've done a

4:08comment. And now we're going to do an alert

4:10. Now the alert is a little bit more tricky,

4:12because I don't know how to trick this. But

4:15what I might do is I might go back to the

4:17homepage. And let's go to explore something

4:19. And let's look for a viz that has already

4:22hit the target and we'll set the

4:24notification to essentially keep going off

4:27until we

4:28stop it, let's say every 30 minutes or

4:30every 15 minutes or something like that.

4:32And that's the safest way to do this. So

4:34let's go to Superstore again. And for this

4:36one, what we'll do is we'll maybe go to

4:38this performance tab and set up an alert,

4:41it's really quite simple, you need to make

4:43sure you select the access that you

4:44actually care about. So in this case, it's

4:46going to be this bottom axis here, then you

4:48go to alert, and then you get this

4:50interface that loads up. So you can see

4:53here, no alert on this view, create an

4:55alert, and will notify you when your data

4:57meets those conditions. So let's create one

4:59. And you'll see that it comes up. Now, at

5:02the moment, this alert is configured to

5:04work across all the views, that's all I can

5:06do. And we can say that look, once the

5:09alert has been met, look, send me a message

5:11, the data alert performance, we're going to

5:15say testing in Slack, so we can see this

5:17specifically come through. And let's say

5:20hourly at most, as frequently as possible

5:23is going to spam me so I won't do that

5:25hourly at most. And for

5:27this one, let's just start typing my name

5:29in and see if we can see, it's going to be

5:31the Timothy Nagwena account. And we can

5:33make this alert visible to other people so

5:35other people can see it. So we'll go ahead

5:37and create this alert. And we'll see this

5:41has been created successfully. Now one of

5:44the things you can actually do is you can

5:46edit it, remove it, check it and so on and

5:48so forth. And that's fine. But I think what

5:50I have to do now is wait for this to be

5:52triggered, essentially, the 19,000

5:53condition has been met. If I actually go on

5:56this, and I click on it, you

5:57can see that it's been triggered at least

5:59once over here on the left hand side. And

6:02you can see the settings here for the right

6:04hand side. So we just basically waiting to

6:06see when I'm going to get this email that

6:08September, Office supplies has actually

6:10crossed the threshold. So if I go back to

6:12alert, you should see that it was last

6:14triggered 30 seconds ago, that means we

6:16should have got a notification now. So we

6:18head back to Slack, you can see the alert

6:20is actually triggered, we get a screenshot

6:22and it generates a screenshot the entire

6:24view, which is kind of cool when you click

6:26on it. It's

6:27barely legible, but you can zoom in and

6:29sort of see what's going on here. So this

6:31is quite nice to see that there's a little

6:33bit of thought going into how these load in

6:35Slack. So it's not just this tiny image,

6:37you can zoom in and semi interact with that

6:39. What I'd love is to have those views

6:42embedded here in Slack. So I don't even

6:44have to leave slack. I'm sure that's coming

6:46in the future seeing as slack is basically

6:48a web environment anyway. So that's going

6:50to be super, super interesting. Now, of

6:52course, we get a few options with alerts,

6:54you can see here that I can click on this

6:56particular

6:57link, it'll of course send me to the tab

6:59itself. And I can go and view the viz. And

7:01the alert doesn't come up here though, this

7:03is essentially just sending me to the viz

7:05straight away. But go back to slack, I can

7:08edit the alert, manage the alert and remove

7:10myself from the alert. So it's really nice

7:12to have these quick performances, and these

7:15quick changes here and in here in the

7:16settings that we can use. So if I go ahead

7:18and select Edit alert, it actually opens up

7:21the browser goes to the alert and opens up

7:24the edit function straightaway. So it's a

7:26really

7:27nice feature sort of baked in. Again, what

7:29I'd love is never having to leave slack, I

7:31'm sure that world is coming, where when you

7:33click on that setting, you'll be able to

7:35change everything right there. You can also

7:38remove this from the alert settings. So you

7:40can just go ahead and click on this box and

7:43remove it. I don't want the notification

7:44every hour, thank you very much. So let's

7:46remove that there. And let's go ahead and

7:49close the other tab. And that's pretty much

7:50it. That's the capabilities of Tableau in

7:53Slack. This is sort of a long time coming.

