Tableau On-Premises Connector

Tableau Server(On-Premise) is an end-to-end data visualization and business intelligence tool used to report and analyze vast volumes of data on an on-premises network.

OvalEdge uses REST API to connect to the data source, which allows you to crawl the data objects (Report Group, Reports, Report Group, Reports/ Workbooks)  from Data Sources and build Lineage.

Connector Capabilities

The following is the list of objects supported by the Tableau On-Premise connector. 

Prerequisites

The following are the prerequisites required for establishing a connection between the connector and the OvalEdge application. 

1. API Details
2. Set up a Service account with proper permissions to the Rest APIs of Tableau.
3. Configure environment variables (Optional)

API Details

The API used by the connector is given below:

Tableau Server version	REST API version
8.3, 9.0	2.0
9.0.1 and later versions of 9.0	2.0
9.1, 9.2	2.0
9.2	2.1
9.3	2.2
10.1	2.4
10.2	2.5
10.3	2.6
10.4	2.7
10.5	2.8
2018.1	3.0
2018.2	3.1
2018.3	3.2
2019.1	3.3
2019.2	3.4
2019.3	3.5
2019.4	3.6
2020.1	3.7
2020.2	3.8
2020.3	3.9
2020.4	3.10
2021.1	3.11
2021.2	3.12
2021.3	3.13
2021.4	3.14
2022.1	3.15
2022.2	3.16
2022.3	3.17
2022.4	3.18

Service Account with Minimum Permissions

The minimum requirement to access the Tableau On-Premise is to be the site administrator or site role of Explorer.

Establish Environment Variables (Optional)

This section describes the settings or instructions that you should be aware of prior to establishing a connection. If your environments have been configured, skip this step.

Configure Environment Names

The Environment Names allow you to select the environment configured for the specific connector from the dropdown list in the Add Connector pop-up window.
You might want to consider crawling the same schema in both stage and production environments for consistency. The typical environments for crawling are PROD, STG, or Temporary, and may also include QA or other environments. Additionally, crawling a temporary environment can be useful for schema comparisons, which can later be deleted, especially during application upgrade assistance. 

Steps to Configure the Environment

1. Navigate to Administration | Configuration. 
2. Select the Connector tab.
3. Find the Key name “connector.environment”.
4. Enter the desired environment values (PROD, STG) in the value column. 
5. Click ✔ to save. 

Establish a Connection

To establish a Tableau Connection:

1. Log in to the OvalEdge application
2. In the left menu, click on the Administration module name, and click on the Connectors sub-module name. The Connectors Information page is displayed.
3. Click on + New Connector. The Add Connector pop-up window is displayed.
   
   

   Parameters	Details
   Connection Type	The selected connection type ‘Tableau On-Premise’ is displayed by default. If required, the dropdown menu allows you to change the connector type.
   License Add-Ons*	All the connectors will have a Base Connector License by default that allows you to crawl and profile to obtain the metadata and statistical information from a datasource.  OvalEdge supports various License Add-Ons based on the connector’s functionality requirements. Select the Auto Lineage Add-On license that enables the automatic construction of the Lineage of data objects for a connector with the Lineage feature.  Select the Data Quality Add-On license to identify, report, and resolve the data quality issues for a connector whose data supports data quality, using DQ Rules/functions, Anomaly detection, Reports, and more. Select the Data Access Add-On license that will enforce connector access via OvalEdge with Remote Data Access Management (RDAM) feature enabled
   Connection Name*	Enter a connection name for the Tableau On-Premise database. You can specify a reference name to easily identify the Tableau On-Premise database connection in OvalEdge. Example: tableauonprem_db
   Environment	The environment dropdown menu allows you to select the environment configured for the connector from the dropdown list. For example, PROD, or STG (based on the configured items in the OvalEdge configuration for the connector.environment). The purpose of the environment field is to help you identify which connector is connecting what type of system environment (Production, STG, or QA).  Note: The steps to set up environment variables in explained in the prerequisite section.
   Tableau Content URL	To enter the name of the Tableau On-Premise site.  Reference document: https://help.tableau.com/current/api/rest_api/en-us/REST/rest_api_concepts_auth.htm
   Is Token Based Auth(Y/N)	If you have User Credentials then you can select the Is Token Based Auth as "N" If you want to opt the Token-based authentication then you can select Is Token Based Auth as "Y" Note: Please refer to the Additional Information Section to know about Token-based Access.
   Username*	Enter the Username to access the Tableau Service account.
   Password*	Enter the password to access the Tableau Service account.
   Tableau API Version	The Tableau versions supported by OvalEdge are 2.8, 3.0, 3.1. Default value: REST API for Tableau server 10.5 REST API for Tableau server 2018.1.6
   OvalEdge Server	No inputs are required.
   Connection string*	Set the Connection string toggle button to automatic to get the details automatically from the credentials provided.  https://{server}/api/2.6
   Default Governance Roles*	You can select a specific user or a  team from the governance roles (Steward, Custodian, Owner) that get assigned for managing the data asset.  The dropdown list displays all the configurable roles (single user or a team) as per the configurations made in the OvalEdge Security | Governance Roles section.
   Admin Roles	Select the required admin roles for this connector. To add Integration Admin Roles, search for or select one or more roles from the Integration Admin options, and then click on the Apply button.  The responsibility of the Integration Admin includes configuring crawling and profiling settings for the connector, as well as deleting connectors, schemas, or data objects. To add Security and Governance Admin roles, search for or select one or more roles from the list, and then click on the Apply button.  The security and Governance Admin is responsible for: Configure role permissions for the connector and its associated data objects. Add admins to set permissions for roles on the connector and its associated data objects. Update governance roles. Create custom fields. Develop Service Request templates for the connector. Create Approval workflows for the templates.
   No of archive objects*	It is the number of last modifications made in the metadata data of a dataset at Remote/source. By default, the number of archive objects is set to disable mode. Click on the Archive toggle button and enter the number of objects you wish to archive. For example, the connection is crawled if updates the count is 4. It will provide the last 4 changes that occurred in the remote/source of the connector. You can observe these changes in the ‘version’ column of the ‘Metadata Changes’ module.
   Select Bridge	With the OvalEdge Bridge component, any cloud-hosted server can connect with any on-premise or public cloud data sources without modifying firewall rules. A bridge provides real-time control that makes it easy to manage data movement between any source and destination. For more information, refer to Bridge Overview.

