Instructions for Tableau v8.1 and earlier
Open your workbook and display the view with lots of data so it takes a long time and then immediately open the log.txt file the Logs directory under your Tableau repository with a text editor (i.e. without even closing Tableau), go to the very end of the file and then search backwards for “Updating sheet ‘sheetname’ for View ‘viewname”. Copy everything from that point to the end and save it as another text file and attach that to this thread I can have a quick look and see if I can see where the time is going.
Multiple Tables can be up to 30% faster than Custom SQL:
http://tableaulove.tumblr.com/post/20781994395
Think about how much data Tableau has to pull over the network. E.g. SUM(foo) is one value, while SUM(foo) for every visit is a lot more work.
Users can zoom with dates and other hierarchies – use these to avoid quick filters
Reduce level of detail – LOD makes Tableau work for every row. Instead, use dashboards & actions (Action filters) to give detail and allow Tableau to make a smaller query & speed things up. Can use “Exclude All Values” on the target detail sheet so it doesn’t show any data when nothing is selected (like a tooltip doesn’t show until a mark is hovered)
Move more calculations outside of Tableau
For wide data sets, use context filters to speed things up
More on context filters:
- Using a single context filter that significantly reduces the size of the data set is much better than applying many context filters. In fact, if a filter does not reduce the size of the data set by one-tenth or more, it is actually worse to add it to the context because of the performance cost of computing the context.
- If you do have multiple filters to add to the context it is better to create all of the filters first and then create a context that includes them all. To create a context that includes them all, select Analysis > Set Context and then add the multiple filters to the context all at once. Using the standard Add to Context command in the context menus of each filter will force Tableau to compute the context once per filter which can degrade performance.
- Complete all of your data modeling before creating a context. Changes in the data model such as converting dimensions to measures, require recomputing the context.
- Set the necessary filters for the context and create the context before adding fields to other shelves. Doing this work first makes the queries that are run when you drop fields on other shelves much faster.
- If you want to set a context filter on a date you can use a continuous date. However, using date bins like YEAR(date) or context filters on discrete dates are very effective.
Tableau Basic Performance Tips whitepaper
http://community.tableausoftware.com/docs/DOC-1041
The Information Lab post on performance tips:
http://www.theinformationlab.co.uk/2012/11/19/why-is-my-tableau-viz-slow/
Tool to Evaluate what data comes from where
http://community.tableausoftware.com/message/180515#180515
Multipass aggregations (white paper)
Using Tableau Server, then tabcmd
http://community.tableausoftware.com/thread/118600
Performance Tips
http://onlinehelp.tableausoftware.com/v7.0/pro/online/en-us/performance_tips.html
Improving Database Query Performance
http://kb.tableausoftware.com/articles/knowledgebase/database-query-performance
Authoring Views for Better Tableau Server Performance
http://www.tableausoftware.com/learn/tutorials/on-demand/tableau-server-authoring-performance
Using Context Filters to Improve Performance
http://kb.tableausoftware.com/articles/knowledgebase/using-context-filters-improve-performance
Dashboard Best Practices
http://kb.tableausoftware.com/articles/knowledgebase/best-practices-designing-vizes-and-dashboards
Optimizing Tableau Server Performance
http://kb.tableausoftware.com/articles/knowledgebase/optimizing-tableau-server-performance
Authoring Efficient Calculations presentation from TCC2012
http://community.tableausoftware.com/docs/DOC-1243
Some notes from that presentation:
Convert Unix timestamps (1 billion values in 45 seconds):
DATE( DATEADD( 'seconds', INT([unix] / 1000), #1970-01-01# ) )
Convert YYYYMMDD dates (1 billion values in 64 seconds):
DATEADD( 'day', [yyyymmdd] % 100 - 1, DATEADD( 'month', INT( ( [yyyymmdd] % 10000 ) / 100 ) - 1, DATEADD( 'year', INT( [yyyymmdd] / 10000 ) - 1900, #1900-01-01# ) ) )
Using Math instead of IF/THEN statements to get week # in quarter:
INT( [DayOfQuarter] /7 ) + 1
Then instead of using aliases or string formatting, use number format “Week #”0
Grouping by numbers only compares numbers, 10-100x faster than strings. Aliases & formatting are applied after the query.
Combined fields (Create Set in v7) are 90x faster than a BYO combined field like [string1] + ” – ” [string2]
From Making the Most of Calculations – Ross Bunker talk at TCC13
- – reduce the number of rows
- – reduce cost per row (write more efficient calcs)
- “viz level calcs” – aggregates inside Tableau can be faster. e.g. MIN(UPPER([Product])) is way slower than UPPER(MIN([Product])) (When Product is in the level of detail in the view)
- CASE satements are faster than IF, when using IF minimize comparisons (especially string comparisons)
- Use SIGN([Profit]) instead of IF([Profit] >0)
Other useful functions:
- CONTAINS, STARTSWITH, UPPER, LOWER, ROUND, ABS, LOG (determines # of digits in a number), MIN/MAX (can take two arguments)
- INT(LOG(MAX(ABS([Value]),1))) + 1 is 4x faster than LEN(STR([Value]))
table calcs
- WINDOW_ can cause n*n calcs
- RUNNING_ can be faster
(don’t forget the PREVIOUS_VALUE and IF FIRST()==0 tricks to speed up WINDOW_ calcs)
Dealing with out of memory issues on Tableau Server:
http://community.tableausoftware.com/message/222443#222443
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Thanks! This is very helpful explanation.
I currently have 3 context filters in my reports, and so want to switch to your suggestion — create a context that includes them all.
However, I seems couldn’t find Analysis > Set Context function. Saw an article(below) saying it has been moved to individual filter right-click menu since 7.0. I use 9.0. Do you have any idea how to make this work in 9.0?
http://kb.tableau.com/articles/knowledgebase/new-locations
Thanks a lot,
Coco
Hi Coco,
Sorry for the late reply. You an right-click on a pill and choose to add that particular pill to the context.