Power BI UI Kit is here 🔥✨

The easiest and most powerful way to prototype #powerbi dashboards.

-Save thousands of hours
-Build higher quality dashboards
-Design consistently

See what it's all about 👇

What is the Power BI UI Kit?

It's a Figma UI Kit purposefully built for prototyping Power BI dashboards.

You can feel confident while prototyping that everything will look just like it does in Power BI.

Let's take a look at what you'll be getting with the Power BI UI Kit ✨

1️⃣ Styles
2️⃣ Slicers/Legends
3️⃣ Charts
4️⃣ Dashboard components
5️⃣ Examples

1️⃣ Styles

The Kit comes with 1,000+ different styles.

Obviously all of the Power BI themes are there, but you also get a ton of other palettes to choose from.

2️⃣ Slicers/Legends

All slicers and legends from Power BI have been designed 1-1.

Each component comes with a ton of customization options. Giving you the flexibility to prototype more accurately and faster.

3️⃣ Charts

The kit comes with 28 charts!

Creating these charts from scratch, making them responsive and adding in customization options is a tedious and difficult task.

But now you can just drag and drop 🔥

4️⃣ Dashboard components

A well built dashboard is much more than some charts on a page.

A lot can be added to make it more user friendly and well designed.

5️⃣ Examples

The kit comes with 12+ expertly crafted examples.

Don't know where to start? Need some inspiration? The examples are the perfect starting place for any new project.

Check it out for yourself 👇
https://powerbiuikit.com/


Don't hesitate to reach out directly with any questions, concerns or feedback.

I know this is a new concept for many in the #powerbi community, but I really think it'll take your company to the next level 🔥

Introducing the Power BI UI Kit

I passively made $53k in 506 days selling two files online 🌐

All in my free time...

Curious to know how? Let's dive in: 👇

Important notes before I get started 📝

- I have a 9-5, these are just side projects I love creating

- I'm not a business expert. I did a thing and it happened to work. Maybe it could work for you (not a guarantee)

- Was a fairly substantial time commitment for me

Selling a product online in four steps

1️⃣ Idea
2️⃣ Build
3️⃣ Launch
4️⃣ Feedback, iterate, wait

-------

Will be discussing strategies, what did and didn't work and the tools I used to do everything.

1️⃣ Idea

People have ideas all the time, but most don't actually go through with bringing the idea to life.

You'll never know if something works or not until you put yourself out there.

Just do the thing, you'll be better off for it.

How do you determine if an idea will be successful or not? 🤔

First off, success is subjective.

Is success just creating the thing?
Is success reaching a certain revenue?

Don't compare yourself to others, just determine what success is for you.

You can't guarantee success ❌

But there's things you can do to better position yourself to be successful.

Market analysis 📈

Essentially, it's assessing the landscape.

You need to understand customer needs, competitors, and market trends.

IMO doing a quick google search for competitors and talking with a few people is good enough when you're just starting.

Niche Down 🎯

Focus on a smaller, specialized market to differentiate, cater to unique needs, and build stronger customer relationships.

Less competition, higher profits.

In my case, I was well-versed in Business Intelligence and Design, so I decided to focus my efforts there.

There's a ton of different strategies for validating ideas and finding product market fit.

But IMO it's best to just build 👊

Intuition based off field expertise trumps everything.

2️⃣ Build

Now that you've done the research and have your idea, it's time to build.

This phase is the most fun and it's where your creativity is let loose.

In my case, I was creating a UI Kit in Figma for a program called Tableau.

I knew fairly little about building UI Kits and didn't have the Figma skills to build it.

But that doesn't matter, the product is in my head and I think I can do it.

Get ready to learn 📕

If you limit yourself to only building products with skills you currently have then you're missing out on a ton of great ideas.

I spent around six months building the Tableau UI Kit and struggled the entire time.

Thoughts came into my head like "is this worth it?" or "can I actually do this?"

You just have to push through, not much else to say.

But be careful of...

Perfection trap 🤷‍♂️

There's no such thing as a perfect product.

