# What's in the Tableau 2022.4 Release of Tableau | Tableau tutorial

> 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:** 2022-11-24
- **Format:** Video · 21 min watch · transcript available
- **Topics:** Data visualisation, Industry trends, Tool strategy
- **Tools:** Tableau (cloud, data guide, embedding, image roles, mobile, prep, proper, rest api, server, virtual connections, web authoring, workbook optimizer)
- **Canonical:** https://just-tim.com/posts/what-s-in-the-tableau-2022-4-release-of-tableau-tableau-tutorial
- **Watch:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSu5_i5NiSY

I run through the coming soon page for the Tableau 2022.4 release, walking through each new feature from external actions and image roles to virtual connection improvements, the PROPER string function, and a raft of new APIs. I share my reactions to what's genuinely useful and what feels like padding.

## Key takeaways

- Image roles let you reference images by URL so assets live externally rather than bloating the workbook, which pairs well with services like Cloudinary for product imagery or large emoji sets.
- The new PROPER string function converts text to proper case natively, removing the need for complex calculation workarounds for capitalising names.
- Replace data source per sheet gives you sheet-level control over data source swaps instead of the change applying to every worksheet using that source.
- Virtual connections gain multiple connections, an entitlement table from a separate database, manual refresh in the editor and credential rotation APIs, though they still require the Data Management add-on.
- Server users won't see most of these features until 23.1 because Tableau Server only updates every six months, so effectively every other release.

## Chapters

- 0:12 Coming soon page and Tableau Cloud caveat
- 0:47 Tableau external actions with Salesforce Flow
- 1:27 Image roles
- 4:08 Replace data source per sheet
- 4:36 PROPER string function
- 5:37 Usage metrics
- 7:05 Language support
- 7:24 Virtual connection enhancements
- 10:07 Tableau Prep updates
- 12:50 Workbook optimizer enhancements
- 13:23 Data Guide smart open
- 14:27 Web authoring enhancements

Watch the full video, read the transcript and use chapter deep-links on the page: https://just-tim.com/posts/what-s-in-the-tableau-2022-4-release-of-tableau-tableau-tutorial

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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