Publish to Tableau tool username and password

[dmankey]

Hello,

What is the best practice storing a username and password in Alteryx workflows (Designer & Analytics Hub)? We're moving to SSO with Tableau Online and experienced two hurdles. One, Tableau Bridge was not a fan (not sure what broke yet). Two, all the workflows we have scheduled to run with current Tableau passwords embedded. My first thought is to burn a Tableau license to create a service account. Update all the workflows and Bridge to use it then move forward with SSO for all accounts except the service account. I've briefly researched the topic but was curious what other Alteryx users were doing before digging too deep. Thanks!

[SeanAdams]

Hey @dmankey 

Having the Tableau username & pwd embedded in your workflow can quickly become a maintenance nightmare if your Tableau server implements a security policy where the service accounts have a mandatory 3 or 6 month change password change requirement.

We have a requirement like this in our environment so we don't generally store the Tableau passwords in-canvas.   Instead there are two options:

- Instead of publishing straight to Tableau from Alteryx - instead publish your Tableau canvas from Tableau designer, to point to a TDE file or a database.    Alteryx then writes into the Data location.   This way every time you refresh your data in Alteryx, the Tableau Dashboard is also updated, and you also have very fine-grained control.

- Store your passwords in a password vault (like CyberArk or similar) which you connect to, to get the credentials for the service account; and then pass these on to the Tableau tool (wrap it in a macro and use Action tools to update the password in the Tableau tool)