https://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=7Jl-RwkzqQ4

So you've heard of this thing called

table' you've seen a demo of it or

you've seen it in action but now you're

about to dive in for the first time but

before you do you're probably wondering

what all the hype is about what can it

do what can't it do or maybe even more

basic than that

what is table' well on all of those

that's where I get involved

I'm Tim aka Tablo Tim and in this video

I'm going to walk you through the

tableau platform in under 10 minutes in

fact if this is the first time you're

hearing about Tablo perfect a few house

rules for the video though be sure to

check the description for links to some

of the resources I mentioned and lastly

if he gets the end of the video and you

think you know someone who should watch

it share it with them then hit subscribe

and enable alert so you don't miss out

on the videos like this that I'll be

releasing in the near future it really

helps my channel out ok enough begging

let's get stuck in Tablo was founded in

January 2003 it was an academic spin-off

by Chris Christian and Pat in an

academic paper way back in 2002 they had

a simple idea and it was this what if he

had a tool that allowed you to view your

business data in a visual way now if

you're hearing that you're probably

thinking well Excel existed slash

already does that

I can make charts tables and all sorts

in Excel or any other tour as a matter

of fact so what's different about table

or put simply one thing tableaus

innovation was entirely focused around

visual analysis what does that mean okay

let's take one step back and then visit

the typical workflow in every business

that collects and uses data to make

decisions let's say I run a superstore

we make sales every day and the data

from these cells is stored in a database

a small business might just record these

in a spreadsheet an excel file or if

your web first company like a tech

startup you might make it available via

the web or the cloud at the end of each

month quarter or even year you'll want

to review these cells to see how you're

doing in order to do that you need to

collect the data for the period you're

looking at make sure it's correct and is

make sure there's no mistakes in it then

hand it over to an analyst or a data

scientist to do their thing

they in turn take the data and start

exploring it to find insights this might

just mean they're looking for new trends

and patterns or they may already have

some questions that they want to answer

for example did they meet the target

this month once they have those

questions and answers

it's time to share those insights with

colleagues so decisions can be made

about what to do next they might build a

basic report or in large business a

dashboard with lots of perspectives

contained in one view in some really

old-school companies you might even get

packs with every report printed out for

every single aspect of the business

senior colleagues or decision makers

will then use these reports to reflect

on how the business is performed set new

targets or goals make changes to targets

and then share these decisions back out

to the business once these goals are

shared staff need to be able to monitor

what's going on so we end up going back

full circle to the beginning and the

cycle repeats this process is typically

termed as analytics or business

intelligence and whether you're a small

one-person outfit or a large corporate

business with hundreds of thousands of

employees you have the same need ok so

we now understand the analytical process

where does tableau come into all of this

well the short answer is all of it

let me explain let's take our cycle and

rearrange it a little and take it from

the top

tablo has six key products which aims to

solve some of the problems outlined in

is simple to use and connected platform

the first stage of this cycle where the

store collects the data and keeps it

safe is called transaction processing by

nerds like me it ensures the data from

each purchase is captured ship to the

customer and then stored in a database

at the time of this recording tablet

don't currently have a product that

meets this need no database as such but

you will often hear about a file type

called the tableau data extract TDE in

short or more recently hyper this is the

file format tableau likes to use to

store on process data and has some

smarts built into it check out my

podcast on this topic in the description

below ok next up the most important part

of the process connecting to your data

and analyzing it there's two steps here

firstly you see most of the time data is

stored correctly that's a good thing but

often you might look at data and spot a

mistake for example a transaction where

the wrong item was scanned or maybe a

missing category in order to handle this

you'll need to fix these mistakes either

manually or in bulk at scale in my field

that's called

either data prep data cleansing or if

you want to be a real consulting nerd

the process of handling this is called

ETL extract transform and load and for

this table' have a fairly new product in

tableau prep builder it allows you to

clean shape and transform your data by

making it really easy to do things like

pivoting your data removing empty fields

replacing fields or merging fields from

different data sources it does all of

