Tableau Server 7.0 - The Data Server & Sharing Data sources

Share your data sources or data connections made easier!

The Data Server in Tableau Server 7 makes connecting to data so much easier and transparent for Tableau Desktop users. In addition, the Data Server allows to share data sources with Desktop users and to use the same data source in multiple workbooks. Finally, the Data Server will greatly simplify the way Desktop users connect to databases or Tableau Data Extracts.

1- Sharing data sources or Tableau Server data sources

Thanks to Data Server, connecting to a data source has never been so transparent for Desktop users. No need to know anything about the database!
Publishing a data source to Tableau Server, will allow all Desktop users to use the same version of the data source across multiple workbooks.
In Tableau Server, you can even set up permissions at the data source or connection level to decide who has access to it.
All the customization you added at the data source level (measures, dimensions, joins between tables, format, default aggregation levels for measures, your own calculated fields and customized table calculations, parameters, sets etc) will be shared with other Tableau Desktop users. No need to have each Tableau Desktop user re-invent the wheel each time one of them need to connect to the same data source.
And even better: once a new version of a Data Source is published, all workbooks which used that Data Source will inherit the changes! This simplifies data source maintenance.
Finally, you can also decide to embed the credentials to your database within your shared data source. Users will not be prompted for anything when using it.
Thanks to Tableau Server data sources, it is now so easy and transparent for end users to connect to data!

2- Running queries from Tableau Server

Once a Data source is published to Tableau Server, Desktop users won’t need to connect to the data base or Tableau Data Extract. Tableau Server will do it for them!
Another way of saying the same things is that Tableau Server can now be a database or data access proxy.

Why is this great?

• Databases

The only computer that needs to be configured to connect to the database is the machine where Tableau Server is installed. No database middleware, ODBC driver etc to install and configure on the users’ machines anymore. Only the Tableau Server’s machine needs to be configured (that’s one machine configured only once!). If you have installed and configured databases clients and drivers before, you know how great this is! This is such a time saver and makes maintenance so much easier!

• Tableau Data Extract (tde)

Once published, the queries against the tde will be done on the Tableau Server. The full tde file will not be first downloaded to Tableau Desktop! Even if compressed, a tde file that contains 80 Million rows can be around 1-10GB. A lot of customers will appreciate this!
In addition, you can always schedule the refresh of your tde and Tableau Server will connect to your database and generate a new tde for your users to use.