Embracing iteration and learning from feedback is key.

Of course, you want a high-quality product, but be mindful that the law of diminishing returns eventually comes into play.

3️⃣ Launch

This is the area I was most confused about when first starting.

I had a lot of questions:

- Should the product be free or paid?
- How do I actually sell?
- How much should I charge?
- Do I need a website?
- How often should I promote?

I'll answer all of these

Should the product be free or paid? 🆓 💰

People are willing to pay for things they find valuable. Just because you're not willing to pay for a particular thing doesn't mean someone else isn't.

Think about your audience. Would they pay for it based off the value it'll provide?

It's also a good sales tactic to offer free products initially and then introduce a paid product.

This approach can help attract potential customers, showcase the value of your offerings, and create a sense of trust before encouraging them to purchase the paid product.

How do I actually sell? 🤔

There's a ton of ways to sell things online.

Choosing the right service for your needs is very important, and with so many options it can be confusing.

But I'll talk about the service I use and why I chose them.

I use @lmsqueezy for selling digital products

Why them?

- Reasonable fees (5% + 50¢)
- They're a merchant of record
- Best UI I've seen
- The team is focused and regularly push out new features
- Affiliate program is really good
- High converting checkout page

How much should I charge? 💸

Each product is unique, making it challenging to provide a specific answer.

However, there are several general principles/strategies that have worked for my products:

- Don't be afraid to increase prices.

- Look to competitors if you need help pricing.

- Keep pricing simple. Providing too many options can be confusing.

- Tiered pricing is my go to strategy, helps increase revenue.

- Buy once use forever. Subscription fatigue is real IMO.

Do I need a website? 🕸️

I'll take the hardline stance that having a website really helps sell your product.

Here's why:

- Branding and marketing (SEO)

- Customer trust (Testimonials/Reviews)

- Direct communication with customers (Contact forms)

- Upselling and cross-selling (increase revenue by promoting other products)

- Analytics and insights (Google Analytics)

- Flexibility

I use @webflow for all of my websites

Why them?

- Nearly unlimited design flexibility
- Webflow University
- Awesome community
- Great for SEO
- Create many websites, export code and host on @Netlify. I'm only paying $19 per month total for three websites.

How often should I promote? 🚨

As often as you can without feeling like you're spamming everyone on social media.

The worst thing you can do is send one tweet and never mention it again.

Be proud of what you created and let people know it exists.

4️⃣ Feedback, iterate, wait

Once the product has launched you need to get feedback from customers and start iterating for future versions.

Launching new versions is a great way to increase revenue and build trust with customers.

Make sure you get testimonials for the website.

If the product is buy once use forever, new versions aren't as necessary when compared to SaaS products.

Just get the product to a level of quality that'll hold up for a long period of time.

This'll allow you to focus on creating new products.

Not everything goes according to plan 😞

Sometimes you'll release a new product and there isn't much traction.

Could be for a few reasons:

- Product market fit isn't there
- Not engaging enough promotion
- Your SEO isn't great

But before panicking...

Give it time/Don't give up ⏳

It's crucial to remain patient, as success can take months or even years.

Just keep iterating and refining your product and strategies.

For reference, I just had my most profitable month and it's been over a year since initial launch.

I know that was a lot of info 😮‍💨

Hope you found some of it helpful!

Don't hesitate to reach out directly with any questions.

You can read the unrolled version of this thread here: https://typefully.com/RobertJanezic/ebJYHft

Passive Income: How I Made $53k Selling Two Files Online

Tableau UI Kit 2.0 is here ✨

Easily the largest update so far

Find out what's new in 2.0 👇

19 new charts 📊

The Tableau UI Kit now has most, if not all of the foundational charts you'd need.

Rebuilt all components using new Figma features (component properties) 🔥

-Significantly cuts down on number of variants
-More user friendly for Figma novices
-Adds a lot more flexibility

Beautiful new Dashboard Examples 🤙

Don't know where to start? Need some inspiration? The examples are the perfect starting place for any new project.

Brand new dashboard components ✨

These new components can really take your dashboards to the next level.

