Most of us are supposed to stay at home anyway these days and even if your country doesn’t enforce a complete lock-down, chances are that in person events like User Groups are currently not happening.
The Tableau Community (and Tableau) stepped up to address this and make the best out of the situation, so here is a collection of resources to keep you busy (in case you are not busy enough yet), to make the best of your isolation and to get some virtual, social contact.
Virtual Tableau User Groups
Many of the User Groups around the world adopted a virtual format, thanks to the support of Tableau and their platforms (Zoom, Webex, etc.). We in New Zealand took this chance to create a nationwide User Group to give people outside the main centres a chance to attend and also got a speaker who wouldn’t be able otherwise to attend User Groups. This also means the only reason not to attend any of the TUGs around the world is timing.
In Ivette’s workbook below you can find the different scheduled User Groups and clicking on them brings you straight to the registration screen.
#DatafamCommunityJam
Initially planned as an impromptu Tableau Fringe Festival, this weekly event gained quite a lot of traction. Every week we have 4 speakers from around the world to talk all things Tableau, from technical sessions on how to use animations to more generic content like how to present data remotely, everything is covered. And the best thing: all sessions are recorded and available on Youtube!
You can see the upcoming events here: https://usergroups.tableau.com/tfftableauusergrouphold
And all recordings here: https://datafamcommunityjamrecordings.splashthat.com/
Virtual Tableau events
Tableau Test Drives
This one is for the Australia and New Zealand region but I am sure the same will apply in other regions as well. Tableau Test Drives run increasingly virtual, so if you or somebody you know is interested in Tableau, register for one of those. Even if you use Tableau already, I personally think it’s a great chance to get some basic free training to get a head-start with the tool!
Tableau Conference (Europe)
You might have heard the news that Tableau will not host their annual events in Europe and the US this year – at least not in person. While they did not announce any details yet, both events will be held online. For TC Europe it was already announced that it will be completely free so that’s a great chance to join an event like this.
I would assume that the main conference later this year will be much cheaper than the usual price – if not completely free. And either way, you will not have to pay for flights or accommodation. So if you struggled to go in previous years because of money, this time it won’t be a problem. So far Tableau only announced vague hints as to what they are planning but judging by the efforts the team put into previous events, I would not expect it to be exclusively your usual webinar-style sessions.
There is a handy FAQ page to answer many of your questions, including what to do if you already bought tickets to either of the conferences.
In the meantime you can look forward to TCE at the end of June and for further announcements for the main Conference.
Tableau eLearning & certifications
Tableau also made their eLearning portal free for 90 days – unless you do not use any form of social media, you might have already seen a bunch of people posting little hexagonal badges to LinkedIn and Twitter.
As long as you claim the code “2020elearning” until end of June, you will be able to access all of their training and tests for free. The badges to share are a nice addition but the real (and often overlooked) value is that you will be able to access Tableau Desktop 1, Desktop 2 and Desktop 3 courses as well as the Prep course. Those usually sell for ~1400 USD each and now you are able to do them yourself from the comfort of your couch!
They also give you 50% off the Tableau Desktop Specialist certification. I wrote a summary of the certification a while back. In short, it’s their entry level certification, which does not expire. It usually costs 100 USD so until the end of June you get it for only 50 USD!
COVID Data Hub
Members of the community – namely Anya A’hearn and Allan Walker – and Tableau made the COVID19 data available on their COVID19 Data Hub for people to analyse. The data is cleansed and updated daily to give you a solid base to work off – out of personal interest or maybe because it is useful for your business.
If you do start visualising this data, please be mindful of the stories you tell and the conclusions you draw! There is a lot of misunderstandings and misconceptions about the virus out there and it is very easy to add to this noise. As a start I would suggest to read Andy Cotgreave’s thoughts on the topic!
Is that it?
I think that’s a heap of content here already. If I have missed anything, please let me know and I will add it to the list!