Want More 6 Techniques?

Well friends, you’re proving a hard bunch to keep up with. Here are some quickies for the latest batch of 6 Education Q&A.

Terri asks: I understand that 6.0 is not backward compatible, but can workbooks created in Desktop 5.2 be published to Tableau Server 6.0?

If you open your 5.2 workbooks in 6.0 you can then publish them to 6.0 server. However, please note that anything you open in 6.0 and save will not be openable in earlier versions. We have to set the boundaries somewhere, right?

Trang writes: We have over 70 offices which receive their own reports. Is there a way to click a button and feature where it would save the dashboard in PDF format for each offices without individually selecting each office? This would save us a lot of time.

We don’t mean to be coy here, but the answer to your question is both yes and no. If you have Tableau Server, you can just send the same report to everyone (by link) and they can filter on their own. But as far as automatic PDF creation and filter application, this feature is not currently available. Thanks for the feedback!

Raul asks: When do you open an office in Europe?

Even though this isn’t a software question, we want to show some transcontinental love to our friend Raul. We actually have a bunch of people working in Europe right now, as well as several sales openings if you’re interested. In fact, our ranks are growing in leaps and bounds! You can check out all of our job openings here.

Bill wonders: Are tabbed views available when publishing from desktop to public?

Yes! As soon as you publish to Public and log into your account, you will see a checkbox in the prompt for naming:

David wants to know: If I am current with my Tableau license for version 5.2, am I able to upgrade to 6.0 at no additional charge? Do I use the same license key?

Yes! If your license key is valid, you get free 6.

David also wonders: I regularly work with data that has millions of rows. Based on what I’ve been reading, Tableau works on more data faster. Can I truly use Tableau to work off of large databases? What are the limitations?

You can truly use Tableau to work on large data, and our queries on all databases have been improved. It depends on the shape and width of your data, but the best thing to do is to try to create an extract and see how the Data Engine works for you. Create a new extract in 6.0. Note that it your data is really large, it might take a while to create the extract (anywhere from seconds to overnight). But once it’s created you will be able to move a lot faster. And don't forget - if you've got a large database that performs well, you can still use our "direct connect" capability. Only Tableau lets you easily choose between an in-memory analytics engine and live direct connections to your existing data sources.