# Tableau Visionary Tries Tableau Pulse for the first time.

> 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:** 2024-01-22
- **Format:** Video · 3522 min watch · transcript available
- **Topics:** AI & ML, Data visualisation, Analytics
- **Tools:** Tableau (ai, calculated fields, cloud, data modelling, permissions, pulse, row level security)
- **Canonical:** https://just-tim.com/posts/tableau-visionary-tries-tableau-pulse-for-the-first-time
- **Watch:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3XLSaaKcfg

I get hands-on access to Tableau Pulse for the very first time and record my completely unprepared, raw first impressions. I work through Tableau's setup, metrics and exploring documentation, build a couple of metric definitions on Superstore, and react to the AI-driven insights, quirks and bugs as I find them.

## Key takeaways

- Tableau Pulse is a beta, not a pre-release or a fully launched product, and at present it is Tableau Cloud only with no realistic plans for Tableau Server because the AI needs scalable cloud resources
- Pulse lives in a separate experience with its own URL and search, so navigation and old metrics/subscriptions are not carried over - you cannot reuse legacy metrics to seed Pulse
- The model splits into a broad metric definition (measure, time dimension, filters) and precise related metrics that viewers create by adjusting filters and time context, all governed by data source permissions and row level security rather than the project hierarchy
- You need a single published data source (extract or live, no blending or embedded sources), and an advanced editor lets you write calculated fields - useful for shifting Superstore order dates forward so metrics aren't null
- The AI insight suggestions are fast and genuinely useful, but there is no smart filter linking, so a lay user can build impossible metrics, and running totals threw bad-request errors

## Chapters

- 0:00 Raw first-impressions setup
- 0:56 Signing up and beta versus pre-release
- 4:55 Cloud only, no server support
- 6:43 Navigating into Pulse and its separate search
- 9:51 Tableau AI disclaimer
- 10:56 Losing the old metrics
- 15:32 Turning on Tableau AI and the missing setting
- 19:16 Permissions for metrics
- 25:27 Metrics and definitions explained
- 29:12 Creating a metric definition
- 35:20 Exploring metrics and AI insights
- 43:46 Asking the AI follow-up questions

Watch the full video, read the transcript and use chapter deep-links on the page: https://just-tim.com/posts/tableau-visionary-tries-tableau-pulse-for-the-first-time

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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