Maximizing Tableau Server

Patrick Sarsfield, Brandi Locker, Adam Mico

• Publisher: Packt Publishing
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781801076579
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business Intelligence
• Index: Business

Enhance the way you use Tableau Server's analytical tools by learning how to manage content to drive user engagementKey Features• Understand how to quickly get connected, start publishing workbooks, and adjust basic settings• Navigate the Tableau Server interface to filter and locate content, customize viewing options, and automate various tasks• Learn best practices for improving the efficiency of workbooks and data sourcesBook DescriptionTableau Server is a business intelligence application that provides a centralized location to store, edit, share, and collaborate on content, such as dashboards and curated data sources. This book gets you up and running with Tableau Server to help you increase end-user engagement for your published work as well as reduce or eliminate redundant tasks. You'll explore Tableau Server's structure and how to get started by connecting, publishing content, and navigating the software interface. Next, you'll learn when and how to update the settings of your content at various levels to best utilize Tableau Server's features. You'll understand how to interact with the Tableau Server interface to locate, sort, filter, manage and customize content. Later, the book shows you how to leverage other valuable features that enable you and your audience to share, download, and interact with content on Tableau Server. As you progress, you'll cover principles to increase the performance of your published content. All along, the book shows you how to navigate, interact with, and use Tableau Server with the help of engaging examples and best practices shared by recognized Tableau professionals. By the end of this Tableau book, you'll have a solid understanding of how to use Tableau Server to manage content, automate tasks, and increase end-user engagement.What you will learn• Get well-versed in Tableau Server's interface to quickly and easily access essential content• Explore the different types of content and navigate through the project hierarchy quickly• Understand how to connect, publish, manage, and modify content on Tableau Server• Discover how to share content and collaborate with others• Automate tedious tasks by creating custom views, alerts, subscriptions, and data refresh schedules• Build data visualizations using Web Edit• Understand how to monitor disparate metrics on multiple dashboardsWho this book is forThis Tableau software book is for BI developers, data analysts, and everyday users who have access to Tableau Server and possess basic web navigation skills. No prior experience with Tableau Server is required.

Section 1: Getting Started with Tableau Server

In this section, you will be introduced to Tableau Server and its structure, licenses, and permissions. You will gain an understanding of the difference between Tableau Public and Tableau Server, how to quickly get connected, and how to start publishing content.

This section comprises the following chapters:

• Chapter 1, What is Tableau Server?
• Chapter 2, How to Connect and Publish to Tableau Server

Chapter 1: What is Tableau Server?

Tableau Server is part of the Tableau business intelligence platform that provides a centralized location to store content, including dashboards, data sources, and much more. It can be used as a collaboration tool for product development and as a communication tool to distribute information to end users. It facilitates the interactive exploration of shared data visualizations and connections and automates tasks so that your content is up to date and convenient to access. In this context, content simply refers to reports and data sources that have been published to Tableau Server.

After completing this chapter, you should have a keen understanding of the basic structure of Tableau Server and how it interacts with other Tableau products. Additionally, you will learn about the various Tableau Server licenses, site roles, and permissions that are available and how they impact each other to dictate the user experience.

In this chapter, the following main topics will be covered:

• What is Tableau Server and why should I care?
• Examining Tableau's basic structure
• Understanding what a site is on Tableau Server
• Understanding licenses, site roles, and permissions

What is Tableau Server and why should I care?

Tableau Server is a web-based application that provides Tableau Desktop users with the ability to upload and store interactive dashboards and data sources within a centralized location. Once content has been published to Tableau Server, the owner has the ability to determine the individual users or groups who have access to it and to what extent. Content such as dashboards, worksheets, and stories can be easily shared by providing a hyperlink. This platform fosters and enhances collaboration, knowledge sharing, data exploration, and data communication.

