Four Cool New Features in Tableau 2025.2: Part 1

 

In June, Tableau released the latest versions of their platforms (with the exception of Server, which is now on a twice annual release cycle) and there is a ton of new stuff!! Lots of it involves Tableau Next and Pulse, but there are also some nice additions to Desktop & Cloud. In my next two posts, I’m going to introduce you to four of those new Desktop & Cloud features. In today’s post, I’ll introduce you to the first two, Google Apps Integration and Dynamic Spatial Parameters.

 

Google Apps Integration

With the Google Apps integration, we can now insert Tableau Cloud content directly into Google Docs or Slides. The setup process is relatively easy and is well documented here: Tableau Add-on for Google Workspaces. But, here’s a high level summary of the steps required:

 

1.  Install the Add-On from Google Workspace Marketplace.

2.  Configure the Add-on from within Google Docs or Slides.

3.  Configure your Site settings (requires that you set up a Connected App in Cloud).

 

Once that’s set up, you can insert a dashboard, sheet, or Pulse Metric from Cloud using the Tableau app on the side panel.

 

 

This process essentially just captures a point-in-time image of the content—the same as you’d get if you downloaded an image manually. That means 1) Certain types of content, such as web page objects, will not render and 2) The embedded content is not interactive—you cannot click on marks, apply filters, etc. If you need to see a filtered view of content, you’ll need to configure that ahead of time. In this case, my suggestion is to create a Custom View then insert that slide (you’ll need to use the URL method as custom views are not an option when you search).

 

To get an updated version of the content, you’ll use the Refresh Existing Tableau Images option at the top.

 

In the past, to insert Tableau content into Docs or Slides, you’ve probably just downloaded an image then inserted that image. Ultimately, this process is doing pretty much the same thing, except it’s slightly more automated, making it easier to find the content you need, insert that content, and update it. However, it also requires a connection to your Tableau Cloud environment, which may make some administrators and information security people uncomfortable.

 

Dynamic Spatial Parameters

According to the New Features page, “With dynamic spatial parameters, you can filter data by map viewport, use the zoom to scale marks, and keep multiple maps in sync—all without reloading.”

 

So, what the heck is a Map Viewport? In Tableau, a map viewport is essentially the visible area of a map. This changes when you zoom in and out, pan, etc. With “Dynamic Spatial Parameters” (also known as “Map Viewport Parameters”), you can record the value of the viewport (essentially a rectangular polygon) into a parameter. To do this, we need to first create a parameter with “Spatial” data type. We then change the “Dynamic Value” as shown here.

 

 

Important Note: You can specify the viewport based on the sheet or the dashboard. In the above example, I’ve specified it based on the dashboard. This means that the parameter is only updated when I’m interacting with the dashboard. It will not update when I interact with the sheet directly.

 

Now, when I zoom in/out, pan, etc., this parameter gets updated with the viewport.

 

The value in the parameter represents a polygon spatial object, which can be used on the same or a different map. We can’t use it directly, so we’ll create a calculated field that refers to the parameter, then we can drop that calculated field on a sheet and create a new map.

 

Use Case # 1: Synchronize Multiple Maps

Now let’s combine our two maps on our dashboard. Watch what happens as we zoom or pan the map feeding the parameter.

 

 

The second map is essentially synchronized with the first!! This is super handy if you have multiple maps and want them to zoom and pan in a synchronized fashion.

 

But it’s a bit more complicated than that. Let’s enhance the second map by adding more detail to it. Using a spatial file of US rivers from opendata.arcgis.com, I’ve plotted all US rivers on the map.

 

 

Unfortunately, our map no longer synchronizes. This is because the map is automatically zooming to fit the content in the view. We can see our viewport object changing, but the map does not zoom in. To address this, we’ll need to filter our secondary map. What we want to do is find the intersection of the rivers and our viewport, so we’ll create the following calculated field in our Rivers data source.

 

Then we use that as a filter on our second map, keeping True values. Now, as the viewport changes, the map is filtered and the zooms automatically to fit, essentially synchronizing our view.

 

 

This is, of course, imperfect, as some of our rivers stretch outside of the viewport, meaning that the second map isn’t zoomed exactly the same as the first, but it’s relatively close.

 

One last thing we’ll want to do here is to hide the viewport rectangle on the second map. The easiest way to do that is to change the opacity to 0% and disable selection on that map layer.

 

Note: INTERSECTS requires spatial fields, but Tableau cannot currently convert generated latitudes and longitudes into spatial fields. Thus, this technique would not work if you were leveraging Tableau’s geocoding database by dropping something like State on the view. You’ll need an actual spatial field or latitude and longitude coordinates.

 

Use Case # 2: “Where Are You?” Map Key

In the first use case, we saw what happens when you don’t add the intersects filter. Fortunately, that example has a great use case. I’ve created a map showing country capitals and using the Satellite background. I’ve then zoomed in to a specific spot on the map. Can you tell where in the world we are here?

 

 

To help people to understand where we are, we can create a key that visualizes the area of the world we’re showing on screen. And we can make that completely dynamic using viewport parameters.

 

 

Use Case # 3: Scale Marks

One final use case is to scale the marks as we zoom. Let’s use the satellite view of country capitals for this example. When zoomed all the way out, we want those star marks to be relatively small since there’s a lot of overlap.

 

 

But, as we zoom in, they become a little harder to see. Wouldn’t it be nice if those marks could grow a little larger the further we zoom? We can do this by capturing the area of the viewport then sizing accordingly. We’ll create the following calculated field:

 

 

Then we’ll drag that to the size card of our map. We’ll then edit the size legend so that it is reversed—the smaller the visible area (i.e. the more zoomed we are), the larger the object—and so that it goes from 0 to 510,000,000 (the total square kilometers on the Earth’s surface).

 

 

Note: For a smoother experience, take the square root of the area and use that for the size. The scale should then go from 0 to 22,583.

 

Now, as we zoom, the viewport area becomes smaller and the mark sizes increase.

 

 

I think there are likely lots of other cool use cases for this feature and I can’t wait to see what the Datafam comes up with!!

 

Up Next

In my next post, I’ll introduce two more cool features, Show Me 2.0 and Dynamic Color Ranges. See you soon! And, if you have any cool use cases for these two new features, let us know in the comments!!

Ken Flerlage, June 23, 2025

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