Tableau 2021.2

Ask Data and Explain Data for Viewers, Collections, and a connected Desktop experience for web authoring

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Ask Data for Viewers

We’ve broadened the reach of Ask Data by making it available to Viewers. Everyone with a Tableau license can now use Ask Data! We have a completely redefined natural language experience for business users, including seamless integration into dashboards with a new dashboard button. Additionally, a new content type, Ask Data Lenses, makes it easy to curate data with definition of column and value synonyms and suggested questions so you can better leverage existing published data sources.

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Ask Data opens up an opportunity to close the gap between advanced analysts and a broader, general business audience, allowing anyone to connect and explore data. By leveraging Tableau’s modern and fast natural language processing technology, our colleagues are reaching insights faster than ever before. With Explain Data, our team is not only able to see data trends, but can easily identify and understand what’s driving them.

Explain Data for Viewers

We’ve broadened the reach for Explain Data with a reimagined user interface optimized for deeper exploration and a wider business audience. Now available for Viewers, Explain Data makes it easier for anyone to explore and interact with data. When you select a mark and run Explain Data, Tableau proposes possible explanations for that mark based on statistical models. Explain Data gives you a jumping-off point to help you explore data more deeply and ask better questions.

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Collections

Finding the data you need for your analysis has never been easier. Collections are a new way to gather the content from across your site on Tableau Cloud or Server and organize it to fit how you use it. Collections can contain items that span different projects and workbooks, allowing you to reuse content in multiple contexts without additional storage or resources. And, it’s easy to organize and share content around key topics such as curated resources for new users for onboarding or a center of excellence collection that includes dashboards showcasing best practices.

Tableau 2021.2 Feature Overview

Tune in for an overview of all the new features included in this release.

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Learn more about our new features

Blog Post

Tableau 2021.2 is here!

Read up on our launch announcement covering all the new features in this release, including new experiences for Ask Data and Explain Data, Collections, and a connected Desktop experience for web authoring.

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AI + Analytics

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All Features

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Ask Data for Viewers

Ask Data now in dashboards for Viewers.

Ask Data for Viewers

We’ve broadened the reach of Ask Data by making it available to Viewers. Everyone with a Tableau license can now use Ask Data! We have a completely redefined natural language experience for business users, including seamless integration into dashboards with a new dashboard button. Additionally, a new content type, Ask Data Lenses, makes it easy to curate data with definition of column and value synonyms and suggested questions so you can better leverage existing published data sources.

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Explain Data for Viewers

Explain Data reimagined for deeper exploration.

Explain Data for Viewers

We’ve broadened the reach for Explain Data with a reimagined user interface optimized for deeper exploration and a wider business audience. Now available for Viewers, Explain Data makes it easier for anyone to explore and interact with data. When you select a mark and run Explain Data, Tableau proposes possible explanations for that mark based on statistical models. Explain Data gives you a jumping-off point to help you explore data more deeply and ask better questions.

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Collections

A new way to organize and personalize your data.

Collections

Finding the data you need for your analysis has never been easier. Collections are a new way to gather the content from across your site on Tableau Online or Server and organize it to fit how you use it. Collections can contain items that span different projects and workbooks, allowing you to reuse content in multiple contexts without additional storage or resources. And, it’s easy to organize and share content around key topics such as curated resources for new users for onboarding or a center of excellence collection that includes dashboards showcasing best practices.

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Connected Desktop for web authoring

A more cohesive, flexible, authoring experience.

Connected Desktop for web authoring

Enjoy a more cohesive and flexible web authoring experience. Creators can now transition seamlessly from web authoring to Tableau Desktop with a click of a button. Start your workflow in web authoring and choose to transition to Desktop at any point in your analysis—without having to download the workbook. When you’re finished, simply save to Tableau Online or Server so your content reflects the latest changes for others in your organization.

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Jumpstart your Salesforce Connection

Discover insights wherever you work with three new features to jumpstart your Salesforce connection.

Salesforce User Authentication

Jumpstart your Salesforce Connection

You can now log into your Tableau Online account using Salesforce login credentials, and a newly enabled Integrations Tab makes it simple to tap into and analyze your Sales Cloud and Service Cloud data—all via a ready-to-go workbook that keeps your data fresh.

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Native Intelligence Connector

Connect to Intelligence natively in Tableau.

Native Intelligence Connector

The Intelligence Connector is now available natively out of the box in Tableau Desktop, Prep, Server, and Online. The Intelligence Integration connects Tableau to Intelligence, creating an easy way for customers to consume harmonized Intelligence reports in Tableau.

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Area spatial calculation

Measure the square area of your selection on a map.

Area spatial calculation

With the area spatial calc, you can now measure the square area of your selection on a map in units that you specify. Combined with the power of spatial joins, answering location-based questions is easier than ever. For example, you can now easily calculate the total acres of multiple parks you've selected on a map. Or, a business could use this to calculate population densities to inform about where to place a store.

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Map layer control

Toggle map layer visibility and interactivity.

Map layer control

When viewing a worksheet or dashboard that includes a map, consumers now have the flexibility to control the visibility and interactivity of the marks layers without editing the workbook. When enabled by the author, users can simply use the new toggle settings to customize the map view to best answer their own location questions and analysis.

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Tableau Server on Linux in a container

Leverage the cloud to make deployments easier and faster.

Tableau Server on Linux in a container

Containers are fast becoming the standard way for businesses to leverage the cloud by increasing availability, orchestrating large deployments, and sharing infrastructure. This deployment option adds the ability for our customers to run Tableau Server on Linux in a single container, making production and development deployments easier, faster, and potentially more cost effective.

