Tableau 5.0 - The latest edition of Tableau Software

Released at the beginning of July 2009, Tableau 5.0 has more than 60 new features across four main themes. These include:

  • Active views and dashboards
  • Authoring rich experiences
  • New data options
  • Performance

All the new features are designed to help users obtain a greater understanding of their data.

Active views and dashboards

The new features in active views and dashboards will keep your employees attention where it should be - in interactive views of data. The features include:

Make selections pop - with the new visual selection model

What is this?

A new visual selection model, which makes your data pop, making it easier for you to find and explore information.

What happens when data pops?

Once you have selected several points of interest, these become highlighted and the other information fades into the background. In effect, the data which "pops" becomes highlighted.

Why is this important?

As you're exploring your data, the software makes it clear where you are. By isolating the selected marks you can easily recognise patterns and focus on related data.

Highlight related data

What is this?

This lets you easily discover related data in different views, so you can identify relationships and trends.

What is happening?

This feature enables you to select data in any view. If for example you activate the salesperson view, data relating to that salesperson will be highlighted.

Why is it important?

This feature enables you to really drill down on how a specific person is performing. It also enables you to get a clear view of the accounts a specific person is managing.

Filter related data

What is this?

This automatically selects the data in each view that is related to the section in the master view.

What is happening?

If for example you select the Salesperson view - the view automatically filter sales to date and accounts to date of that salesperson.

Why is it important?

With only a couple of clicks, the user can browse through large data sets. Filtering becomes part of the exploration process, not a separate event. This is especially useful when there is a lot of data and it is better to filter rather than highlight data.

Work across data sources - with new highlighting and filtering features

What is it?

Because a company's data isn't always just in one place, highlighting and filtering in Tableau 5.0 works across data sources.

Why is it important?

Finding related data is often most valuable when you're working across data sources. This feature lets you link views of data and find trends which would otherwise have remained undiscovered.

Authoring rich experiences

These features let you guide your users through an analysis and allow greater control over visualisation.

New authoring features include:

The ability to manage your data - using powerful filters, including relative data filters

What are relative data filters?

This feature lets you apply date filters for time periods by dates relative to now.

What is happening?

You are filtering by date, but selecting relative time periods rather than absolute dates. Tableau keeps your views up to date as time passes and you add new data.

Why is it important?

Viewing the last six months or six weeks of data is a common need. Now those views stay up to date automatically when you set a relative date range.

Create guided analytic workflows - Design links, highlights and filters to create custom workflows

What is this?

This feature allows you to control the actions that occur when users do certain things in your workbook. You can select whether the action is explicit, or occurs on hover or select.

Why is it important?

This feature allows you to define analytic workflows to guide your users through certain actions. As an author you have a good idea of what information is useful once the user has got to a certain point. With actions you have fine-grained control over the results of user actions.

Customise views

What is this?

This feature allows you to show users exactly the details you want to show, by creating a pane in your dashboard and filtering to details there.

Why is it important?

This gives you another level of control over information presented to people who use your workbooks.

Create dual axes charts

What is this?

This enables you to plot two variables, which have different units or scales, on the same axis.

What is happening?

You can then view dual axes charts.

Why is it important?

This enables you to see how the relationship between variables is changing, even when the variables use different scales.

New data options

These features let you answer any question, no matter what the data is.

New features that support working with data include:

Custom Geocoding - create specialised regions or map international data

What is this?

This feature allows you to augment Tableau's maps by generating your own geocoded areas.

Why is it important?

You may want to encode data on a map according to areas such as Metropolitan Statistical Areas, watershed areas, sales territories or other custom areas.

Broad Data - Enabling users to connect to even more file formats

Tableau 5.0 enables users to access 4 new types of file including:

  • Tab delimited
  • Space delimited
  • Colon delimited
  • Pipe delimited

Data anywhere - Work offline with exactly the data you need in extracts

What is this?

This feature allows you to extract only the fields needed to construct your views

Why is it important?

This feature allows you to use data extracts to reduce the size of your data, whilst keeping the most critical data available.

Secure data - Support for SSL

Using Tableau 5.0 with SSL provides client/server authentication so that you can communicate securely.

  • Tableau SSL works with certificates from RSA or Thwate
  • SSL makes both the publish and the view process secure
  • The Tableau server configuration tool is used to authenticate

Data Faster - Tableau 5.0 enables you to: cut, paste and analyse directly from the internet or email into Tableau

What is this?

This allows you to instantly create visualisations with any data set

What is happening?

When browsing the internet or an email attachment, copy any table of data, open Tableau and paste it in.

Why is it important?

This feature enables you to visually analyse any table instantly by just dropping it into Tableau.

Performance

Tableau has made a significant investment in Tableau Server 5.0 so that it can scale up to demands of any environment.

New features in performance and scalability include:

  • Scalability - distributes server loads to scale thousands of users
  • Responsiveness - Multithreading so users spend less time waiting for results
  • Performance - Improvements in data shaping and connections
  • Ease of Maintenance - New management and monitoring tools mean you can use your IT staff efficiently

The new features will improve the user experience and will enable users to discover more about their business through giving them the ability to ask and answer better questions of their data.

The enhancements in scalability, performance and ease of maintenance mean that Tableau 5.0 can meet the needs of almost any environment.