Copy and Paste: New in Tableau 2021.4

[@danade3198]

Tableau devs checking up on Tim's videos to find out what the bugs are, haha! Another good one.

[@PatrickBateman12420]

Sweet. Thanks, Tim! PS: we can also copy from one workbook to another (if it's copyable of course). Cool!

[@paulwyatt8523]

Hi Tim Thanks for the excellent demo of the copy/paste feature. Along with the other commenters, I too am disappointed in its lack of functionality now that I've seen your demo and had the opportunity to try for myself. I suspect the reason for such a lack of general copy/paste ability is a fundamental one based on how Tableau manages objects making the mapping and tracking of dimensions difficult. I do feel that Tableau overstated this release feature. New customers, directors and managers will see these feature headlines but it is the developers/users that must apply them and either struggle to make them work as perceived or explain to their team how the 'features' do not have the implied effect on development and delivery times. By way of illustration, A simple use case for a perceived copy/paste action would be where I wanted to copy a container full of global filters, which use the hid/show feature, to newly developed dashboards within a single data model. Whilst the target dashboard may not contain a sheet to support all the copied filters, I would have expected the paste feature to paste the formatted container to include the filters (dimensions) that were supported by any sheet within the target dashboard. Whilst I usually copy a completed dashboard and replace the copied objects with new ones, this is not a good method in every scenario.

[@TableauTim]

Thanks for taking time to leave a comment. Hard to disagree with what you've said. I don't think the short cummings of the feature aren't obvious to the team who help build this. As yous ay i think its more that resources aren't being prioritised in the right ares to make these features work as we would expect. I talk to tableau product managers and feature teams almost weekly and at least from my conversation I can firmly say they're really smart and have often even considered things that long time users like myself haven't considered. stay tuned for my tableau 2021 review. Just working on it at the moment and touch on some of the points you make.

[@patrikbuess6691]

Great. Thanks for managing my expectations ;)

[@ginaxs7975]

Great thanks!

[@RemotePossibilities1]

Would love to access the notes you mentioned. Are they public? If feasible, please can you share a link to them? 4:52 "...a lot of quirks" - sadly, it seems that's common in much of Tableau. Over time, the danger is that the UI may get more and more tangled and inconsistent. Goes along with the issue of hacks (workarounds), which you've mentioned elsewhere. (Makes Tableau quite hard to learn, which is where I am at the moment.)

[@TableauTim]

All in documentation now. help.tableau.com/current/pro/desktop/en-gb/dashboards_create.htm#Copy

[@wilfiliffe6271]

It’s a different interpretation of Copy and Paste from what most other applications use but, as with many recent Tableau updates, it seems to be something that they haven’t quite finished before its released to the users (another example is the fact that it took two updates before map layers coupd be controlled in Dashboards). I have found the 2021.. releases to be very buggy, especially when used with Tableau Online and have a series of outstanding tickets awaiting bug fixes, right now. My feeling is that Desktop will disappear in the next two years in favour of web edit… what do you think?

[@TableauTim]

I don't think it will disappear but there is a preference for web edit. I just hope they fix bugs on web edit faster than the general bugs we've seen in 2021. I agree that 21 hasn't been ideal for smoothness. You probably sense I wasn't as excited for copy and paste.

[@Data.Monster]

Hi Tim ... at 5min45sec you mention you cannot copy/paste a container with an object inside ... I think it is mainly because you cannot add twice Sheet 17 in true old fashion way without duplication it to Sheet 17 (copy)!

[@TableauTim]

Yeah I think that’s flawed. Why can’t it create a duplicate for you? I think it’s confusing for everyone if you can in some cases and can’t in others. In any other tool if you copy and paste it creates a duplicate of everything you select. Tableau can already duplicate sheets and tabs and dashboards so it’s a small step.

[@cfdproduction6115]

only for tableau 2021? how about 2019?

[@TableauTim]

Tableau don't back port new features. Thats why version upgrades are free unless the new feature is part of a more recent addon.

[@machtmann2881]

Odd limitations there. Perhaps you're not supposed to copy/paste with data objects in it because you would need to duplicate the data source for the object? But you can already copy and paste data sources between Tableau workbooks so that shouldn't be something I have to think about. So far, it only looks like I can copy and paste "design" items like text and images which is an improvement but not as much as I was hoping for this feature.

[@TableauTim]

My thoughts exactly. If you copy and paste a container with a data item i would expect it to figure that out so if I copy a container with a sheet, duplicate the sheet and the I can go in and edit the sheet to fit my needs.