9 Issues I Realized at Tableau Convention 2023


Tableau Convention 2023 wraps up at this time in Las Vegas after a three-day run, sending 1000’s of individuals again to the information sources from the place they got here. Whereas information camp is likely to be over for now, the teachings will hopefully endure.

Listed here are 9 issues I realized in regards to the firm whereas attending the present.

Has a Huge and Loyal Buyer Base

Tableau has the form of large, engaged buyer base that many manufacturers would like to have. When Salesforce purchased Tableau for nearly $16 billion in 2019, the corporate had 86,000 clients. That quantity had elevated to 121,000 by 2021, and by one depend it now has north of 126,000 clients.

That prolonged “information fam” confirmed up in massive numbers this week for Tableau Convention 2023, which was held on the Mandalay Bay lodge in Sin Metropolis. Greater than 5,000 individuals attended the convention, which was twice the determine from final yr, the corporate stated. Subsequent yr’s convention shall be in San Diego in Could. Can it double attendance once more and convey 10,000 to America’s Most interesting Metropolis?

Is Virtually Consuming-Age

Tableau Chief Product Officer Francois Ajenstat throughout the keynote Tuesday within the Michelob Extremely enviornment at Tableau Convention 2023

It’s exhausting to consider that Tableau is already 20 years previous. When Christian Chabot, Pat Hanrahan, and Chris Stolte based Tableau as a spinout of a Stanford College laptop science mission again in 2003, they couldn’t have envisioned the place Tableau could be now–on the high of the BI heap.

For a few years, Tableau was the upstart serving to to disrupt established enterprise intelligence distributors. The benefit of making participating dashboards in Tableau helped it take share from Cognos, Enterprise Objects, and others.  However now, Tableau is arguably the highest canine in the case of impartial BI and analytics distributors.

Whereas Microsoft’s PowerBI has scores larger in Gartner Magic Quadrants, many enterprises favor having a BI instrument that isn’t tied to their Microsoft stack. Tableau says that is a part of its “Switzerland” technique, the place it connects equally effectively to every thing. On the finish of the fourth quarter, Tableau loved a $2.5 billion in annual run fee, displaying the Swiss method is kind of worthwhile.

Prospects Love the Devs – and Pineapples, Apparently

The prolonged Tableau information fam is fanatical in regards to the product and creating the proper dashboard to share with their customers. So it’s pure that they’d take pleasure in studying in regards to the newest updates with the “Devs on Stage” section of the Tableau Convention keynote.

Pedro Arellano, who joined Tableau as GM and head of product final yr, was definitely conscious of the phenomenon. Through the keynote on Tuesday, the previous Looker and MicroStrategy government shared a narrative about his first Tableau Convention.

“I used to be sitting within the viewers similar to all of you, and I used to be surrounded by 1000’s and 1000’s of very passionate, very excited, very loud individuals,” Arellano stated. “And I keep in mind you all dropping your minds as a result of someone on stage confirmed this little tiny new possibility on a menu bar. It’s like, what is that this? I’ve by no means seen this earlier than! It made me take into consideration how really modern and disruptive Tableau has been through the years. Tableau empowered tens of millions of individuals from every kind of backgrounds, completely different varieties of experience, to work with information in a means that simply wasn’t attainable earlier than.”

Tableau Vice President of Product Administration Matthew Miller throughout the “Devs on Stage” Phase at Tableau Convention 2023

This yr’s Devs on Stage section was equally off the hook, as Tableau builders shared their work–greater than 120 new capabilities (or “Pineapple drops” apparently) prior to now yr– with an adoring viewers of devoted customers.

Is Adopting Generative AI and GPT

Like different BI distributors, Tableau is bullish on the potential for generative AI expertise comparable to ChatGPT to assist it with its mission to attach extra individuals with information. On the convention, Tableau launched Tableau GPT and Tableau Pulse.

Tableau Pulse is a brand new consumer interface for Tableau clients. It makes use of a brand new part referred to as Tableau GPT, which is powered by Salesforce’s Einstein GPT and GPT-3.5 language fashions, to ship a Q&A mode expertise for customers. Pulse is ready to monitor metrics and pushes plain-English explanations of enterprise modifications to customers by way of cellular system, Net apps, or Slack messages when the metrics exceed pre-set values. You may learn extra about that in “Tableau Jumps Into Generative AI with Tableau GPT.”

