The Salesforce-owned data analytics platform Tableau has announced a suite of new analytics features in its 2021.2 update.
Tableau’s offering focuses on visual analytics, leveraging AI, data management and collaboration components. Leveraging AI, Tableau said the new features were intended to allow individuals to improve decision making independent of their skill level.
“There’s a growing disconnect between business leaders expecting a data-driven organisation, and employees who aren’t comfortable using data to make decisions,” said Francois Ajenstat, Chief Product Officer, Tableau. “Building truly data-first organisations requires unlocking the power of data for as many people as possible. AI-powered analytics will help more people use data to answer questions, make meaningful decisions and, ultimately, transform their business.”
The new augmented analytics functions include:
- Ask Data for Tableau Server and Tableau Online, allowing users to ask business questions in natural language and features guidance on asking relevant questions
- Explain Data, which leverages machine learning to produce understandable explanations of data. The solution also minimises error risk by searching for explanations within an entire data source
- Ask Data for Salesforce, which allows Salesforce users to ask questions of the Tableau CRM, again using natural language. That in turn produces tailored reports and recommended dashboards.
- Einstein Discovery for Salesforce Reports, which analyses data from Salesforce Reports to identify the most important insights and produce understandable charts and explanations.
Closing the Data Gap
Citing new IDC research, Tableau further said that while 83% of CEOs expected their organisations to be more data-driven, only 33% of employees were comfortable with data analytics in supporting decision making.
“Organisations can drive growth and foster innovation by pairing the right technology investments with a focus on data culture,” said Chandana Gopal, IDC Research Director, Future of Intelligence. “Technologies like embedded AI and augmented analytics are promising tools that can democratise analytics beyond the traditional BI and advanced analyst users, and empower all workers to become more data-driven in their decisions.”
While the new Ask, Explain Data and Einstein Discovery for Reports features are now available, Ask Data for Salesforce is said to be available early next year.
