How to Upload Dashboard to Tableau Server

Creating a beautiful and insightful dashboard in Tableau Desktop is one thing, but sharing it with your team is where it truly becomes valuable. Publishing to Tableau Server unlocks real-time data, collaboration, and secure access for everyone who needs it. This guide will walk you through the entire process of uploading your dashboard, from the initial server connection to configuring data sources and managing user permissions.

Why Share Your Dashboard on Tableau Server?

Moving your dashboards from your local machine to a centralized server isn't just about showing off your work, it's a fundamental step in building a data-driven culture. When you publish a dashboard to Tableau Server, you move from a solo analysis to a collaborative, automated reporting environment.

• Centralized Access: It provides a single source of truth. Your team, stakeholders, or clients can access the same interactive dashboard through their web browser, ensuring everyone is looking at the same information.
• Scheduled Data Refreshes: Eliminate the Monday morning routine of manually refreshing an Excel file and republishing a report. You can schedule your data extracts to refresh automatically, from daily to every few minutes, keeping your insights current without any manual work.
• Enhanced Security and Control: You get granular control over who can see and interact with your data. You can set permissions by user or group, ensuring that sensitive information is only accessible to authorized individuals.
• Collaboration and Subscriptions: Users can comment on dashboards, ask questions, and subscribe themselves to receive a snapshot of a view in their inbox on a regular basis. This fosters engagement and keeps important metrics top of mind.

Before You Publish: A Quick Checklist

Before you begin the upload process, it's helpful to have a few things in order to ensure everything goes smoothly. Run through this quick checklist:

• A Finished Dashboard: Your Tableau workbook should be complete, performant, and ready for an audience. Take a moment to hide any unused sheets and clean up tooltips for a polished user experience.
• Tableau Server Credentials: You'll need the server address (often a URL like 'https://tableau.mycompany.com'), your username, and your password.
• Publishing Permissions: Your Tableau Server administrator must grant you publishing rights for a specific Project (Tableau's word for folders). If you're not sure, check with your IT team or Tableau administrator.
• Data Source Plan: Decide how the Server will connect to your data. Will it be a live connection accessing the database directly, or will it be a packaged data extract that needs to be refreshed on a schedule?

Step-by-Step: Publishing Your Dashboard to Tableau Server

Once you've run through the checklist, you’re ready to publish. The process takes place entirely within Tableau Desktop.

Step 1: Sign in to Tableau Server from Tableau Desktop

First, you need to establish a connection between your local Tableau Desktop application and your company's Tableau Server.

1. In Tableau Desktop, go to the top menu and click Server.
2. In the dropdown menu, select Sign In.
3. A dialog box will appear. Enter the address or URL of your Tableau Server and click Connect.
4. You will then be prompted to enter your username and password. Enter your credentials and click Sign In.

Once you are successfully signed in, the options in the Server menu will become active, and you'll be ready to publish.

Step 2: Start the Publishing Process

With your workbook open, initiating the publishing process is straightforward.

Navigate to the top menu and click Server > Publish Workbook...

This action opens the "Publish Workbook to Tableau Server" dialog box, which is where you will configure all the settings for your dashboard on the server.

Step 3: Configure Your Publishing Options

This dialog box is the control center for your publish. Let's break down each option:

• Project: This is a dropdown menu that shows all the project folders on the Server you have permission to publish to. Select the appropriate folder to keep your server organized.
• Name: By default, this is the name of your workbook file. You can change it to be more descriptive. Think about a consistent naming convention if your team publishes a lot of dashboards (e.g., "[Department] - [Report Name]").
• Description: This is a crucial but often overlooked field. Add a brief description of what the dashboard shows, what questions it answers, and maybe when the data was last updated. It helps users understand the context without having to ask you.
• Sheets: Tableau will list all the sheets, dashboards, and stories in your workbook. By default, all are selected. You can uncheck any sheets that were just for development or aren't meant for the final view. Most often, you'll only want to publish the final dashboards or stories.
• Permissions: Here you can control who can view, edit, and interact with the dashboard. By default, it will inherit permissions from the Project folder. Most of the time, this default is fine, but you can click the "Edit" button to set custom rules for this specific workbook. We’ll cover this in more detail below.
• Data Sources: This is one of the most important settings. Next to each data source, you'll see an "Edit" link. This lets you decide how your workbook will be authenticated on the server (e.g., prompt user for credentials or use a saved password). It's also where you set the choice between a live connection and an extract.
• More Options: This little checkbox menu hides some useful settings. "Show sheets as tabs" is a useful one. If your workbook has multiple dashboards, checking this option will create tabs at the top of the view on the server, making it easy for users to navigate between them. You can also specify which dashboards to use as a "thumbnail" icon on the server.

