Tableau, a Washington-based data analytics firm, is planning to simplify the answering of sales questions.
To achieve this effort, the company recently rolled out the general availability of a natural language processing (NLP) tool for Tableau Online and Tableau Server dubbed Ask Data.
The feature will assist users not only in asking questions but also getting responses.
Tableau also released Tableau Data Management, which entails a new subscription feature that targets data preparation scenarios.
Currently, Ask Data can be accessed as part of Tableau 2019.1, which is the company’s newest release.
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Leveraging Ask Data to get a response is as straightforward as asking a question such as “What were my sales this month?”
In turn, Tableau is expected to respond with an interactive visualization, which you can explore using drag-and-drop gestures, new questions, and clarifying follow-ups.
The Chief Product Officer of Tableau Francois Ajenstat said that algorithms help in profiling and indexing data sources before combining statistical knowledge regarding such sources with contextual knowledge drawn from real-world concepts.
The outcome: Ask Data not only identifies synonyms such as “booking” and “sales” but also infers filters like “United States”, “Country”, “Furniture”, and “Product Category” from a string of words such as “American furniture.”
What’s more, Ask Data uses a complex parser that utilizes knowledge regarding the past user activity and data source to produce relevant options, especially after it encounters an ambiguous language.
“With Ask Data, we’re helping to make analytics ubiquitous by enabling anyone, regardless of expertise, to analyze data,” Ajenstat said.
“Our unique, conversational approach to natural language allows people to ask questions how they naturally think.
Ask Data provides a more intuitive and natural way to interact with data, lowering the barrier to entry for analytics and allowing people to ask questions in plain language and get insights faster.”
Data Prep Conductor, New applications, and more
Aside from the announcement regarding Ask Data, Tableau also revealed redesigned applications for both Android and iOS featuring automatic layouts that allow Tableau dashboards to accommodate different screen sizes as well as place data portraits and graphs in the front and the middle, even without any connectivity.
A soon-to-be-rolled out Google Ads connector is also expected to feature Tableau 2019.1.
Meanwhile, Data Prep Conductor, a new tool that forms part of a monthly subscription package of $5 per user dubbed Tableau Data Management, intends to make the process of managing and scheduling of data prep a lot easier.
To be more specific, it helps in automating the flows developed in Tableau Prep Builder through helping users to remove or add data sources, build permissions, and execute policies that not only ensure corporate compliance but also make sure that control requirements are constantly fulfilled.
Existing Tableau clients can incorporate Tableau Data Management into their environments, particularly through upgrading to the Tableau Server 2019.1 as well as activating the necessary package.
Near the close of 2019, Tableau Data Management is expected to obtain new cataloging features that will allow searches for a wide range of data types drawn from one location and incorporate improved metadata to that particular data.
 tool for Tableau Online and Tableau Server dubbed Ask Data.){kind=link}