Your Ideas Turned into These Features in Tableau 9.1

The ideas section of the Tableau Community is one of the biggest sources for product feedback. Tableau developers often look at it to get their inspiration for creating new features and improving existing ones. Tableau 9.1, currently in beta, is no exception. Close to 20 ideas have been marked as Released.
Tracy Rodgers

The ideas section of the online Tableau Community is one of the biggest sources of product feedback. Tableau developers often look to this space for inspiration when creating new features and improving existing ones.

Tableau 9.1, currently in beta, is no exception. Close to 20 ideas posted on the Community have been marked as "Released."

A Way to Connect to Any Web Data

Tableau user Simon Morris had the most popular idea with his call for the “ability to connect to Google spreadsheets as a datasource.” Simon's idea, which received 218 upvotes, has made its way into Tableau.

In addition to Simon's idea, we received three similar requests all calling for the same feature. And if you also consider the post by Tamas Foldi on how to connect prior to Tableau 9.1, the call for this capability was overwhelming.

Thanks to the Web Data Connector, we can now connect to Google spreadsheets more easily. You can also use the Web Data Connector to “connect to JSON data sources,” which makes accessing any web data possible.

We plan to launch the new Developer Community space with Tableau 9.1. Bookmark the site so you can check out the connectors others have built and get inspired to build your own.

Product Updates: A New Form of Notifications

The theme of this release is enterprising data. The Web Data Connector definitely gives organizations more access to data, but from an administration perspective, the community was asking for more.

Prior to Tableau 9.1, Tableau users needed to follow the Release News forums or periodically check the Release Notes page to stay on top of Tableau's latest releases.

With Tableau 9.1, thanks to ideas like “notification of new releases” and “software auto update,” Tableau users will be notified when they can upgrade to a later version.

The community also told us that while it was great to update users on your Tableau Server using tabcmd, the task could be done more easily. So now, you have the ability to “manage AD group sync via web admin.”

Improved Mapping Features

And then there’s the mapping.

Ever tried viewing a Tableau map on a mobile device only to have the map move all over the place and cause you to lose your data points? That should no longer be an issue, thanks to Mark Jackson’s idea of having the “option to lock the axis on maps (i.e. disable panning)."

And maybe some of the quickest turnaround on an update to maps is the Distance Measurement feature. Radial selection was just added to Tableau 9.0 in March, yet there was a need to add more. Four ideas, all created this year, helped spur the developers to “add a scale to radial selection,” making maps an even more robust viz type.

These are just a few of the ideas we've incorporated into Tableau 9.1. Thank you for providing us with a better understanding of your wants and needs. We see the ideas section as a treasure trove of feedback, and we hope you continue sharing your thoughts so we can continue improving the tool you love.