Tableau

Prophecy uses the Tableau REST API to send data to Tableau as .hyper files (Tableau’s in-memory format). This page describes how to set up and use a Tableau connection, so you can publish and update data sources in your Tableau projects directly from Prophecy pipelines.

Prerequisites

To connect Prophecy to Tableau, you need to provide credentials in the form of a personal access token. These credentials are used to authenticate all actions performed via the Tableau REST API. To use a Tableau connection effectively, ensure that the personal access token has the necessary Publish capability for the Tableau project where you will publish data sources. For more details on Tableau permissions, see the Tableau documentation on Permission Capabilities.

Feature support

The table below outlines whether the connection supports certain Prophecy features.

Feature	Supported
Read data with a Source gem	No
Write data with a TableauWrite gem	Yes
Browse data in the Environment browser	No

Limitations

Using Tableau Hyper files is a legacy approach that Prophecy supports mainly for backward compatibility. It helps users keep existing dashboards running smoothly while migrating from older systems. For a modern, cloud-native workflow, write pipeline outputs directly to a supported cloud data platform like Databricks, Snowflake, or BigQuery. Then connect Tableau to that platform to visualize the data—no need to set up a separate Tableau connection or perform extra export steps in Prophecy.

Connection parameters

To create a connection with Tableau, enter the following parameters:

Parameter	Description
Connection Name	Unique name for the connection
Tableau Server URL	URL of your Tableau Server Example: `https://tableau.example.com`
Tableau Token Name	Name of your Tableau personal access token
Tableau Token (Secret required)	Your Tableau personal access token
Tableau Site Name	Name of the Tableau site you’re connecting to

Data type mapping

Prophecy processes data using a SQL warehouse like Databricks SQL or BigQuery. When you are ready to write your transformed data to Tableau, data types are converted to Tableau data types using the following mapping.

Databricks	BigQuery	Tableau
BOOLEAN Alias: Boolean	BOOL Alias: Boolean	Boolean
TINYINT Alias: Tinyint	INT64 Alias: Integer	Number (whole)
SMALLINT Alias: Smallint	INT64 Alias: Integer	Number (whole)
INT Alias: Integer	INT64 Alias: Integer	Number (whole)
BIGINT Alias: Bigint	INT64 Alias: Integer	Number (whole)
FLOAT Alias: Float	FLOAT64 Alias: Float	Number (decimal)
DOUBLE Alias: Double	FLOAT64 Alias: Float	Number (decimal)
DECIMAL(p,s) Alias: Decimal	NUMERIC/BIGNUMERIC Alias: Numeric/BigNumeric	Number (decimal)
STRING Alias: String	STRING Alias: String	String
BINARY Alias: Binary	BYTES Alias: Bytes	String
DATE Alias: Date	DATE Alias: Date	Date
TIMESTAMP Alias: Timestamp	TIMESTAMP Alias: Timestamp	Date & Time
TIMESTAMP_NTZ Alias: Timestamp	DATETIME Alias: Datetime	Date & Time
INTERVAL Alias: Interval	INTERVAL Alias: Interval	String
ARRAY Alias: Array	ARRAY Alias: Array	String
STRUCT Alias: Struct	STRUCT Alias: Struct	String
VOID Alias: Void	NULL Alias: Null	Null

Tableau connections are stored within fabrics, which are assigned to specific teams in Prophecy. Once a Tableau connection is added to a fabric, anyone on that team can use it to send data to Tableau from their pipelines. Everyone will inherit the permissions of the user authenticated during connection setup.

Getting started

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Prerequisites

Feature support

Limitations

Connection parameters

Data type mapping

​Prerequisites

​Feature support

​Limitations

​Connection parameters

​Data type mapping

​Sharing connections within teams

Prerequisites

Feature support

Limitations

Connection parameters

Data type mapping

Sharing connections within teams