this with a visual and easy to

understand interface again I've done

some basic intro videos on this channel

so check those out but I'll be doing

more in due course ok we've cleaned our

data and we're now ready to connect to

it and analyze it this is where tableau

desktop and tablet public come in this

is by far the most valuable part of the

cycle and tablets platform tableau

desktop allows you to connect to

virtually any data format you can think

of from Excel all the way out to large

multi-billion row databases and even web

api's once connected you get the ability

to start exploring your day

using a really simple to understand

innovative visual system more on this in

the future video but for now all you

need to understand is tableau desktop is

where analysts and business users can

explore their data and build reports and

dashboards that can be shared out across

the organization tableau public is free

does all the same things but only allows

you to share your reports and dashboards

to tablet public the Google Docs of the

tablet community this is a great use

case for charities nonprofits

journalists or local authorities who

need to share their data with their

community alongside this tableau public

is a great place for new users to find

new ways of building report and learn

from others right we know how to clean

our data we can connect to it and build

reports and dashboards but the issue is

the analysis and those questions that

need answering can't be done by just one

person in order to share these across

the business you're going to need

several things one a safe and secure way

to share this data you wouldn't want

someone to get access to your data that

shouldn't have access number to allow

others to build on your work as an

analyst and ask more questions with

interactivity and the ability to build

your own perspectives number three a

robust system that can withstand

hundreds of users asking questions all

at the same time and before powerful and

well-documented management soars so your

IT team can manage it without needing to

require external consultants for small

changes number five the ability to run

it internally in your company's data

center or in the cloud tableau server

and tableau online meet these needs

they're both essentially the same except

tableau server gives you full access and

control of your server hosted in your

own datacenter whereas tableau online is

hosted by tableau on your behalf I may

take care of making sure it runs

smoothly I'll dive into the difference

in more detail you guessed it in the

future video whilst most colleagues

might work alongside you in the office

or at their desk others might be out and

about on the go and so table' have

mobile apps that allow you to access

reports and dashboards on the go on your

mobile device because every business is

different tableau recognizes that you

might want to

have tableaux products behave in a

certain way or you might want to connect

tablet to other systems in the IT world

we typically do this using api's

application programming interfaces think

of it as a string and tools between lots

of different system allowing them to

communicate and work with each other

tabla has over 20 api's and tools you

can explore and yes you guessed it of

course I'll cover this in more detail in

a future video last we have tableau

reader and the use case here is quite

simple it lets you open and interact

with tableau workbooks but not edit or

create them like tableau desktop or

tablet public this is used in instances

where you just need to share a workbook

with someone quickly who doesn't have

access to your tableau server word of

caution here they you don't get any of

the security and governance control so

typically this isn't heavily used in

instances where security and governance

are paramount we've covered the platform

but how often does tableau add features

or even products to its platform in

summary all the time this video will get

old real fast the general release

cadence for new features in the tableau

platform is roughly every quarter in

fact you can take part in betas and help

improve the features by visiting its

beta tableau comm patches and fixes to

all their products are usually fixed

immediately for urgent and security

fixes or generally monthly for patch

fixes and they serve for older versions

going back roughly three years but if

you head to tableau comm forward slash

support and check out their release

notes you can find all this information

documented there ok that's the entire

platform that's it you've made it to the

end of the video and you now know all

the products and services available in

tableau platform I've included links in

the description to tableau product pages

if you want to explore them in more

detail my next video will build on this

and cover the difference licensing

models each product and how to get

started with tableau in order to make

sure you don't miss out on these and

more videos hit subscribe hit the bell

so you get notified and lastly please

share this video with others it's a

great way to support my channel and the

work ID

I have no ads in the channel and I don't

monetize my videos because most of what

I've learned came through extremely

generous members of the

black community and so this is my way of

giving back I'm Tablo Tim and I'll catch

you in the next video