7:55But

7:56this is nice to see. Now, what is

7:58interesting about this is that Tableau have

8:01been asked a few times, what about people

8:02who use Microsoft Teams? Well, the way they

8:05're building this, they fully intend to have

8:07this capable in other platforms. Now, they

8:10haven't said when or why. I'm sure there's

8:12going to be features that are going to work

8:14better in Slack, because that's, of course,

8:16the parent company, Salesforce owns both

8:18companies. So they're going to be things

8:20that just work better in Slack compared to

8:22something like Microsoft Teams. But I'm

8:25sure you'll be able to get

8:26things like alerts available in Microsoft

8:28Teams, where you'll be able to send

8:30notifications and messages off to those

8:32platforms as well. I'm just not sure it's

8:34going to be as integrated as you can get in

8:35Slack. And if you check out my video on

8:37Dreamforce, there's actually an element

8:39there where they have a section called

8:40Slack First Analytics. And they actually

8:42talk about some really interesting features

8:44, I'll try and put them up on screen as I'm

8:46talking now. But some basic features, for

8:48example, the ability to do ask data and

8:51explain data inside of Slack without having

8:53to leave Slack to go to Tableau to see

8:56something and actually getting responses

8:58with charts as well, as well as basic sort

9:00of questions being answered. So this is

9:02going to be really, really powerful, I

9:04think, for conversational analytics. I'm

9:06not sure how relevant it's going to be for

9:08businesses just yet. But it's a really

9:10innovative approach to some of the most

9:11common challenges. And I'm sure they're

9:13going to be really good niche use cases,

9:16simple use cases that will be first to

9:18adopt this. So I'm really excited to see

9:20what those niches are what those verticals

9:22are. And we can see how this feature lands.

9:24Okay. If you're interested to know

9:26how to set this up, stick around. That's

9:27what we're going to do next. Okay, so how

9:29do we set this up? Now, the first thing you

9:31can see here is that I've got three screens

9:34open. Now I've got my Slack instance open,

9:36I've got a browser tab with various things

9:38open, not least my Tableau online site. You

9:42can see here that I have two users, I have

9:44documentation on how to set all this up, I

9:47have my Slack app directory up with a Table

9:49au app, you can just go ahead and search

9:51Tableau if you haven't already found it,

9:52and it will take you to this page. And then

9:54I've got my app management

9:55tab open as well for Slack, because

9:57essentially, you need to make sure that you

9:58can approve the app. Now, for this

10:00installation, if you go to the Tableau

10:02documentation, I'll put a link to this in

10:03the description as well. And you'll see

10:05that there's some requirements. So you need

10:07to be a Slack Workspace Administrator, you

10:09need to be a Tableau administrator, and you

10:11need to be a Tableau administrator, just

10:13say it twice, Tableau administrator twice,

10:15according to the documentation. The main

10:18reason this is, is actually there's an O

10:19Auth step, there's a authentication step

10:22that requires you to be the administrator

10:24to do this. So you can

10:25again, I need to make sure that's all

10:27locked in. Now, in terms of other

10:29capabilities, it actually walks you through

10:31the installation here in a very sort of

10:33clear way. And this is all really nicely

10:35set up. So I actually props to Tableau for

10:37setting this up and making this simple.

10:39Slack is in itself a cloud based technology

10:42. So it's also got very sort of simple and

10:44clean setups. So that's going to be sort of

10:46interesting to see. And if you're here for

10:47the first time, because you're a Slack user

10:49, well, great, welcome to the channel. And

10:51hopefully you'll find something useful

10:52today. Now, to set this features

10:55up, you can sort of go through the guide, I

10:57think it's pretty straightforward. Now, the

11:00other thing is, you need to make sure you

11:01're reading the instructions, specifically

11:03for Tableau server and for Tableau Online,

11:05you can see here that I'm actually on the

11:07Tableau Online instructions, I need to

11:09actually go back to the Tableau help here,

11:11and go to Tableau Online, go to what's new,

11:14because we should see the capabilities

11:16about Slack mentioned here, some new

11:18features. So here we go, share, collaborate

11:20and keep up with your data in Slack. So

11:21here we go, integrate Slack with your

11:23workspace. And now I'm actually on the

11:25right

11:25instructions for Tableau Online, we can go

11:27down here and you can see the setup is

11:29slightly different. So the first thing is

11:31make sure you're a Tableau server admin.

11:34And what you need to go and do is go to the

11:36integrations tab. So for Tableau Online, it

11:37's slightly different to Tableau server. If

11:39I go ahead to my settings pane here at the

11:42bottom, and I go to integrations, you'll

11:44see that I have a list of integrations, of

11:46course, Salesforce is the top one there,

11:48and Slack is this one here at the bottom.

11:50So let's just make this a little bit larger

11:51. So we can more easily see what's going on,

11:54I ended up highlighting

11:55that instead. I'm recording recently on

11:57Windows, man, there's a few things on

11:59Windows that are just, you know, difficult,

12:01and I'm using Windows 11. So it's just

12:03double whammy. But nonetheless, connect to

12:05Slack. And when you do that, you should get

12:08this pop up. So the Tableau application is

12:10going to behave in this manner. So when we

12:12hit allow, what I'm essentially doing as an

12:14admin is giving that application rights to

12:17be sort of integrated. And you can see here

12:19that this has been connected, everything is

12:21working fine. If I go back to my Slack page

12:25,

12:25although the apps here doesn't seem to have

12:27a Tableau section. So what we now need to

12:29go and do is finish the Slack setup that we

12:31need to go through. So if we go to the

12:33Tableau help guide here, integrate Tableau

12:35with Slack, you'll see that step two is to

12:37add the Tableau app to the Slack workspace.