Switched from Material Icons to Heroicons
https://heroicons.com/

This new version has been a labor of love and I hope you find it immensely valuable.

Check it out 👇
https://www.tableauuikit.com

Cover inspiration from @SShuaiqi

Should definitely give a follow. Tons of great Figma content 👍

Tableau UI Kit 2.0

Is Tableau dead? 💀

I've been thinking about the future of the tool a lot lately, and here's my thoughts 🧵

Before I continue I have to acknowledge the layoffs that just happened at Salesforce.

It seems like it's hit Tableau especially hard and it sucks to see such talented people lose their jobs. I hope everyone will be able to land on their feet quickly.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/04/technology/salesforce-layoffs.html

To tackle the original question of "Is Tableau Dead?" we have to analyze why people are proposing it in the first place.

So really the question is...

Why are people pessimistic about the future of Tableau?

There's a lot of ways to go about this, but I'll break it down into three main categories. Then give some predictions and a conclusion.

1️⃣ Ecosystem
2️⃣ Community/Culture
3️⃣ AI/Machine Learning
-------
4️⃣ Predictions
5️⃣ Conclusion

1️⃣ ECOSYSTEM

In the coming 3-5 years I believe tableau will lose more and more market share to Power BI.

Let me explain...

Salesforce recently acquired Slack for $27 billion. At face value this seems great.

Those using slack think "Wow this is great, so many people use slack".
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/01/technology/salesforce-slack-deal.html

But market share shows us something else...

Teams is becoming a beast and the likelihood your company switches to it increases by the day.

I can hear people telling me now.

"So you're saying Tableau is dead because of Microsoft Teams integration with Power BI?".

No, I'm not. But I am saying the Microsoft business ecosystem is nearly unstoppable.

Think about the foundational apps companies use. Word, Powerpoint, Excel, Outlook. Office 365 is an all in one bundle.

Remember, it's not just the tool that's important. It's the ecosystem.

Oh btw, Microsoft owns Skype and at some point will completely switch everyone to teams.

Meaning Microsoft would have an 85% market share for communication.

Aaaaand Microsoft owns Windows, which means they can do things like this.

And Windows has a 76% market share btw.

https://www.theverge.com/2021/6/24/22549191/skype-windows-11-microsoft-teams

I hope you can see what I'm getting at.

Microsoft owns and operates things that are foundational building blocks for large portions of the market.

So it's inevitable IMO that one of their tools (Power BI) increases market share because of these facts 🤷‍♂️

2️⃣ COMMUNITY/CULTURE

Tableau has an amazing community and is one of the reasons I've kept up with it for so long.

But it's slowly withering.

The user community have been at odds with the direction of things for some time.

Displeasure with new features that are mostly focused around integrations, instead of quality of life improvements that have been sitting on the ideas page for a decade.

https://community.tableau.com/s/ideas

These feature decisions haven't really made people switch completely

But it has made users question their future with the tool and has increased the likelihood they look into a different tool

Or take that job with a different company that uses a different tool

It's a slow burn

Tableau product managers have told me directly "We want to do the things you're talking about, but we literally have to focus on Salesforce".

I feel for them. They want to improve things, but have their hands tied.

Which leads me into Salesforce culture...

I don't want to speculate here, so I'll only mention things I've seen reported and have been told.

It appears that salesforce acquires companies, then forces their culture on them. With little regard for the acquired company.
https://twitter.com/kyliebytes/status/1611187831870980096?s=20&t=kKq0WPX2cTQFTkEoU8mOcg

It also seems like Executives at Salesforce are only interested in Salesforce.

They have little interest in understanding these acquired companies, the people in them or the culture/community they've built.

They care about acquiring and jamming the acquired into their ecosystem

Obviously multiple things can be true.

I guarantee there's people at Salesforce that genuinely care and only want the best. But I think it's a minority.

Just look at the amount of people that attended the Dreamforce VizGames.

It's not a direct correlation, but it doesn't seem like something is catching on over there.

I want to clarify that I don't work at these companies and this is my perspective as an outsider.

