Fairly Basic (I hope) answers that I need confirmation on.

tableaucommunity@tableau.com — Thu, 03 Apr 2014 18:38:31 GMT

Background:

We have some data on a SQL database hosted by our company (forecasting/performance data).

I have a copy of Tableau Desktop 8.1. Our goal is to connect to the database, gather the data into custom views.

These views need to be accessible by senior management (who will not have Tableau desktop).

Questions and Answers found by searching these forums. If somebody at Tableau can validate these answers and or correct them as needed it would be appreciated.

1) Can I create a file that has a live connection to the database in Desktop export it out and have the readers get live data from the database?

Answer: No, Tableau Reader cannot access live data and I will need to do a refresh/rexport each time using Desktop.

2) Can I use Tableau Public to publish info to our internal servers so our managers can view it that way?

Answer: No, Tableau Public data is hosted by Tableau and is accessible to everyone on the internet.

Questions that I have to yet to find an answer for (haven't quite searched for it)

3) Is there a way that I an create a file that has a live connection to the database in Desktop export it and refresh it using some other application (i.e an API that I can program in C# or something) ?

The main theme above in all these questions and answers is that we are trying to make a very limited investment in time (i.e I create a file once in Tableau Desktop and we never touch it again updating the views somehow automatically). I haven't researched Tableau Server yet but it seems like it may do what I need but maybe overkill.

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Fairly Basic (I hope) answers that I need confirmation on.