However Pulse and Tableau GPT aren’t the locations the place Tableau is utilizing generative AI. It’s getting used “all through the whole platform,” Arellano stated, together with its information high quality part.

Has a New CEO

Tableau acquired a high boss, Ryan Aytay, on Could 2, only a week earlier than Tableau Convention 2023. The corporate was planning to announce Aytay’s promotion from chief income officer and president to the CEO spot on the present. However as the corporate started doing calls to share the information it was planning to launch on the present, it realized wanted to announce the promotion of the 16-year Salesforce veteran sooner. He retains the president place.

Aytay fills a spot that has been vacant since December, when Mark Nelson stepped down. Nelson had been on the job for lower than two years, and was the successor to Adam Selipsky, who left Tableau to change into the CEO of Amazon Net Providers in March 2021.

Has a Full Knowledge Administration Suite

Everyone’s fam within the Knowledge Village

You may suppose Tableau is only a information analytics and BI vendor. You’d be improper. The corporate additionally a full suite of knowledge administration instruments, together with a knowledge catalog, information high quality, information prep, information governance, information pipelines, and extra. They’re broadly used, as Tableau stated it information a mean of 5.8 million information administration actions per 30 days.

Nevertheless, Tableau’s information administration instruments don’t essentially compete with different distributors creating these instruments. Based on Tableau’s Chief Product Officer Francois Ajenstat, Tableau’s information administration instruments are designed primarily for the analyst utilizing Tableau and usually are not “enterprise” instruments designed for extra common information administration duties.

“What we’ve  tried to do is clear up the last-mile downside in information administration,” Ajenstat stated in an interview with Datanami. “I’m an analyst. I have to wrangle information collectively. I don’t have time to name IT or name a specialist. I have to do it myself.” Tableau additionally companions with many information administration instrument suppliers to make sure that they work effectively within the Tableau setting, he provides.

Is Investing in Knowledge Literacy

Whereas Tableau is relying on AI to assist decrease the barrier to entry for working with information, it’s additionally working exhausting to bolster information abilities within the inhabitants at massive. To that finish, on the finish of 2021, the corporate pledged to coach 10 million individuals on information abilities over the subsequent 5 years.

Up to now, so good.

“I’m happy to say we’ve already exceeded our year-one objectives,” Ajenstat stated throughout the keynote handle. “We’ve already skilled 1.9 million individuals pl within the first yr and a half alone. That’s wonderful.”

Tableau CEO Ryan Aytay throughout the Could 9 keynote at Tableau Convention 2023

Not Simply About Dashboards Anymore

Tableau could also be synonymous with creating pixel-perfect information visualizations, however that’s not the one information modality the corporate is after. For starters, Tableau Pulse represents a radical departure from the complete dashboard method. The brand new VizQL Knowledge Providers is one other.

VizQL Knowledge Providers primarily unhooks the VizQL information engine from the Tableau visualization. It’s a “headless BI” method that’s designed to offer builders extra freedom to create new consumer interfaces powered by the VizQL engine.

“You may create a model new approach to work together with Tableau that’s not about drag and drop or vizzes,” Arellano stated. “Perhaps you’ve gotten some automated workflows and also you need to infuse Tableau VizQL engine into these workflows. Perhaps you’ve gotten a chatbot that interacts with Tableau. You are able to do all these items now with VizQL Knowledge Providers.”

Has a Knowledge Cloud

The corporate can also be making strikes with its information cloud. Unveiled final yr and powered by Salesforce, the Tableau information cloud is designed to function a central repository for buyer information. However it’s not restricted to buyer information, and actually can nearly pull in information from Snowflake and (now Google Cloud BigQuery) via its zero-copy performance.

“Knowledge Cloud permits you to do wonderful issues,” Ajenstat stated. “It permits you to mix information collectively from a whole bunch of sources. It then permits you to harmonize that information int a single supply of fact so you’ll be able to mannequin it multi functional place. And you’ll then use that information and enrich it with wealthy algorithms with AI built-in.”

Whether or not it’s creating new options in cloud or AI or simply serving to customers create a brand new kind of viz, Tableau seems desirous to ship what its six-digit buyer base needs. That’s a recipe for achievement, it doesn’t matter what new expertise emerges over the subsequent 20 years.

Associated Gadgets:

Tableau Jumps Into Generative AI with Tableau GPT

Which BI and Analytics Distributors Are Incorporating ChatGPT, and How

Salesforce Goes All-in on Generative AI with Einstein GPT, Integration with OpenAI

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