Setup the Tableau Output Data Connection

Alteryx makes it easy to publish your data source directly to Tableau Server. Publishing directly to Server means you won’t need to refresh your data extract.

For easier viewing, type the letter r or select “Presenter Mode” from the menu in the upper-right corner of the page.

Before you begin

Make sure you have downloaded the Tableau Tools (which should include the Tableau Output Tool) from Alteryx Marketplace (these tools are free, but you are required to create an account to download those tools).
Be sure your account is set up on Alteryx Server (to test this, login to https://alteryx.pitt.edu/gallery/ using your Pitt SSO credentials). If you do not yet have an account, submit a Help Desk ticket here to get added. Include in your request that you have a Designer license and plan to publish workflows to Alteryx Server.

Create a Personal Access Token

To authenticate to our Tableau Server, you should generate a Personal Access Token. Tokens cannot be used simultaneously. If a token is already in use when a new workflow calls it, the first action will be canceled. For this reason, we recommend you be sure to schedule workflows in sequence using the Runner, or simply set up separate personal access tokens for each data source refresh.

Steps to request a personal access token (PAT)

Login to Tableau Server at https://analytics.pitt.edu and navigate to “My Account Settings” by clicking on the icon in the upper-right corner of your screen.
About halfway down the page, there is a place to create a Personal Access Token. Be sure to save the Token Name and Secret. (The Secret will NOT be available once you close the initial window where it is generated; so be sure to save it.) Tokens will expire if they are not used for 15 consecutive days, and will expire after XX days otherwise.

Token usage will be monitored by Pitt IT; if usage begins to impact Server Performance, your token may be revoked.

Log-on to Alteryx Server

Before setting up a connection, make sure you are connected to Alteryx Server. To do this, navigate to: File>>Open Workflow>>My Company’s Gallery.

If you do not yet have your gallery set up, navigate to File>>Open Workflow>>Add New Server, and then enter https://analytics.pitt.edu/gallery/ as the URL (as shown on the screenshot on the right above).

In the next window, login using your Pitt credentials:

After your login completes, a new window should pop-up with any workflows that you may have saved to Alteryx Server. You can close this window, as the login process is now complete.

Create a Data Source and Setup your Credentials

To setup your Data Source and Credentials, select Manage Data Connections from the File menu.

On the menu that pops-up, select “Add New Data Source” button in the upper-right corner of the screen.
On the next screen, select “Tableau Output” as the Technology.
On the next screen, fill-in: the name your data source connection (any name you’d like). the server url: `https://analytics.pitt.edu/` the site: `u` When you have filled-in the values, click the Save button (in the upper-right corner of the window).
Next, Click on the blue text +Connect Credential. Select “Personal Access Token” as the Authentication method Be sure to check the box “Allow connection for SDK”
Under the section TABLEAU OUTPUT ADVANCED AUTHENTICATION, select “Create New Credential”. Once you select this, boxes will appear for you to name the Credential. Then enter the Token Name and Token Key (that were generated in the section above) . Click the blue button “Create and Link”	Notice that you can easily update or swap out your credentials here, and it will change across all Alteryx workflows that use them.

Sync Connection with Alteryx Server

Once you have created the credential, click on the “Synchronize” button on the left menu. On the next screen, select “My Company’s Gallery”
On the next screen, you should see the Data Source, Credential, and Connection you’ve just created. Click the blue “Synchronize” button to sync with Alteryx Server.
On the next screen, your connection should be confirmed.

Setup the Tableau Output Tool

Drag your Tableau Output Tool onto your Alteryx Canvas to use it. When you do, you should see a configuration screen like that shown to the right. Click on the blue “Setup Connection” button to use your newly saved connection.
When you click on the blue “Setup Connection” button, you should see a Connection Manager window like the one shown to the right. Select the Tableau Data Connection that you’ve just created.
On the screen that follows, click on the blue “Connect” button to use the Credentials that you created (Note that you can store multiple credentials and use different ones for different needs.)
Once you complete the connection, you should be able to select the name of a Project that you can publish to. Click on the “Options” tab to name the data source and setup how you want to update the data source.

Test your workflow on Alteryx Server

Once you have completed the steps for creating your data source, save the Data source to Alteryx Server by selecting File >> Save As >> Alteryx Server >> My Company’s Gallery.

On the window that pops up (like the one to the right), name your Alteryx Workflow and click save.

Once the Workflow is saved, you should see a Window like the one to the right. Click on the “View in Browser” button in the middle of the window to automatically open this workflow on Alteryx Server.

Once you’ve opened the workflow on Alteryx Server, you can click “Run” in the upper-right portion of the screen, to test whether the workflow works (recommended), or click the “Schedule” button to set up a schedule to run the workflow.

Version	Date
0.0	30 May 2024