Tableau Export

PushMetrics can connect to Tableau Online or Tableau Server to download exports of Workbooks, Views and Dashboards in various formats.

The exported files can then be used in subsequent tasks, e.g. to be sent in an email or Slack message.

Prerequisites: You need to have at least one Tableau connection configured in order to use this task.

Creating a Tableau Export

Supported Actions

You can export Tableau workbooks, views and dashboards in the following ways:

Method Description
Export Workbook PDF

returns a PDF of the entire workbook (only sheets that are shown as tabs)

Options:
Workbook Name

Export Workbook Powerpoint

returns a PPTX of the entire workbook (only sheets that are shown as tabs)

Options:
Workbook Name

Export View PDF

returns a PDF of the selected view

Options:
Workbook Name
View Name
Filter
Orientation
Page Type

Export View CSV

returns a CSV of the selected view

Options:
Workbook Name
View Name
Filter

Export View Image

returns a PNG image of the selected view

Options:
Workbook Name
View Name
Filter or Custom View (if present)
Image ResolutionStandard (width: 784 pixels) or High (width: 1568 pixels)

Export View Crosstab

returns a crosstab XLSX of the selected view

Options:
Workbook Name
View Name
Note: currently filtering crosstabs is not supported

Filtering Views

You can pass filters to the view you are exporting to generate a filtered file.

  • Filters need to be entered as strings, without quotes.
  • The general format is FilterName=FilterValue, e.g. Region=West
  • To apply multiple filter values, separate values using commas, e.g. Region=West,Central
  • To combine multiple filters, concatenate using &, e.g. Region=West&Category=Furniture
  • You can use Jinja in the filter string, e.g. Region={{ parameter_1 }}
  • You can even make the filter fully dynamic, e.g. {{ filter_name }}={{ filter_value }}

Custom Views

If a view has Custom Views defined, you can select them to be exported for the Export View Image method. Other methods are currently not supported by the Tableau API.

Custom Views can not be further filtered.

Troubleshooting Filters in Tableau

Filtering is sometimes a little tricky as Tableau requires the filter string to be very accurate, in the correct syntax and not everything is possible.

The best way to troubleshoot is directly in Tableau: Open the view you want to filter in your browser (in Tableau Server or Tableau Online) and look at the URL bar. Remove everything right of the ? and type your filter in the syntax Filtername=Filtervalue , hit enter and see if you get the desired result.
If you can get it to work here, it will work in PushMetrics.

Known Filtering Limitations

Unfortunately, Tableau only allows filters to be passed on via a simple filter string and not all types of filters are supported.
As of now, the following limitations to filtering are known:

  • Date sliders and relative date filters don’t work due to Tableau API limitations. A workaround is described here.
  • Filter names must be specified exactly as the field name in Tableau - If you change the title in the view to a more legible format (e.g. Order Date instead of DAY(Order Date) ), you still need to use the original field name in PushMetrics.
  • Special characters like , and & will break the filter as they are reserved for separating multiple filters and filter values.
  • If your filter values have such characters (for example a City filter with a value like Portland, OR ), as a workaround, you’d need to replace them in Tableau with a simple calculated field that replaces the special character with a different character.
    Then, you use that new calculated field for filtering instead of your original field.
    Here’s what it looks like: Formula: REPLACE(REPLACE([Name],"&","+"),",",";") with [Name] being the original filter name.
  • If a workbook has parameters and fields both named the same, filtering those can result in unexpected behaviour. We recommend renaming one value to keep names distinct.
  • A good resource for some more considerations is this help article from Tableau.

Task Execution

To execute the task, simply click on the Play button.

Using exported files in other tasks

You can use the exported file in subsequent tasks, e.g. to attach them to an Email or Slack message using the following method:

Method Description
.export()

returns a secure file URL of the most recent execution. Filetype depends on selected action. Filename is the block name.

Options:
None

Example Usage:{{ tableau_1.export() }}

Example Output:https://s3-eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/.../.../tableau_1.png

Use CSV export in Database Writeback

Exported CSV files can be used in Writeback tasks to write the csv contents to a database table.

If a Tableau task with "Export View CSV" action is present, the task will show up as an option in the "Source" input of a writeback task.