0:00Hey, it's Tim here. This is a snippet taken
0:02from a recent video I did, which was a
0:04Tableau desktop
0:05crash course. In that video, I spent nearly
0:07four hours going through everything you
0:09need to know
0:10from zero to dashboard. The reason I've
0:12pulled this snippet out is because I think
0:14versions in
0:14Tableau is super important to understand.
0:17So I wanted to pull it out as its own video
0:19. So
0:19hopefully this can reach out to more people
0:21. As ever, let's get stuck in. The very last
0:23thing to
0:24be aware of before we install Tableau or do
0:26anything is what version of Tableau you're
0:28using.
0:29You see, Tableau like to make things
0:31complex with all their innovation by
0:33creating new versions of
0:34Tableau every quarter. Essentially, you'll
0:37get one in March, you'll get another one
0:40three months
0:40later, and so on and so forth until the end
0:42of the year. And then every single month,
0:44you'll get what
0:45are called patches. These are small updates
0:47that improve the previously released
0:49versions. So the
0:51best way to show you this is go to a
0:53website that I don't even know what it's
0:55called. The way I get
0:56to it is actually quite funny. So I
0:58searched this term. It used to be a term
1:00that was only ever used
1:02I think as of five years ago, but it still
1:04works. So I typed into the search bar Table
1:06au E S D A L T.
1:08I have no idea what that means. If anyone
1:10knows what that means, let me know. You can
1:12see it's
1:12actually here. Alternate download site. I
1:15don't think that is it. That is it. That
1:17can't be it.
1:18But when you get there, you can see all the
1:20releases of Tableau. And to me, this is the
1:23best place to understand the different
1:25versions, because on the left you can see
1:27the paid products.
1:28You don't have Tableau Public here. Tableau
1:30Public is downloaded from the Tableau
1:31Public website,
1:32but you get Tableau Desktop, Prep Server,
1:35Online and Bridge. We're just focusing on
1:37Tableau Desktop.
1:38And so you can see here you have 22.4,
1:40which was released in December, 22.3, which
1:43was released,
1:44let's go down here and have a look, October
1:46. And as I expand these, you can see that
1:48there's actually
1:50other versions in between. And this is what
1:52I meant by patches. You see in June here,
1:55for example,
1:55when they released 22.2, it was working
1:58fine. And then customers get in touch with
2:00some issues. And
2:01then in August, a month later, they update
2:03it again. And they keep doing that even as
2:05new
2:06versions are getting updated. So if your
2:08organization is using an older version of
2:10Tableau,
2:11let's say using 21.3, you still got an
2:14update back in December of 2022, just last
2:18month. And so it's
2:19really important to make sure that in your
2:21organization, you know what version your
2:23organization is using. And you make sure
2:25you stay in lockstep with that version,
2:28because it just
2:28means everything is going to work swimming
2:30ly. You won't design something with a new
2:32feature and then
2:33find out you can't share it with people
2:34because you published it to a server that
2:36doesn't support
2:37that feature. And that leads me to the next
2:40point, which is each of these pieces of
2:43software are
2:44upgraded individually. But the features
2:47within them occasionally need to be used
2:50for the same
2:51version. So let me give you an example. In
2:53the most recent version of Tableau, they
2:55released a mapping
2:56capability called the intersects function,
2:59I just released a video about it. Now, if I
3:01used 22.4,
3:03and built out a dashboard with that feature
3:06, but then my server, which is an on premise
3:09server,
3:10hadn't been updated to 22.4, you can see
3:12that that doesn't exist yet. I'll explain
3:14why in a second.
3:15That feature wouldn't be visible to end
3:17users once I've published it up. In fact,
3:20when I go to
3:20publish it up, the server would tell me,
3:22hey, you're going to have a problem here,
3:23because I've
3:24seen this feature is not available. And so
3:26you're probably wondering, well, hey, you
3:28just said that
3:29the features are updated every quarter.
3:32What about Tableau server? Well, as of 2022
3:35, Tableau stopped
3:37updating Tableau server every quarter.
3:39Instead, they only updated twice a year. So
3:42they updated
3:43in January. So we're about to have the next
3:45update very soon. And they updated again,
3:48round about
3:49summer. So you can see when when did this
3:51come out October, not even not even summer
3:53end of summer,
3:54basically. So you get one in January and
3:56one in summer, which isn't great. And so
3:59this has been
3:59a big change in its cause some challenges
4:02in some organizations. But just be sure
4:04that you still get
4:05patches. So even though they might not be
4:08updating Tableau server with new features
4:11every quarter,
4:12they still update them every month with
4:14fixes and patches. So it's still worth
4:17doing these updates.
4:18So things are unstable. Some organization
4:20might sort of forget to do that because of
4:22the
4:23less frequent updates. And so the key thing
4:25to remember here is that whatever version
4:28of Tableau
4:28desktop you're using, need to make sure it
4:30's working with the same version of Tableau
4:32server
4:32or Tableau cloud. The other thing you won't
4:36see in this list is Tableau cloud. Because
4:38Tableau
4:38cloud is run by Tableau, it doesn't need a
4:41download, you simply go to a browser. In
4:43this
4:43case, let me show you my Tableau cloud
4:46instance. And if I go ahead and log in here
4:48, oh, I forgot
4:54my password. So let's try again. When I log
4:58into it, everything is available here
5:02immediately.
5:04When I install software on my computer and
5:06I sign into the server, everything will
5:08just work.
5:09There are no upgrades required. And I can
5:11just go ahead and use it Tableau desktop,
5:13the latest version will work happily with
5:15Tableau cloud if you're using Tableau cloud
5:17. So if you're
5:18using Tableau cloud update as often as you
5:20want, it's always going to be up to date.
5:21But for Tableau
5:22server, just wait until your organization
5:25does the updates. Okay.
5:26[silence]
5:32[ Silence ]
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