Please feel free to add your own stories and opinions below.

Would love to hear from you.

3️⃣ AI/MACHINE LEARNING

Tableau for the last few years has been pushing AI and Machine Learning hard, and for good reason.

AI is inevitable and will drastically change the ways in which we interact with everything.

But Tableau was too heavy handed IMO
https://www.tableau.com/solutions/ai-analytics

It appears like they focused lots of time on features like:

Ask Data
Explain Data
Data Stories
Einstein Discovery
Data Stories

There's much debate about the usefulness of these features. I'm on the side of not being useful.

But for a different reason than you might think...

They're useful in theory, which means the reason for their existence makes sense (although the marketing is confusing for users).

IMO they're not useful because they're just not good enough.

In recent months we've started to see what "good enough" means .https://www.vox.com/recode/2022/12/7/23498694/ai-artificial-intelligence-chat-gpt-openai

Tools like ChatGPT and Dall-E have changed the ways in which we perceive AI.

It went from "Ya AI is just a buzzword people use for marketing decks".

To "Ok this is pretty crazy, I can actually use this in my day to day work".

But here's the thing, these tools were just released and were created by a cream of the crop AI research and deployment company.

I'd say there's only a few companies that could create something at that level.

It's not to say Salesforce couldn't create something at the level needed to be truly useful in users day to day lives.

But they're years and years away.

So what does this mean for Tableau?

It means the current AI/Machine Learning features are years and years away from being truly useful to users.

I think Microsoft is self aware they're in the same boat and is starting to adapt accordingly.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/jan/05/microsoft-chatgpt-bing-search-engine

The years of AI/Machine learning development at Tableau may all be for not, because companies can just start licensing out to these cream of the crop AI companies.

I wish they instead focused on significantly improving the development experience for day to day users.

My prediction is that there will be a few companies that focus on Artificial General Intelligence.

These models will be able to understand or learn any intellectual task that a human being can.

Companies will pay for the right to use the models in their tools.

I know people are going to respond.

"No, these Tableau features are helpful for xyz reason".

And you're absolutely correct.

Remember that multiple things can be true at the same time. There are in fact users getting use from them...

But the masses will not adopt them in current state.

AI must hit escape velocity for it to happen. Give it 7 years

4️⃣ PREDICTIONS

-Tableau will integrate more and more with Salesforce. Total user base will stay the same or increase, just switch hands. Tableau customers before Salesforce acquisition will start moving to another platform (unless they're heavily integrated into salesforce).

-Those heavily integrated in Salesforce CRM will see Tableau as a good add and will continue to use salesforce into the future and add more seats post Q2 2024.

-Power BI will slowly chip away at current Tableau user base due to ecosystem.

-Tableau AI features won't be adopted at scale until AI reaches escape velocity.

-Hardcore Tableau users will use the tool until the wheels come off. Meaning, there's nothing that could be said to get them to switch. The Tableau of years past really built something amazing.

-2023 will be a brutal years for SaaS companies, so more Salesforce layoffs a strong possibility (let's hope this is completely wrong).

5️⃣ CONCLUSION

I don't care about Tableau the tool. I care about the people associated to it.

It's not what the tool can do. It's about the connections and opportunities that come from it.

Back to the original question 🤷‍♂️

Is Tableau dead?

No, of course not. It'll just look different from what you're used to. The changes may or may not suit you, and you'll have to act accordingly.

But what won't change are the connections. Important reminder.

Please feel free to voice your opinion. I'd love to hear from others.

What did I get right? What did I get wrong?

There's a lot of nuance to this convo and I know I'm missing things. Needed to focus on a few areas.

Much Love 🤙✌️

You can read the unrolled version of this thread here: https://typefully.com/RobertJanezic/CfYQXzY

Is Tableau dead? 💀

Ever wondered how people combine @Tableau and @Figma?

Here's 5 practical use cases 👇

But first...what is Figma?

Figma is a collaborative web-based graphics editing and prototyping application.

