How to allow temporary staff accounts to publish Tableau dashboards

Summary

When team members are temporary staff or interns, they may not necessarily have a Core Image laptop or access to the VPN. For example, they maybe working on personal devices or Macs. This would prevent those users from using Tableau Desktop to be able to create and publish dashboards to the U-M or Michigan Medicine Tableau servers. This article discusses an easy solution.

Details

Problem

Publishing data sources and dashboards to the Michigan Medicine or U-M Tableau servers requires an appropriate license (e.g. Creator license, or trial Tableau Desktop license) as well as VPN access. Sometimes, temporary staff or interns may not have access to a Core Image device, or may be working from a personal PC or Mac, thus preventing access to the VPN.

Solution

1. Temporary users can work on the Tableau server directly through the web interface.
2. To access Tableau Server without a VPN connection, ask the users to login to Remote Desktop, which displays a virtual computer screen inside the web browser. From within that virtual computer screen, they are working inside the firewall, so they can connect to Tableau Server.
3. Ensure the temporary users have full permissions (read+write) on your Tableau Project (folder).
4. As a licensed Tableau Desktop user, you can create and publish Data Sources to Tableau Server. Once the data sources have been published, the temporary users can go the data source, click New -> Workbook and create their own workbooks and dashboards. Temporary users can also edit existing dashboards that someone else has published.
5. If the temporary users need to create Data Sources from scratch, you will need to purchase a Tableau Creator license for them. With this, they can work on the web with almost the same features as Tableau Desktop, including the ability to create new connections and data sources.

Notes

• None.

Resources

• Pterodactyl Data Analytics Club - 10/20/23 recording, see last section about "web edit" (level-2 login required).

About the Author

Gabriel Mongefranco is a Mobile Data Architect at the University of Michigan Eisenberg Family Depression Center. Gabriel has over a decade of experience in data analytics, dashboard design, automation, back end software development, database design, middleware and API architecture, and technical writing.   |   |