How to Publish to Tableau Public

Creating a data visualization is one thing, but sharing it with the world is how you turn your analysis into a story that can influence, inform, and impress. Tableau Public is a free platform that lets you publish interactive vizzes, build a professional portfolio, and connect with a massive community of data enthusiasts. This guide will walk you through everything you need to know, from preparing your workbook to the final click of the "publish" button, with practical tips along the way.

What Exactly is Tableau Public?

Think of Tableau Public as a free online portfolio for your data visualizations. It’s a platform built and maintained by Tableau where anybody can create an account and upload their Tableau workbooks for others to see and interact with. It’s distinct from Tableau's paid products (like Tableau Desktop, Server, or Cloud) in one major way: everything you publish is public. This makes it the perfect place for:

Building a Professional Portfolio: Showcase your data analysis and design skills to potential employers or clients. A strong Tableau Public profile can be more impactful than a resume.
Sharing Your Work: Easily share your vizzes with colleagues, classmates, or on social media with a simple link.
Embedding Interactive Content: Embed your visualizations directly into your blog, portfolio website, or an online article, allowing readers to interact with your data in real-time.
Learning and Inspiration: Explore countless visualizations from others in the community. You can download many of them to see exactly how they were built, which is a fantastic way to learn new techniques.

The key takeaway is that you should never, ever use Tableau Public for sensitive, proprietary, or confidential data. Once it's published, it's out there for anyone to see and download.

Before You Publish: Prepping Your Workbook for Success

Before you rush to share your creation, a little prep work can make the difference between a rough draft and a polished masterpiece. Taking these steps ensures your visualization is secure, functional, and user-friendly for your audience.

Step 1: Double-Check for Data Sensitivity

This is the most critical step. Ask yourself: "Does this data contain anything I wouldn't want the entire world to see?" This includes, but is not limited to:

Personal Identifiable Information (PII) like names, emails, addresses, or phone numbers.
Confidential company financial data, customer lists, or sales figures.
Unreleased product information or strategic plans.

If you made a visualization for work using internal company data, you need to first use anonymized or dummy data before publishing it publicly. A good practice is to create a sample version of your dashboard using publicly available datasets on the same topic to showcase your skills without leaking sensitive information.

Step 2: Handle Your Data Connection

Tableau Public has a specific requirement for data sources: it cannot maintain a live connection to a server (like a SQL database or a private cloud service). Your data must be "packaged" within the workbook. This usually means one of two things:

Use a file-based data source: If your data is already in an Excel sheet, CSV file, or Google Sheet, you're good to go.
Create a Tableau Extract (.hyper file): If you started with a live connection to a database, you must create an extract. An extract is a saved, compressed snapshot of your data that gets bundled with the workbook.

Creating an extract is simple. In the "Data Source" tab in Tableau Desktop, you'll see a 'Connection' type on the top right. If it says "Live," just click "Extract" and save your workbook. Tableau will create the extract file and embed it for you. This makes your workbook self-contained and ready for publishing.

Step 3: Polish Your Dashboard's Design and Usability

Now, let’s focus on the user experience. You want people to easily understand and interact with your work.

Clean Your Workbook: Delete any unused worksheets, dashboards, or data sources. This keeps your published workbook tidy and smaller in file size. A polished viz doesn't have 15 "Sheet 1," "Sheet 2" tabs.
Craft Informative Tooltips: Tooltips are the little info boxes that appear when you hover over data points. Don't rely on the default settings. Edit them to add context, explain the numbers, and format them for readability. A well-designed tooltip can tell a story all on its own.
Set Your Dashboard Size: Use a fixed dashboard size instead of "Automatic." This ensures your viz looks exactly how you designed it on any screen, preventing charts from getting awkwardly resized or squished on different browsers. A common fixed size for good layout control is 1000px wide by 800px high.
Think About Mobile: If you expect many users to view your work on their phones, consider creating a mobile-specific layout. You can do this by clicking the "Device Preview" button in your dashboard view and customizing the layout for smaller screens.
Write Clear Titles and Labels: Give every chart and your overall dashboard a clear, concise title. Label your axes properly and use legends that are easy to understand. Don't make your audience guess what they're looking at.

Spending an extra 15-20 minutes on these polishing steps can elevate your work from good to great.

How to Publish to Tableau Public: A Step-by-Step Guide

With your workbook prepped and polished, you’re ready for the main event. Here’s how to get your visualization online.

1. Create a Tableau Public Account

If you don’t have one already, the first step is to create a free Tableau Public profile. Go to public.tableau.com/s/signup and sign up. This is where all your published vizzes will live.

2. Open Your Workbook in Tableau Desktop

Fire up Tableau Desktop (you can use the free Tableau Public Desktop edition or a paid Tableau Desktop license) and open the final, saved version of your workbook that you want to publish.

3. Navigate to the Publish Option

In the top menu bar, click on Server. A dropdown menu will appear. From there, select Tableau Public > Save to Tableau Public...

4. Sign In to Your Account

A sign-in window will pop up, asking for your Tableau Public email and password. Enter your credentials and click "Sign In."

5. Name Your Workbook and Publish

After signing in, another small window will appear where you need to enter a Title for your workbook. Choose a descriptive title. This is separate from the dashboard title within your viz, it becomes the name of the project on your profile. Once you've entered a title, click "Save."

Tableau will then create the extract (if needed) and upload your workbook to the server. This can take a few seconds to a few minutes depending on the size of your data. Once it's done, your web browser will automatically open to your new visualization's page on Tableau Public.

After Publishing: Managing Your Visualization

Your viz is live, but you're not done yet! You can now edit its settings on the web to make it more discoverable and useful for others.

Below your visualization on its Tableau Public page, you'll see an "Edit Details" button. Clicking this allows you to customize several settings:

Title and Description: You already set the title, but this is a great place to write a detailed description. Explain the purpose of the visualization, where the data came from (with a link to the source), and highlight any interesting features for users to explore. This context is hugely valuable.
Add a Permalink: This lets you customize the URL to be more memorable and clean.
Show or Hide Sheets as Tabs: By default, users might see a tab for every single sheet and dashboard in your workbook. It’s often cleaner to uncheck this box, so they only see the final dashboard you intended for them to view. You can use navigation buttons within your dashboard instead.
Allow others to Download or Explore: Here, you can decide if you want to let others download your workbook and a copy of its data. Allowing this is a great way to contribute to the community and help others learn, but if you're sensitive about your methods, you can disable it.

How to Update an Existing Visualization

What if you find a mistake or want to add a new feature? You don't need to delete the old one. Simply open the workbook in Tableau Desktop, make your changes, and follow the exact same publishing steps: Server > Tableau Public > Save to Tableau Public.... When you give it the exact same title, Tableau will recognize it and ask if you want to overwrite the existing version. Click "Yes," and your viz will be updated in place, retaining the same URL, view count, and favorites.

Final Thoughts

Publishing your work to Tableau Public transforms your data analysis from a private exercise into a public asset. By carefully preparing your data, polishing your workbook, and following the simple publishing steps, you can start building a powerful online portfolio that showcases your skills and contributes to a vibrant data community.

Building high-quality dashboards in tools like Tableau is an incredibly valuable skill, but it often involves a significant amount of manual effort - drilling down, creating visuals from scratch, and constantly refining your work to find the right insights. We created Graphed to simplify this entire process. Instead of spending hours in a complex interface, you can connect your data sources and simply ask questions in plain English, and our AI will build real-time, interactive dashboards for you in seconds. It allows you to explore your data at the speed of thought, moving from question to visualization without the tedious steps in between.