Great dashboards do more than display data—they drive decisions. In this session, we'll explore what separates exceptional analysts from the rest by focusing on the art of building dashboards that users actually adopt and trust. Learn practical strategies for gathering requirements, designing with the end user in mind, simplifying complex information, and transforming data into meaningful business insights. Whether you're new to analytics or an experienced professional, you'll leave with actionable techniques to create dashboards that deliver real impact.

The Portland Tableau User Group returns on Tuesday, August 11 for a one hour virtual meetup. We open with a recap of Tableau Conference 2026, walk through what is new in the latest release of Tableau Desktop, and close with our featured presentation.

From Prompt to Platform, presented by Kanwal Kour, Solutions Architect at Concentrix, shows what happens when a governed AI agent answers a board question in about 90 seconds. Connected through the Model Context Protocol to Salesforce Data Cloud, Tableau Next, and certified Tableau data sources, the agent surfaces the root causes, names the accounts at risk, and drafts the board narrative live on stage. Then it is asked for direct SQL access and declines every time, proving the governance model in public. This is the session that drew a standing room audience at Tableau Conference 2026, Session 1521.

Bring your questions on MCP, governance, and agentic analytics. Register to receive the join link ahead of the event.

In this session, Esra Mason guides the Data + Women North Carolina User Group through a thought-provoking discussion around professional development! She offers valuable strategies and a fresh perspective for recognizing your goals, and aligning what energizes you towards the next step in a gratifying career.

Ready to chill under the data stars? ✨

This August, we’re cooling down the summer heat with a spectacular celestial line-up. Join the Tableau Public TUG for an evening of stellar visualizations and community insights as we spotlight three of the brightest luminaries in the #DataFam.

🌟 The Guiding Star: Adam Mico

As the Tableau Director of Product Management and a Tableau Visionary, Adam is a true North Star for our community. He’ll be sharing his unique perspective on product innovation across Data Cloud and AI, as well as the impact of the #DataFamRisingStars initiative he helped launch.

🌠 The Rising Stars: Ollie Ross Russell & Rosh Khan

We are also thrilled to feature two standouts from the 2026 Rising Stars cohort who are pushing the limits of design:

● Ollie Ross Russell will walk us through his Golf Club Overview Dashboard, a "hole-in-one" viz recognized for its innovative storytelling.

● Rosh Khan will present his Gym Tracker, a recent Viz of the Day that serves as a "bright spark" for blending clean design with impactful educational content.

Click the link and get ready to see the "magic" behind these stellar vizzes—from initial inspiration to the ""special sauce"" that gives them that "Wow" factor

Next Level Spatial Mapping + Prep Spatial Functions
Ready to upgrade your Tableau mapping skills? Learn how Tableau’s spatial data types and functions work together to analyze distance, intersections, and relationships — and unlock deeper insights.
Don Wise, Tableau Ambassador, Owner/Principal, DC Wise LLC
Jim Dehner, Hall of Fame Tableau Visionary with more than a decade of expertise and co-founder of the Tableau Newbie User Group, Tableau Ambassador, Market Analytics LLC
And we'll cover new (and existing) spatial functions in Tableau Prep that you might have missed!
Darin Bergeson, MBA, Senior Product Manager at Tableau

Data + Women: US West Coast is excited to welcome Iron Viz Chamption Ann Pregler.

What does it take to build an epic Iron Viz story? Ann Pregler will walk through her Iron Viz journey, from qualifiers to championship, and discuss how to use design, analytics, and storytelling principles to level up your data visualizations.

Iron Viz: https://www.salesforce.com/plus/experience/tableau_conference_2026/series/tableau_conference_2026_highlights/episode/episode-s1e26

Ann Pregler's Tableau Public:

https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/ann.pregler/vizzes

Ann's winning Iron Viz:

https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/ann.pregler/viz/GenreMash-UpMadness-IronViz26/Opener

Visualization resources:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1t8pe7fAUmIcb87QBSF_sl7YyAXZXLGv6hyzgi3mp5ao/edit?usp=sharing

Visualization submission form:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdZFT1WssJ9JKFDfD8GOoS-_fQVJs6gIH7Xk9KHqcYOqyQjaQ/viewform

Join the Slack Community: tableau.com/community/slack/join

Tableau Learning Hub:

tableau.com/Learn

"From Vibe to Vizibly: Data Badges, Event Engagement & Building in the Open" by J. Michelle Maraj and Sophie Sparkes

What is a data badge, and how can it get people talking before, during, and after your event? In this session, we'll discuss how data badges spark engagement at every stage: spreading the word ahead of time, breaking the ice in the room, and keeping people involved once the event wraps. Then we'll go behind the scenes on Vizibly (vizibly.live), the event badging platform we built to make this easy. You'll get a live walkthrough and demo, watch a badge come together from scratch, and hear how the whole thing was vibe-coded on Lovable before moving to Claude Code. Come for the badges, stay for the build story.

This is a great session to get an introduction to the options and features a Tableau Administrator has within Tableau Server/Cloud.

Some of the subjects we will cover in this TUG:

Navigation

Users

Groups

Schedules (Tableau Server)

Introduction to Permissions

Built-in monitoring tools

Server Status Page (Tableau Server)

Admin reports

We will also leave some time at the end to have a short Q&A.

Visualizing the Retail Journey

'Beyond the Dashboard: Evolution of PDS with Tableau Next' by Aedan Radvanyi

Don’t rebuild — promote existing published data sources. Learn to audit, clean, and map your legacy extracts to the new AI semantic layer"