Here’s how you can influence the Tableau product roadmap

Getting feedback directly from the Tableau Community is one of the most important aspects in developing new capabilities across the Tableau platform. For us, customer-focused innovation means leaning into that magical intersection where our big vision meets your concrete experiences and challenges. Your brilliance and passion continuously shape Tableau to help more and more people see and understand their data.

"Thank you, Tableau Community, for motivating us and pushing us every day to innovate faster and solve real-world problems," said Chief Product Officer, Francois Ajenstat. "Without your ideas, we couldn't build some of the capabilities we have today that make Tableau so powerful and useful."

Where great ideas become Tableau capabilities

Feature ideas come from a variety of places, including market trends, our amazing research team, customer support looking at where people have issues, and directly from our community.

One of the most popular and significant spaces in the Tableau Community Forums is the Ideas board, with thousands of visits per month and new ideas submitted every single day. It's a place where the community can share their ideas and perspectives, vote on other submissions, and have two-way conversations to influence the development team. It's a space brimming with Tableau genius and creativity, open to experts and new users alike to submit and vote on ideas, as well as discuss challenges and creative solutions. 

Navigate through the viz below to explore the types of ideas that have been submitted in the past few months.

You can also filter and sort ideas by popularity, status (e.g. active vs. released), and more from the list view.

Turning your requests into useful features

Just over the last year, close to 40 community submissions were realized as part of our Tableau product releases. That means that someone’s idea—big or small—resonated with us and with the rest of Tableau Community, it was planned and built out by one of our development teams, and it became a real feature in the product.

Some submissions are small and quick to make into features, while others require massive engineering investment. Some benefit individuals in answering new questions or saving time, while others help IT scale analytics more effectively across the organization. We always try to balance the needs of the community and focus on driving your success.

In our latest Tableau 2021.2 release, the top voted idea from the community was for Tableau Server in a Linux container, which added a new deployment and management option for customers. The upcoming Tableau 2021.3 launch also includes a few community-submitted features: support for Google BigQuery Service Accounts, personal spaces, and data alerts to Slack, to name a few.

Introducing the Idea Champion badge

This year, we’ve added a new badge to proudly decorate the Forums profiles of those data rockstars who are helping shape the future of Tableau via the Ideas board. You can earn an Idea Champion badge by suggesting ideas, and also by joining in on the conversations—like providing additional context or clarity to ideas, including sharing creative solutions to the challenges folks are facing.

Tips for submitting a winning pitch

When it comes to drafting and sharing your idea, always start with the use case. What problem will this solve for you or your organization? This helps us focus on the “why” behind your request in addition to the “what”. There are more helpful guidelines to follow to help Tableau product managers and engineers understand and act on your submission.

First, check to see if the idea already exists by searching the Ideas board. If it exists, make sure to add your vote and comment on why you think it would be a worthwhile feature in the product. If it doesn’t exist yet, then submit it as a new idea by using the “Create Idea” button. (Please note: You must be logged in to the Community Forums to submit an idea, vote for ideas, or participate in discussions.)

Add a title and description of the feature you’d like to see added to Tableau. There is an option to add an image if you have a screenshot or mock-up to share—which can be very helpful. In the body of your post, be sure to describe the problem you’re trying to solve and any workarounds you’ve found and used, as well as your role in your organization.

Your vote is automatically added to an idea you submit, but you can boost votes for your idea by sharing it with others that you think may want to upvote it—especially if you know others who have run into the same scenario in Tableau, or may have their own workaround methods to achieve certain functionality.

If your idea is chosen to be developed, you’ll get a comment once it’s planned for an upcoming release, plus another notification when the feature has been launched to the world! Then, it’s time to tell your IT admins to upgrade Tableau so your organization can take advantage of your great new feature and more Tableau innovation the release has to offer.

Ready to get started? Head over to the Ideas board in the Community Forums now!