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How is it possible to switch to another worksheet while the results or computations of the current worksheet are being fetched?

Currently we have to wait for the current computation to complete before moving to another sheet. Ideally I would like to know how can I push the current worksheet job in the background and resume working on another worksheet in Tableau?

Note: Extracts not an option nor multiple instances as the source data has millions of records.

stackit
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    As @matt_black mentioned, there isn't a way in the same workbook. That being said, if your results are taking a long time, make sure you are using data extracts to help give you as much performance as possible. With extracts, all the querying and computations only run once when it updates the tde file. – Sam M Jul 25 '16 at 16:56

3 Answers3

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I don't think this is functionality Tableau offers right now, but here are a few things that might speed up development:

  1. If possible, extract your data, rather than using a live connection. I know this isn't always an option, but it can remove a lot of overhead, particularly during development.
  2. Optimize your extracts. Not having to recompute all of your calculated fields every time you make a query can make for some pretty notable speed boosts.
  3. By far the best way to minimize your load times is to subset your data while you're building the worksheets. During development, it might not be necessary to load every row of your dataset. In more cases than not, a subset will be enough to confirm that your worksheets and calculations are working as you need them to. You could try filtering to just a month's worth of data, for example, or maybe just a handful of individuals/stores/dog breeds/Skrillex songs.
  4. Nadir's suggestion to pause auto-updates is a great one, but if you're building more complicated views or more intricate calculations, not having real-time feedback on your work can make development a lot more challenging. However, if subsetting your data isn't an option, this might be your best route. One way to speed this process up a bit would be to toss all of the sheets you want to load onto a dashboard and resume auto updates from there. Note that this dashboard would not be a formatted production dashboard — it's simply serving as a drop point for the sheets you'd like to load all at once.
Andrew LaPrise
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  • the last suggestion of creating a dashboard is the only interesting one. Thanks , you should remove parts on extracts as this is not relevant to the question asked. Also it was mentioned in the question that extracts are not an option. – stackit Aug 05 '16 at 06:07
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I've never found a way to achieve this. But it is worth noting that you can have multiple Tableau workbooks open at the same time and they run in separate threads.

So, if you can split your work across workbooks, then you can switch from one to the other during calculations quite easily without the calculation impeding your work. You may be able to merge workbooks later if you organise the split of your work the right way.

matt_black
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If you are using a Live Data Source, you can pause auto-updates, until you are ready to see the results/computations. I know this does not completely help with what you are trying to do but it does give you a chance to go through and create the worksheets you need and then have it all load at once.

Nadir
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