In its sold-out ninth annual global conference, Tableau Software came together with over 13,000 data fanatics from the Tableau Community.  Tableau also gave a glimpse into its product roadmap for the next three years, showcasing new ways for people to analyze and collaborate with data of any size at any scale. Anybody can participate in the Tableau Conference 2016 (TC16) virtually by signing up at http://tclive.tableau.com/.

Tableau kicked off TC16 with a keynote revealing future product innovations to help people unlock the potential of their data and drive better business results:

  • New Data Engine: Tableau announced its next generation in-memory data engine based on the Hyper technology acquired earlier this year. The new Hyper data engine will provide interactive analysis on data of all sizes while enabling fast data ingestion for near real-time analysis. Hyper will be available in 2017.
  • New Data Preparation Product: Tableau is expanding its product portfolio beyond visual analytics to include self-service data preparation. Tableau announced a brand new data prep product, codenamed Project Maestro. Project Maestro will make it possible to easily prepare, integrate and transform data with a direct, visual approach, and will be available in 2017. Tableau customers interested in learning more about Project Maestro can visit www.tableau.com/project-maestro.
  • Tableau Server for Linux: Tableau revealed a version of Tableau Server for the Linux platform. Now users of the open-source operating system, including governments of all levels, educational institutions and businesses of every size, will be able to leverage the power of self-service analytics. Tableau for Linux will be available in 2017.
  • Next Leap in Analytics: Tableau continues to invest in making analytics easier for everyone. For example, Natural Language Processing will bring new ways to interact with data through human language. Tableau is also adding instant analytics, a new capability that will automatically provide contextual information as users interact with their data to help them find insights faster. These features will progressively become available throughout 2017 and beyond.
  • New Data Governance Capabilities. Enterprises will soon govern their self-service analytics environment at scale with new functionality in Tableau Server to certify data sources, easily conduct impact analysis on sources and workbooks, promote content and write workflows with simple drag and drop gestures. These capabilities will be available in 2017 and beyond.
  • New Collaboration Capabilities: Tableau showed upcoming capabilities to help users collaborate with each other and monitor the metrics they care about, enabling self-service at scale. Data-driven alerting will make it easier for people to stay on top of their data and be notified when key metrics exceed a specific threshold. Users will be able to collaborate and discuss insights directly within an analysis to drive better business outcomes starting in 2017.
  • Smart Recommendations:  Tableau demonstrated future plans to add a new machine learning recommendations engine to its platform. Algorithms will surface recommendations for workbooks and data sources that are trusted, highly used and contextually relevant to the individual workflow. Recommendations will be available in 2017.
  • New Hybrid Data Connectivity for the Cloud: Tableau showcased a new live query agent that will act as a secure tunnel to on-premises data. Data behind the firewall is easier to access and analyze with Tableau Online, Tableau’s SaaS managed service. This will be available in 2017.

TC16 features more than 400 sessions, 100 hands-on training labs, inspiring keynotes, plus the popular “Tableau Doctor” appointments with Tableau experts. More than 120 Tableau customers will share their success stories and analytics wins, including Blue Shield of California, Chick-fil-A, Coca-Cola Refreshments, Expedia, GoPro, Kohl’s Department Stores, Netflix, PATH, Redbox, Southwest Airlines, Twitter, and more. People from nearly every industry, including education, energy, banking, food and beverage, government, healthcare, manufacturing, non-profit, technology and retail share their data successes.

“TC16 is an opportunity to share our long-term vision for how we help our customers do more with data,” said Elissa Fink, Chief Marketing Officer at Tableau Software. “Our customers craft their personal learning journey and network with others who have a passion for transforming their organizations and the world with data.”

In addition to live-streaming, people can follow the conference proceedings by following the Twitter hashtag #data16.