Tableau Overview

This Plugin allows connecting to Tableau server and extracting data for Datasets that can be used as a source for Metrics and Reports in Metric Insights. This way, you can combine Tableau and Metric Insights efforts to understand your data better.

Establish Connectivity

Access Admin > Collection & Storage > Data Sources

  1. If the required Tableau connection profile has been already created, select it from the list.
  2. Alternatively, click [+New Data Source] to create a new Tableau connection profile.

Fetch Data by Creating a Dataset

Metric Insights extracts data from the Tableau server in the form of Datasets (shown above). Information obtained from these Datasets is further used as data source for MI elements such as Metrics and Reports.

Tableau Datasets can be created under:

  • + New > Dataset > Create New
  • Alternatively, Admin > Collection & Storage > Data Sources > Tableau Data Source Name Link > Datasets Tab

Construct Plugin Command by Using Visual Editor

Data is extracted via a plugin command, consisting of parameters specifying what data should be fetched.

If you are familiar with Tableau syntax, you can write a command manually or use a Visual Editor available under the Plugin command field. This way, the command can be constructed simply by checking the fields that should be included into the request. Note that this method is also favorable since it eliminates the likelihood of mistakes often made when typing the command manually.

Make sure that your command lists columns in the right order. Consult the hint text to the right of the Plugin command field. To change column order in the Visual editor, click the icon next to the column name and drag it to the position it should be.

Create Metrics/Reports

Tableau Datasets can be used for creation of Metrics and Reports. This article describes how to select the appropriate type of Element to visualize your data.  

Automating Data Collection

All the data fetched from Tableau is always extracted automatically and this can be configured in Metric/Report Editor > Data tab:

  1. Data Collection Trigger: You can configure the periodic trigger that will independently start data collection
  2. Recollect Data: You can also initiate data collection manually.

Create External Reports

With an External Report, you can drill down from another Metric Insights Tile into the specified external report passing specified filters to show only selected values in the External platform.  

Tableau External Reports can be either embedded directly into the Viewer as Live Visualizations or can serve as links to a specified external web pages.

Pre-Filter Data to Be Collected

You can pre-filter data before fetching it to be able to focus on a specific slice of data.

For detailed instructions refer to:

Tableau reports can be either embedded directly into the Viewer as Live Visualizations or can serve as links to a specified external web pages.

Configure Secure Authentication

  • Trusted server can be used for data collection
  • Single-Sign on is supported for click-through/embedding