Step 4: Click 'Publish' and Verify

Once you've configured everything to your satisfaction, click the blue Publish button at the bottom of the dialog box. Tableau will package up your workbook and its data and upload everything to the Server.

After the upload is complete, your web browser should automatically open a new tab showing your published dashboard live on Tableau Server. Take a moment to interact with the filters, click on different elements, and ensure everything is working as expected.

Choosing Your Data Connection: Live vs. Extract

One of the most critical decisions during publishing is how your dashboard will get its data on the server.

Embedded vs. Published Data Sources

When you publish a workbook, you have two core options for its data sources:

• Embed Data Source in Workbook: This is the default. The data source's connection information is packaged inside the workbook. This is great for dashboards that use a unique, one-off data connection. The downside is that if you build five dashboards with the same data, you now have five separate data sources to manage.
• Publish Data Source Separately: A best practice for widely used data. You can publish the data source to Tableau Server on its own. Then, future workbooks can connect to the data source on the server instead of the original database. This creates a reusable, certified source of truth that your whole team can build from.

Setting an Extract Refresh Schedule

If your data source is an extract (a snapshot of your data), publishing to the server is where the real magic happens. When you upload a workbook with an extract, you will be prompted to set up a refresh schedule. This allows Tableau Server to automatically reconnect to the underlying database (like Google BigQuery, Salesforce, or your own SQL database) and rebuild the extract at a specified interval. Your published reports will always have fresh data, completely hands-free.

Controlling Who Sees Your Dashboard: A Guide to Permissions

Permissions in Tableau can seem complicated, but they boil down to a simple principle: giving the right people the right level of access. This ensures sensitive data is protected while empowering users to engage with reporting.

Permissions are managed in a hierarchy. You can set them at the Project level, and by default, any workbooks published to that project will inherit those permissions. Or, you can set custom rules for each individual workbook right in the publishing dialog.

Common permission settings you'll handle:

• All Users (or a specific user group): You can set permissions for broad groups, like your "Marketing Team" or "Sales Leadership."
• View: Users can see the dashboard.
• Interact: Users can use filters, tooltips, and other interactive elements.
• Web Edit: Users can open the workbook in a web-based editing mode to create their own custom views without overwriting the original.
• Download: Users can download a copy of the workbook data.

A good starting point is to give most users View and Interact capabilities while restricting more powerful permissions like Web Edit and Download to analysts or super-users.

Tips for a Seamless Publishing Experience

To make the process easier and your final dashboards more professional, keep these best practices in mind:

• Clean up your workbook. Before publishing, delete any unused worksheets or data sources to make the workbook lighter and faster.
• Test everything. After publishing, log in as a user with fewer permissions and test the dashboard. Does it look right? Do the filters work as expected?
• Optimize for performance first. A dashboard that is slow on Tableau Desktop will be slow on Tableau Server. Address performance issues by limiting the number of marks, simplifying calculations, and using data extracts where possible before you publish.
• Use a .twbx for local files. If your VIZ uses any local files like an Excel sheet or a text file, save your work as a Packaged Workbook (.twbx) before you publish. A .twbx bundles the data file directly into your workbook, ensuring the server can see it.

Final Thoughts

Publishing your dashboard to Tableau Server elevates your analysis from a static report into a living, authoritative resource for your whole team. By walking through these steps and understanding the key choices around data sources and permissions, you can securely and automatically share crucial insights that everyone can act on.

Of course, mastering tools like Tableau takes a significant commitment to learning the software, configuring servers, and managing permissions. We built Graphed because we believe getting actionable insights from your data shouldn't require such a steep learning curve. You can connect your marketing and sales accounts, describe the dashboards you need in simple terms, and get beautiful, real-time reports in seconds - without ever thinking about a publishing process.