4. Click on the Validate button to validate the connection details.
5. Click on the Save button to save the connection.  Alternatively, you can also directly click on the Save & Configure button that displays the Connection Settings pop-up window to configure the settings for the selected Connector. The Save & Configure button is displayed only for the Connectors for which the settings configuration is required. 

In case, clicking on “Validate” gives you an error, refer to the next section for the resolution of the common validation errors.

Connection Validation Errors

Connector Settings 

Once the connection is established successfully, various settings are provided to retrieve and display the information from the data source. The connection settings include Crawler, Access Instruction, and Others.

Connection Setting	Description
Crawler	Crawler settings are configured to connect to a data source and collect and catalog all the data elements in the form of metadata.
Lineage	The lineage settings allow you to configure multiple dialects (by Selecting Source Server Type for lineage) and connection priority lists to pick the tables to build lineage.
Business Glossary Settings	The Business Glossary setting provides flexibility and control over how they view and manage term association within the context of a business glossary at the connector level.
Access Instruction	Access Instruction allows the data owner to instruct other users on using the objects in the application.
Others	The Send Metadata Changes Notifications option is used to set the change notification about the metadata changes of the data objects. You can use the toggle button to set the Default Governance Roles (Steward, Owner Custodian, etc.)  From the drop-down menu, you can select the role and team to receive the notification of metadata changes. Context URL: The OvalEdge Browser Extension supports the Context URL functionality. The Context Id helps you to catalog reports from the source reports database. When the Context Id is entered for a specific Report Connector Type > Crawler settings, the OvalEdge application plugin bridges the OvalEdge application and Source Report Database to view the Certification status or Endorsement Rating applied to the Report using the OvalEdge application.

The Crawling of Schema(s)

The user can use the Crawl/Profile option, which allows the user to select the specific schemas for the following operations: crawl, profile, crawl & profile, or profile unprofiled. For any scheduled crawlers and profilers, the defined run date and time are displayed to set.

1. Navigate to the Connectors page, and click Crawl/Profile option.
2. Select the required Schema(s). 
3. Click on the Run button that gathers all metadata from the connected source into OvalEdge Data Catalog. 

Additional Information

Generating Token-Based Authentication

Tableau SSO Authentication: The Tableau server is enabled with SSO or SAML integration, Rest API will not support it. Instead of that, we need to generate PAT (Personal Access Token) for that user.

The following are the steps to generate PAT (Personal Access Token):

1. Login to Tableau Online Server and navigate to the My Account Settings.
   
   
2. In the My Account Settings page, click on the Settings tab and enter the Token Name in the Personal Access Tokens field.
3. Once after providing the Token Name the Create new token button gets enabled and clicks on the Create new token button, a pop-up window with the secret token is displayed.
   
4. Click on the Copy to clipboard button and navigate to the OvalEdge application Tableau Add Connection page and provide the password and select Is Token Based Auth(Y/N) option as ‘Y’.

Troubleshooting Tableau Authentication

In case, if the authentication fails, we can troubleshoot Authentication using curl from the VM.

<tsRequest> 

  <credentials personalAccessTokenName="kavyagv" personalAccessTokenSecret="X3d/mUyURfomNvNcQ==:EKqhHRq9qfYe4Otn3DlNkMtJI" >

<site contentUrl="ovaledgetestonline" />

  </credentials>

</tsRequest>

Save the above Request to an XML file, say signin.xml.

Now, run the below curl command. With this, we can change the request and try different scenarios instead of going for a new build with changes or additional logs.

curl https://prod-apnortheast-a.online.tableau.com/api/3.9/auth/signin -X POST -d @signin.xml

Similar Requests can be executed for other Tableau operations as well.

---

Copyright © 2023, OvalEdge LLC, Peachtree Corners GA USA