11 Replies Latest reply on Jan 28, 2019 8:07 AM by Gene Denny

Updating email address domain en masse on Tableau Server

Gene Denny Oct 10, 2018 10:01 AM

Not sure this is possible, even via TABCMD, but thought I'd check with those smarter than me.

Large Tableau Server environment with just under 10,000 users, all of which are populated via our Active Directory, A few years ago, our email domain was updated from an old nomenclature (dmps.k12.ia.us) to a new nomenclature (dmschools.org). While this information was updated in Active Directory, it would appear that users who were already sync'd with Tableau Server did not receive the updated email domain. Their addresses still show "@dmps.k12.ia.us." Users added since this change show "@dmschools.org." The result is that almost 4,000 of the users have an incorrect email address. This is now affecting both subscriptions and alerts as we begin more fully incorporating these functionalities.

I was easily able to identify these users by way of the workgroup Postgres tables. Now, I'd like to automate a procedure to do a Replace function in order to update the email domain. Anyone have an idea? Am I missing a sync functionality already available?

Thanks ahead of time for any advice!

---Gene

1. Re: Updating email address domain en masse on Tableau Server

Alex Braun Oct 10, 2018 12:27 PM (in response to Gene Denny)

You could try getting into the Postgre SQL and doing an update statement on the system_users table? it isn't able to be shown by default and probably isn't support, so make sure you take a backup before attempting to do an update statement.
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2. Re: Updating email address domain en masse on Tableau Server

Gene Denny Oct 12, 2018 4:59 AM (in response to Alex Braun)

Thanks, Alex.

I also use Alteryx extensively and am considering an In-Database workflow to correct the entries. However, I'm gun shy on this as I can't afford to mess this up with the number of users in our deployment.
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3. Re: Updating email address domain en masse on Tableau Server

Alex Braun Oct 12, 2018 5:02 AM (in response to Gene Denny)

If you have the ability to set up a test cluster/machine, you can restore a backup to that and try it, or take a snapshot if its virtualized before doing the deed.
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4. Re: Updating email address domain en masse on Tableau Server

Gene Denny Oct 12, 2018 5:05 AM (in response to Alex Braun)

You read my mind. Was actually researching that here right now. Sincerely appreciate the feedback.

I am also going to post this in the Alteryx Community to see if any of those gurus can talk me through whether or not this would work using the Alteryx In-Database tool set.
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5. Re: Updating email address domain en masse on Tableau Server

Alex Braun Oct 12, 2018 5:27 AM (in response to Gene Denny)

Glad to help, you've got to love the old Iowa school domain names.
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6. Re: Updating email address domain en masse on Tableau Server

Gene Denny Oct 16, 2018 8:17 AM (in response to Gene Denny)

Update on this--

We submitted this to Tableau Support and there is no mechanism supported by Tableau allowing for the updating of a user's email address in Tableau Server, let alone 4,000 of them. They're only suggestion was to do it via the REST API, but I wouldn't even know how to start.

If anyone is willing to help us out, that would be great. Otherwise, I'll just chalk this up to being outta luck.
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7. Re: Updating email address domain en masse on Tableau Server

Alex Braun Oct 16, 2018 8:27 AM (in response to Gene Denny)

I haven't fully implemented the api, but the basics aren't too bad. Take a look at the link below for how to send the API call, I'm sure if there are programmers on staff, they could help to implement this, but alteryx may also be able to this for you.

Basically you need to log in and get your authorization token, then you use that token with any further calls to authenticate.
You will then need to get your users on a site, change what you need, then repost with update user.

REST API In 5 Minutes-No Coding - Alteryx Community
https://onlinehelp.tableau.com/v2018.2/api/rest_api/en-us/help.htm#REST/rest_api_ref.htm#Sign_In%3FTocPath%3DAPI%2520Ref…
https://onlinehelp.tableau.com/current/api/rest_api/en-us/help.htm#REST/rest_api_ref.htm#Get_Users_on_Site%3FTocPath%3DA…
https://onlinehelp.tableau.com/v2018.2/api/rest_api/en-us/help.htm#REST/rest_api_ref.htm#Update_User%3FTocPath%3DAPI%252…
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8. Re: Updating email address domain en masse on Tableau Server

Anna Kisting Oct 16, 2018 9:27 AM (in response to Gene Denny)

TabCmd can do this pretty easily.

This video helped me a lot. It walks you through all of this.

You’ll have to install tabcmd (or do this from the tableau sever.)

You’ll need a .csv file that has the people you need to modify. You MUST follow the csv guidelines here. https://onlinehelp.tableau.com/current/server/en-us/csvguidelines.htm Leave the password column blank.

The createusers command actually modifies existing users. I just checked and confirmed this.

So you’ll run CMD.exe as an administrator.

You’ll change the directory to wherever tabcmd is.
cd C:\Program Files\[location]

You’ll log into the server.
tabcmd login -s http://tableau.site.com -u jsmith -p password

You’ll run the create users command
tabcmd createusers "c:\location\folder\users.csv"
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9. Re: Updating email address domain en masse on Tableau Server

Gene Denny Oct 16, 2018 9:45 AM (in response to Anna Kisting)

Thanks, Anna!

I'm going to check all of this out and see where I land. Will be back to Mark as Solved, I hope!
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10. Re: Updating email address domain en masse on Tableau Server

Ciara Brennan Dec 6, 2018 6:59 AM (in response to Gene Denny)

Gene Denny wrote:

Thanks, Anna!

I'm going to check all of this out and see where I land. Will be back to Mark as Solved, I hope!
Just checking if this is now resolved?

Thanks, Ciara
[Program Manager - Tableau Community]
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11. Re: Updating email address domain en masse on Tableau Server

Gene Denny Jan 28, 2019 8:07 AM (in response to Anna Kisting)

It took me a while to get back to this due to some issues updating to Tableau Server 2018.3 (all of which were caused internally, of course) but once I did, this worked like a charm. I used Alteryx to pull the users with incorrect email addresses as well as constructing their new one. Followed the csv format required and was able to load via TABCMD. Ended up with 1692 corrected email domains in Tableau Server.

The one issue I did run into was Tableau Server users who were no longer active in our Active Directory since we authenticate via that method. I was unable to find a field in the workgroup tables that allowed me to identify those inactive A/D users. I ended up blending the workgroup data with one of our other systems that DID identify the inactive users, again via Alteryx, which then filtered the data set down to the 1692 records that were in need of updating.

This still leaves a little over 2000 records with an incorrect email domain, but they are no longer active in our Active Directory and therefore will not be gaining access to our Tableau environment. May have to look into this a bit deeper to see if that, too, can be fixed via TABCMB.

Thanks for the help, Anna!

Gene
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