12:40So let's go and go to the Tableau app here

12:44in the slap app directory, if you're

12:45wondering how to find this, just type in

12:47Tableau, you'll see that it comes up, and

12:49it takes you to this page. Now this page,

12:52depending on, you know, what level of

12:54access you

12:55have as an admin, and so on and so forth,

12:57you might see a few things popping up. For

12:58example, if I go to the app management

13:00settings, and I switch on require approvals

13:03, you'll see that a whole new interface

13:05comes up. And then if I go back to this

13:06page and refresh, you'll see that instead

13:09of just, you know, setting this up in Slack

13:11, I'll also have this approval message at

13:14the top. So depending on what you're seeing

13:16, it just depends on how your Slack

13:18environment is set up. And whether or not

13:20you're an admin who can actually approve

13:21the app, if the app has been pre approved,

13:24that's going to be great. If

13:25it hasn't, then as an admin, you'll need to

13:26come in here and set this up. One of the

13:28things you can do is you can actually

13:30switch off the requirement of app approvals

13:32, and automatically allow apps that are on

13:34the slap app directory. So you can

13:36essentially have like a happy balance by

13:39trusting what

13:39Slack are doing with the app directory. But

13:41typically, I think most admins are going to

13:43want to switch the app approval on. And

13:45when you go over here to this particular

13:47space, you can see that you can review all

13:49the scopes essentially what the app can do.

13:51And it's got these basic setup. So

13:53read, read emails, chat, write files, and

13:56write. So basically, everything's set up.

13:59Now, you can see here that the option says

14:01open in Slack. The reason it says that is

14:03because I've actually previously added it

14:05to Slack already. So by doing this, all it

14:07's going to do is it's going to redirect to

14:09Slack. And you'll see that it adds the

14:11application. And now it's working this

14:13conversation just between the two of you.

14:15It's basically Tableau setup in Slack. So

14:17this is all working nicely, everything is

14:19ready to go. And we can actually start

14:21playing around with this. Now,

14:23if I go back to this main tab, and I

14:26actually go back to the to the management

14:30options, if I go back to apps, you'll see a

14:32confirmation in the installed apps that

14:34Tableau is indeed installed. And it's also

14:36been approved. The approved apps live on

14:39this page. These are apps that require

14:41approval, you can see that I've just

14:42approved this today. And so now it's

14:44appeared here and it's ready to go. If you

14:46restrict an app, it would appear on this

14:48list. But basically, all your apps are

14:49ready to go. I can see here that I've got

14:51Google, Google Drive, Tableau,

14:53and Twitter approved for the Tableau Tim

14:55slack environment. One other thing to make

14:57sure you do before you get going is as a

14:59admin, once you've set this up, you need to

15:02go into your general settings here, and go

15:04and try and find the option for

15:06notifications. If I just go ahead and type

15:09notifications, you see it searches the page

15:11. If I go down to the fifth one, you'll see

15:13that I have these three options here for

15:15comments, shares and data alerts, those

15:17need to be checked in order for this to

15:18work. Otherwise, people won't be getting

15:20notifications for this particular

15:22features. Now, if I was to exit out of this

15:25, and I'll just go to homepage, and then go

15:27back to my own user settings, my own

15:29account settings has its own setup here. So

15:31I can actually go over down here to the

15:33alert section. And so the server has some

15:37general alerts that are enabled. And then

15:38each user has their own settings for how

15:41they want notifications to come in. So you

15:43can see here that I then have email

15:45notifications for comments going through to

15:47my email. But I do have all three set up

15:50for slack. So there's a couple of places

15:51you need to check

15:52for as your own user, you're going to need

15:54to come in here and make sure these

15:55settings are correct for you. And then as a

15:57general server admin, you're going to need

15:59to go into the settings and make sure that

16:01these enabled for everyone in the first

16:04place, because essentially, you can lock

16:05these down for everyone for this specific

16:07site. If you've got multiple sites, and of

16:09course, you'll need to do this for every

16:11single site that you've got set up, and

16:12then you're pretty much ready to go. So

16:14that's pretty much everything set up, we're

16:16pretty much ready to go. And that's it, all

16:18you now need to do is go ahead and start

16:20using the features. And hopefully you've

16:22already watched the beginning of this video

16:23to see how that all works. Anyway, thanks

16:25for watching this video. And if you like

16:27this content, you know what to do. If you

16:28don't let me know what could be better in

16:30the comments and we'll try and make a

16:31better video next time. Thanks for watching

16:33. I'll catch you in the next one.