Published datasource and calculated fields
in progress
Tiaan Stander
I'm struggling to figure out the "correct" way to work with this.
Do I put all calculations inside this published source, or just link to the source and do the calculations in the workbook?
When it's in the published source, I cannot edit them while developing and I'm not sure about the process of updating it online, then having them brought down to desktop - especially if you use an extract during dev.
Advice? Best practice?
Tiaan Stander
Thanks for the response Tim!
I'm upgrading to the latest version as they are released.
I hear you with "let users create their own".
Our use of Tableau is a little different. We have a team of developers creating dashboards for the business to consume. We do not really have users creating their own dashboards (yet)
I initially thought having the calculations as part of the published data source would be easier/safer, since you could QA the calculation once and then just use the published source in any workbook.
I got tripped up by the following scenario:
The published datasource is an extract (because performance)
I use the published datasource in Tableau Desktop (where am I getting the data from now? The extract hosted on Tableau Online?)
I now in Tableau Desktop do a data extract again (because the performance suck ...) (Now I use a different extract than the published datasource - although it should be a copy of that ... correct?)
Now I find a bug in a calculation and want to fix it.
Now what? I can't fix it in Tableau Desktop - even though I initially published the dataset.
I now need to fix it online and then ... uhm ... what? How to I propagate the fix to Tableau Desktop - update the extact(from my online exact ..)
again?
Using which menu option? I suspect I'm just not versed well enough with Tableau data sources and need more practice.
Tableau Tim
in progress
Tableau Tim
planned
A video on Published data source best practise and managing these sounds fitting here.
Tableau Tim
Great question. Can I ask what version of Tableau you're using. There's a recent change that could help but worth understanding the context fully as you see it so let me know the version. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnIc0eIoIvI&t=4s
In general if you're the admin for a published data source i always recommend making them as vanilla as possible and then let people create calculations off your base columns. This was they can duplicate calculations and edit those without having to have admin rights to edit the original data source.
Tableau have this guide here: https://help.tableau.com/current/pro/desktop/en-us/publish_datasources_about.htm
.. but ...
My workflow tends to be as follows
> start a new workbook with a new data source.
> Build v1 of the workbook if needs be with all the calculations i think I'll need
> Clean up calculations
> switch to a published data source and publish v1
> From there on i add new calculations for enhancements and if I get to a point where its getting a little messy I pull down the original data source and republish over the existing published data source.
> I try to avoid changing existing calculations as others might be depending on them.
> The metadata store can help identify these sorts of fields but assuming thats hard to come by this approach keeps everything ticking over.