This book has been written to benefit Tableau Server end users and content creators first and foremost. Learning how to navigate and leverage Tableau Server is the primary focus of this book. This book will help you to understand the tools that are used to drive the engagement and utilization of this amazing platform within your group or organization.

If you are reading this book, you might already be familiar with a Tableau product such as Tableau Desktop, Tableau Public, Tableau Prep, or one of the many other products the company offers. Conversely, you might have no experience with Tableau or any other data analytics or data visualization software at all and were just granted access. Whichever camp you fall into, this book can help you. Why? Well, this book is written for the majority of users: the people who create and publish content and the end users with whom this content is shared. It is not an expectation that the reader of this book is or plans to become a Tableau Server Administrator or possess the knowledge of a Tableau Zen Master.

This book is written for regular analysts and developers who just want to gain a better understanding of this product to increase their productivity, drive engagement, and increase the utilization of their data-driven products. The reasons for wanting to explore this topic can be multifaceted and varied: for self-growth, for the better dissemination of information, or to gain a competitive advantage. Whatever your goal with Tableau Server, this book will help.

Tableau Desktop is where data analysis and visualization take place. But then what? Next, you need to share this information with consumers. Historically, this has been done by sharing unsecured reports with static data in the form of a spreadsheet or slide. Tableau Server provides information to consumers via a more secure, interactive, and automatable process to accomplish a task.

There are several major benefits of Tableau Server, including the following:

• Automation: Instead of using a static report that needs to be updated every week, month, or quarter, you can connect to a report that has a live connection to your data or that updates at scheduled intervals selected by the creator of the report or Tableau Administrator.
• Customization: You can tweak an existing piece of content to your own specifications (for example, you can filter a report you use by default to only show a particular region when you log on) or edit a piece of content right on the server using the Web Edit feature.
• Data security: When your company hosts its own server, it allows itself to set up and alter the specifications based on the data privacy policies determined by your organization.
• Organization: You can have all of your data stored within a single location. This can help you to create a single source of truth for your data and reporting.
• Subscriptions: You can send an automated email to be delivered to selected users or groups who are interested in receiving a report. You even can schedule when the email is delivered so that it is sent after an extract refresh occurs to ensure email recipients are only being notified when a report contains the most recent data.

After completing this chapter, you should have a broader understanding of Tableau Server and how it relates to other Tableau products. You will also have a clear understanding of the different licenses, site roles, and permissions available and how they interact with one another. Let's begin by looking at Tableau's basic structure and where Tableau Server falls within it.

Examining Tableau's basic structure

The Tableau platform has a multitude of products and features to choose from to help you and your organization best utilize data to make informed decisions. These products can be integrated for an optimal experience and are flexible enough to adapt to your organization's needs. Because each product can be customized and utilized in so many ways, no two Tableau Server environments are exactly the same. Every organization has its own practices regarding data collection, storage, management, and access. Likewise, every organization will deploy the use of Tableau products and services to fit their data needs and culture. No matter the differences, there are some basic processes that apply to all who use Tableau Desktop and Tableau Server. This process is illustrated in Figure 1.1:

Figure 1.1 – The process of developing and sharing analytic insights with Tableau

In this section, we will examine each of these steps and the application of their corresponding Tableau products. Let's begin by gaining an understanding of data sources.

Data sources

Before any analysis takes place, first, you must connect to your data. You can do this from Tableau Desktop by connecting directly to your database or by connecting to a published data source on Tableau Server. The various types of Tableau data connections include the following:

• Data extracts: These refer to a subset, or snapshot, of data that is stored in Tableau file format, that is, .hyper or .tde. (Note that you will only encounter a .tde file format if you use a version of Tableau Desktop prior to 10.5.) These files are optimized for performance within Tableau. Extracts can be embedded in a workbook when publishing to Tableau Server and can be scheduled to refresh on a regular basis so that the data stays up to date.
• Live connections: These allow you to query the database to update with real-time data. Every action performed in Tableau Desktop or Web Edit from Tableau Server initiates a query to t...