Tableau connection
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 |
Sharing connections within teams
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.