Design and Troubleshoot Calculations and Workbooks40% of the exam

Dashboard design elements that slow rendering

Use the Workbook Optimizer's design guidelines to fix slow dashboards: fixed sizing, fewer visible sheets and views, summary-first drill-down, fewer layout containers and data sources, fewer filters and marks, and web images that stay within Image Role's size and count limits.

Official exam objective
Identify and resolve performance issues caused by design elements such as number of sheets, number of filters, and image size.

~7 min read · 8 practice questions ·

What the exam expects

  • Read a Workbook Optimizer result (Take action, Needs review, Passed) and decide which design guideline to act on, ignore or autofix.
  • Explain why dashboard sizing, the number of visible sheets and the number of views on a dashboard change load time, and recommend the documented fix.
  • Recommend a summary-first dashboard with details on request instead of one dashboard that shows everything.
  • Remove design weight that adds no value: unnecessary layout containers, unused data sources, excess filters and marks.
  • Size web images for Image Role so they load: file size, images per field and the server-side rendering limit.

Key terms:

  • Workbook Optimizer: a rules engine that checks a workbook's metadata against performance guidelines, run from the Server menu or the publishing dialog.
  • Guided drill-down: opening with summary views and showing details only when the user asks, through action filters, show/hide containers or navigation.
  • Image Role: a role on a discrete dimension of URLs that shows the web images in headers.
  • Server-side rendering: Tableau Server, not the browser, draws the view, chosen when the view is complex.

Key facts

Optimizer categories
Detail
Take action, Needs review, Passed (Passed and ignored once a guideline is ignored)
Optimizer and publishing
Detail
Voluntary; it doesn't prevent publishing
Views per dashboard
Detail
Generally two or three
Sheets in a dashboard or story
Detail
Can't be deleted, only hidden
Hide Card
Detail
Does not delete the filter itself
Zooming
Detail
Changes the view, not the total number of marks
Image file size
Detail
Each image smaller than 200 KB
Images per field
Detail
Usually up to 500; 100 with server-side rendering
Render thresholds
Detail
Complexity 100 for computers, 60 for mobile, by default
Polygon marks
Detail
Always rendered on the server
Sources for this section (6)
  • Why can a view that uses the polygon mark type still render on Tableau Server when client-side rendering is enabled?
  • When would an administrator lower the mobile complexity threshold below its default of 60?
  • Why can custom geocoding slow a workbook even before anyone opens a map?
  • Which Optimizer category holds guidelines whose fix has minimal to no impact on the workbook's functionality?

The questions are free to read. Answers with their sources and self-grading are included with the pack.

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