Overview

To authenticate with Tableau, you need:

  1. Personal Access Token - This is the name/label you assigned to the Personal Access Token when you created it in Tableau.
  2. Personal Access Token Secret - This is the secret/token string that was generated along with the token name acting like a password.
  3. HostName - This is your Tableau server domain or host URL (not including protocol).
  4. API Version - This is the version of the Tableau REST API you want to connect to which must match the version supported by your Tableau environment.
  5. Content Url (Optional) - This identifies the site within your Tableau instance that you want to sign in to.

This guide will walk you through obtaining the above credentials within Tableau.

Prerequisites:

  • You must have an active Tableau instance.

Instructions:

Step 1: Enabling Personal Access Token

  • If this is enabled, you can skip to step 2 below.
  1. Log in to your Tableau instance and naviagate to Settings > General.
  2. Scroll down to Personal Access Tokens section.
  1. Ensure the Enable personal access tokens checkbox is selected. You can choose to either allow all users to create PATs or limit access to a specified group.
  2. If restricting access to a group, select the Only users in the specified group radio button and choose the relevant group from the list. Note that a group must be selected to save this setting.
  3. Under Set expiration period, opt for either the 180 days radio button or enter a custom value (1 through 365) in the Custom days text box.
  4. Once configured, click the Save button at the top or bottom of the page to apply the changes.

Step 2: Generating your Personal Access Token

  1. Once you’ve confirmed that Personal Access Tokens are enabled, click on your profile icon at the top right, then select My Account Settings.
  2. Navigate to the Settings tab, then scroll down to Personal Access Tokens section.
  3. Enter a name for your Personal Access Token, this will serve as your token’s identifier, then click Create Token.
  1. A secret will be generated, this is your Personal Access Token Secret. Make sure to copy and store it securely, as it will not be shown again.

Step 3: Finding your HostName

  • Look at your browser’s address bar. Your Hostname is everything that appears after https:// and before /#/. For example, if your URL is: https://dub01.online.tableau.com/#/site/test-eaec4a3fe2/user/external/dummy@nango.dev.com/settings, your HostName is dub01.online.tableau.com.

Step 4: Finding your API Version

  • This is the REST API version you want to connect to. You can find the full list of supported versions here.

Step 5: Finding your Content Url

  • Look at your browser’s address bar. Your Content URL is the value that appears immediately after /site/ and before the next /. For example, if your URL is:https://dub01.online.tableau.com/#/site/test-eaec4a3fe2/user/external/dummy@nango.dev.com/settings, your Content Url is test-eaec4a3fe2.
For Tableau Server, you can leave this field blank to use the default site. For Tableau Cloud, a valid Content URL is required.

Step 6: Enter credentials in the Connect UI

Once you have your credential:

  1. Open the form where you need to authenticate with Tableau.
  2. Enter your credentials in their respective fields.
  3. Submit the form, and you should be successfully authenticated.

You are now connected to Tableau.