The ShapeType Function | New in Tableau 2023.2

0:00Hey it's Tim here. In 23.2 there's a new

0:02function called shape type. It essentially

0:04allows you to

0:05put a geometry into the function and it

0:07will return the type of geometry that you

0:10're working

0:10with. To see how it works as ever let's get

0:13stuck in. Okay so here we are, I've

0:15actually already

0:16calculated the length of some water bodies

0:18in a previous video. What I'm going to do

0:20now is just

0:21go ahead to a new sheet and we're just

0:22going to literally open up a calculation

0:24window just so I

0:25can show you this. It's really that simple.

0:27What we need to do is to just highlight the

0:30geometry,

0:30open up our calculation sort of side panel

0:33and we'll go ahead and type in shape type.

0:36And you'll

0:36see here that it basically needs a spatial

0:38object and if you double click it it goes

0:40ahead and wraps

0:41that up. We'll say this is the shape type

0:45and so if you hit apply and hit okay we can

0:48then go ahead

0:49and put this in here and you can see that

0:51this data set has two types of shapes a

0:53line string

0:54and a multi-line string. And if we go ahead

0:56and get the water body names and put that

0:58in front

0:59they'll actually tell us which of these

1:01water bodies is a multi-line string versus

1:03a single

1:03line string. So there you go that's it's

1:05pretty much the feature in a nutshell. What

1:08this allows

1:08you to do though is to do some really

1:10interesting work when you start to think

1:11about how you're

1:12pivoting your data. You could for example

1:15have different types of geometries in a

1:17single column

1:18and then have this function return what

1:21type of geometry that is. And then you

1:23could also use that

1:24for example to filter and work with shapes

1:26and polygons and geometries however you

1:28want. So if

1:29I go ahead and put this shape type in here

1:31you can see that I actually I'm actually

1:33able to filter

1:33based on that function. So you can start to

1:35do some pretty interesting things depending

1:37on what

1:37your data set wants you to do. So there you

1:40go that's pretty much it. I just wanted to

1:42touch on

1:42this function super brief there's not much

1:44more to it. You guys can find all the

1:46creative ways of

1:47working with it but there you go. Thanks

1:48for watching and I'll see you in the next

1:50one.

1:50[Music]

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