Important things to know:
1. There's a free version
2. It's easy to pick up and learn
3. There's a thriving community

https://www.figma.com/

Use Case 1 - Prototyping

Prototyping is a simulation or sample version of a final product, which teams use for feedback/ testing before launch.

You can create prototypes by hand

or

Use tableauuikit.com to significantly speed up the process and improve quality

Use Case 2 - Dashboard Assets

These are things like buttons, tabs, breadcrumbs, etc.

There's significant advantages to doing this work in Figma instead of something like Powerpoint

Figma is much more advanced and you can control padding, use consistent styles and much more!

Use Case 3 - Dashboard Backgrounds

Tableau does not have native features that allow for things like shadows, rounded corners, line height, etc.

So people use Figma to achieve it

Steps:
1 - Create background in Figma
2 - Export image
3 - Add to dashboard

Use Case 4 - Icons

Many designers are starting to use Figma  for their icon work

If you need to edit an icon for your dashboard, or create something new; Figma will get you there (unless you're a very advanced icon designer)

The next use case is not Tableau specific...

But, I think it's important to mention 😬

Use Case 5 - Presentations

I now create all of my presentations using Figma. I will no longer use Powerpoint

The difference is night and day

I know people are hesitant of new software, but this is definitely a "once you start using it you'll never go back situation"

I know having to learn new software can be time consuming and daunting

But, the advantages a tool like Figma can provide are unquestionable. Plus, it's by far and away the top design tool right now (would look great on a resume)

Don't believe me?

https://uxtools.co/survey-2021/


Tableau + Figma: 5 Practical Use Cases

I have a lot of thoughts on Tableau Conference 🫢

Some good, some bad

So here we go 👇

Learning is secondary

Almost all of the information presented at conference is most likely already a blog/video, or the session will be available on youtube a week later.

Even when I was less skilled, I never felt like the cost was justified from a learning perspective

Fake enthusiasm from Tableau

Humans can spot this pretty easily. Having talked with non community members about this conference, they said it turned them off. Words being used such as "cult" or "cringe" were thrown around

Not everyone is a die hard fan

Networking

This is a major benefit! But don't confuse networking with getting together with people we already know and have relationships with. Nothing wrong with the latter, but don't disguise it.

Braindates are the best thing about conference. Meet people you don't know!!

Salesforce/Virtual

Our in person company event was rough

-People felt like they were constantly being sold to
-New features don't apply to them
-A lot of the perceived "tangible" sessions were not available

Frequently turned off to discuss ourselves

All that being said...there's one main reason I still think the in person conference is worth it👇

Environment

Bring the environment and enthusiasm back to your company. Start weekly internal learning sessions, start an internal tableau public, hold internal doctor sessions, create internal ambassadors

Bring conference with you, don't leave it behind

Would love to hear your opinion. Much Love 🤙

You can read the unrolled version of this thread here: https://typefully.com/RobertJanezic/vDZNlEb

Is Tableau Conference Worth it?

Tableau UI Kit v1.5 is here!! 🔥

I'm trying to democratize dashboard prototyping, help teams document their brand guidelines and improve overall quality. This new release is the next step in that journey.

www.tableauuikit.com

Check out the new features in the thread below👇

New Charts (Stacked, Lollipop, Donut)

It's as easy as ever to switch between sub-category chart types now. Simply choose what type you want, and voila you have a new chart!

A lot more documentation

Foundational information you need to get up and running. Helpful additional resources are also included at the end of each documentation page for more learning opportunities!

New simplified page navigation

The old navigation was clunky and inefficient. So I've developed a new structure that is a lot cleaner and way more concise!  

Spec Sheets

All of your styles are now visually represented. This is a great way for your team to document brand guidelines!

File components

The entire kit has a new look and feel. All coming from the new file components. This is a great way to stay organized and consistent. Feel free to change the components to make the kit your own!

Bug fixes

A lot of smaller bug fixes were made. Thank you to everyone who reached out with feedback. I want to make this kit as easy to use as possible and these fixes definitely helped!

You can read the unrolled version of this thread here: https://typefully.com/RobertJanezic/pnJNYbY