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Write to Google BigQuery

Tableau Prep can now write data to Google BigQuery

Write to Google BigQuery

With 2021.2, Tableau Prep expands its output capabilities to include Google BigQuery, in addition to the existing databases outlined here. This enables you to add or update data in Google BigQuery with clean, prepped data from your flow each time the flow is run.

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Tableau ID + MFA

Tableau ID + MFA delivers enhanced login security

Tableau ID + MFA

We're excited to provide Tableau ID + MFA (Multi-Factor Authentication) to our Tableau Online customers which provides them with the ability to enable MFA on their sites. MFA is one of the easiest, most effective tools for enhancing login security, and safeguarding your business and data against security threats.

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New Data Sources for Admin Insights

Announcing two new Data Sources to monitor content governance and group membership.

New Data Sources for Admin Insights

We're excited to introduce two new Admin Insight Data Sources called 'Groups' and 'Site Content' created to help Site Administrators monitor content governance and group membership.

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Web authoring improvements

Enjoy a more seamless authoring experience.

Web authoring improvements

Expanded formatting options

Further customize your dashboards with the ability to format worksheet backgrounds, titles, and captions on the web.

Parameter and set actions

You can now create parameter actions and set actions within web authoring.

Expanded filter options

You can now define and edit Top N and Condition for discrete filters, unlocking more advanced filtering for data source and on-sheet filters.

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Multiple Analytics Extensions per site

Use multiple analytics extensions within each Tableau Server or Online site.

Multiple Analytics Extensions per site

Multiple Analytics Extensions per site allows organizations to use multiple analytics extensions within each Tableau Server or Tableau Online site. Teams can now use advanced analytics and predictions from Python and R, multiple different TabPy servers, or Einstein Discovery and TabPy in visualizations all in the same environment. Administrators can configure multiple connections in the Site Settings page, and connections are now added at the workbook level, either in web authoring or on publish.

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Data freshness improvements

Use the HyperAPI and REST API to improve data freshness.

Use the HyperAPI and REST API to improve data freshness

Build solutions that connect Tableau much more efficiently with a variety of data freshness technologies and use it for operational monitoring and analytics scenarios. You can now push updates to extract files through the REST API and HyperAPI on Tableau Server or Online to enable more flexibility, efficiency, and ultimately improve the freshness of your data.

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Support for OAuth and OpenID Connect in the Connector SDK

Extend the Native OAuth Service and Connector SDK

Support for OAuth and OpenID Connect in the Connector SDK

Extend the Native OAuth Service and Connector SDK to consume customer provided OAuth configurations.

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Writable field descriptions

Edit field descriptions from lineage pages.

Writable field descriptions

Similar to how you can update table column descriptions, you can now update published data source field descriptions. Instead of having to re-publish the data source every time, simply click on a field name and edit button to add, change, or remove the description.

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Bulk Scoring in Prep Web Authoring and Prep Conductor

Bulk score your data in Tableau Prep Web Authoring and Prep Conductor

Bulk Scoring in Prep Web Authoring and Prep Conductor

Write ML predictions (scores) from Einstein Discovery directly into your data sets in Tableau Prep Web Authoring and Tableau Prep Conductor. This integration allows you to score data in bulk including writing in key drivers of predictions and improvements.

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Bulk Rename in Prep Builder and Prep Web Authoring

Rename multiple fields at once in Prep Builder and Prep Web Authoring

Bulk Rename in Prep Builder and Prep Web Authoring

With Bulk Rename, you can now rename multiple fields at one time in Prep Builder and Prep Web Authoring, rather than individually change each field name. You can now add/remove/rename a prefix at the start of a field name, add/remove/rename a suffix at the end of a field name, as well as do pattern matching for 'find and replace' within a field name.

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SAP HANA performance improvements

Default HANA bind variable support extended to JDBC.

SAP HANA performance improvements

HANA bind variable support is now enabled by default. Bind variables allow HANA to route correctly in a multi-node HANA environment, and allow for plan cache re-use for any HANA environment. In addition, maximize Tableau’s use of HANA’s bind variable capability when connecting via JDBC.

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Tableau Mobile for Intune (Android)

Introducing the new Tableau Mobile for Intune (Android)

Tableau Mobile for Intune (Android)

Tableau Mobile for Intune is a new app that provides a quick and secure way to view, analyze and leverage the data in your organization. The new app includes a newer design that is faster and more intuitive, an improved search and browsing experience consistent with Tableau Server and Tableau Online, as well as enhanced offline capabilities that are quick to load and offer richness and interactivity for visualizations.

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Amazon SageMaker for Tableau Quick Start

Leverage models built on Amazon SageMaker directly within your Tableau dashboards.

Amazon SageMaker for Tableau Quick Start

For organizations that are already investing in machine learning, Amazon SageMaker for Tableau provides a unique opportunity to communicate and share ML with anyone, via self-service analytics. With a few clicks, you can now use models built on Amazon SageMaker directly within your favorite Tableau dashboards to fully leverage the predictive power of ML.

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Inherited descriptions in Tableau Desktop

View inherited field and column descriptions in Tableau Desktop

Inherited descriptions in Tableau Desktop

With Tableau Catalog, you can now see inherited descriptions right within Tableau Desktop. If a description for a field or a column exists upstream from that field or column in a published data source or a workbook, it appears in Tableau Desktop with information about where the description is inherited from.