Pull Tableau Dashboard Images with Alteryx Macro

It's a common request from Alteryx Designer users to be able to get Tableau Dashboard screenshots to include them in PDFs, PPTs or simply distribute by email to others users without access to Tableau Server.

I have created two macros that connect to Tableau Server API (version 2.5) to pull Tableau dashboard images and use them in Alteryx.

Macros are super easy to use:

Enter your Tableau user&pass details.
Fill text boxes with the required details to connect your Tableau Server and get access to the desired view.
Run and get the image!

Tableau IMG Downaloader macro creates API calls to get the Auth token, workbook list and view list. Then you are allowed to select the workbook and the view you want to get a screenshot.

Tableau IMG Downloader Filter macros works in the same way but allows you to pass a field with values to filter the view and get multiple filtered screenshots.

The macros will also pass the image as blob.

Kindly note that the maximum number of workbooks/views the API call can pull is 1,000. If you need to pull +1,000 you will have to add the page number in the API calls according to Paging Results-Tableau Server REST API - Tableau.

Get Tableau IMG Downaloader from the Alteryx Public Gallery: Alteryx Analytics Gallery | Tableau IMG Downloader

Get Tableau IMG Downaloader Filter from the Alteryx Public Gallery: Alteryx Analytics Gallery | Tableau IMG Downloader Filter

Please let me know your thoughts and report any bugs 😉

Alberto Hernandez

Accepted answers

All comments

Loperal

HI Alberto,

First of all, this is awesome, I created in the past a workflow to get the PDF of a Tableau Story to avoid the manual step in tableau in peak hours!!! Many people will benefit from this.

I managed to pass the data to filter a single value, what about passing 2 or more filters, how would you approach that? appreciatte your thoughs and well done again, thanks!!!

alberto_herni

Hi @Loperal,

Thanks for your message.

If you want to pass multiple values for one filter, you can add in the API call multiple values just separating them with a ,

?vf_<fieldname>=filter-value1,filter-value2,filter-value3

In order to filter by multiple fields I think you should add into the API call the second field using & as separator.

?vf_<fieldname>=filter-value1&<fieldname>=filter2-value1

I haven't tested these options yet, but you can dig a bit more into the API documentation to see how this can be done, below articles are a good starting point 😉

https://help.tableau.com/current/pro/desktop/en-us/embed_structure.htm

https://help.tableau.com/current/api/rest_api/en-us/REST/rest_api_concepts_filtering_and_sorting.htm#filter-expression-notes

Best Regards,

Alberto

alberto_herni

Hi @Mortonplace,

The links were pointing to the old Alteryx Public Gallery, that's why they are not working.

I have uploaded new versions of the macros to the new Public Gallery, please find below the links.

Tableau Image Downloader - Alteryx Community

Tableau Image Downloader + Filter - Alteryx Community

New versions include error checks.

Regards,

Alberto HM

jarrod_r

Is it possible to use this to pull an image of an entire dashboard and not just a specific sheet? I currently use the command prompt to pull an image after refreshing the data and would love to be able to use Alteryx to do this.

alberto_herni

Hi @jarrod_r,

Yes, definitely you can download Tableau Dashboards using this tool, the dashboards are published as sheets, so you can download a sheet that simply contains one chart or a sheet that contains a compositions of charts (dashboard), actually we are mainly using the tool to download Tableau dashboard images.

Regards,

Alberto HM

jarrod_r

Maybe I'm doing something wrong, then. I've entered the information based on the dashboard URL: (not actual URL)

Full URL: https://tableua.company.com/#/site/SITENAME/views/WORKBOOKNAME/DASHBOARDNAME

Server URL: https://tableua.company.com

Tableau Site: SITENAME

Workbook Name: WORKBOOKNAME

Sheet Name: DASHBOARDNAME

I get the error "Incorrect worksheet name, please review".

When I use the full URL and put a ".png" at the end I am able to get the image as expected.

Any thoughts on what I'm doing wrong?

Server version: 2021.1.4 (20211.21.0712.0907) 64-bit Windows

I really hope I can get this to work. It would be great to not have to use the Tableau command line tool.

Thank you!

shatavisha

This is really helpful! thank you so much. could you please tell how the filter works. I am unable to pick a value.

jai_cotman

First, let me say this is an awesome macro and I love that it'll pull snapshots of published dashboards to include in email summaries. With that said, I'm curious to know if anyone else is having this issue.

I'm publishing the workflow to our Gallery server to run on automation. When it runs, even as a separate workflow from the one that updates Tableau, the screenshot that I get is cached. What I mean by that is I continue to get a screenshot from the last time I updated the workflow (last update 27 June 2023). The only time I pull current data is if I remove the macro, replace it with a new macro, and then run it locally.

Am I missing something in the settings that is causing the caching issue...or is that normal behavior and I have to just stick to running this manually and having others of my team understand how to do this, should I be out or switch roles/jobs/leave my current employer? Thanks in advance!

alberto_herni

hi @jai_cotman, happy to hear that you found the macro useful!

The Tableau API works in a way that if you make multiple requests for an image, subsequent calls return a cached version of the file. To decrease the amount of time that a workbook is cached, you can use the maxAge parameter (minimum of 1 minute). In order to implement this parameter in the get image api call you can do the following:

Go to Formula Tool (#10)
Remove the existing formula --> [server] + "/api/2.5/sites/" + [site_id] + "/views/" + [tabid] + "/image?resolution=high"
Enter the following --> [server] + "/api/2.5/sites/" + [site_id] + "/views/" + [tabid] + "/image?resolution=high&maxAge=max-age-minutes"

Then you can replace the final 'max-age-minutes' by a fixed value or use a Numeric UpDown tool, from the Interface tool section, to make it based on the user selection.

I also updated the macros on the Gallery to include this max age parameter so you can download it again and check.

Tableau Image Downloader - Alteryx Community

Tableau Image Downloader + Filter - Alteryx Community

Hope this resolves your issue.

BR,

Alberto

jarrod_r

I have been using your macro for a few months now in production and it works great! (I was playing around with it last year to see if it would work for what I needed and it does!)

I was wondering, though, if there was a way to modify the macro to output a PDF from the view rather than an image? I was trying to dissect the macro and figured out how all the parts work. I tried plugging in "/pdf" in the final download tool with an output file path.

I get it to output a PDF file, but it doesn't seem to actually be a real file (get an error when attempting to open the file). The header returned from the Tableau server is:

HTTP/1.1 404
Date: Fri, 01 Sep 2023 04:05:06 GMT
Server: Tableau
tableau_error_source: NeedsClassification
tableau_status_code: 5
tableau_error_code: 0x74F4C8E5
tableau_service_name: vizportal
Content-Type: application/xml;charset=UTF-8
X-Tableau: Tableau Server
P3P: CP="NON"
X-UA-Compatible: IE=Edge
X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff
X-XSS-Protection: 1; mode=block
Referrer-Policy: no-referrer-when-downgrade
Content-Security-Policy-Report-Only: connect-src * https://*.tiles.mapbox.com https://api.mapbox.com; default-src blob:; font-src * data:; frame-src * data:; img-src * data: blob:; object-src data:; report-uri /vizql/csp-report; script-src * blob:; style-src * 'unsafe-inline'
Transfer-Encoding: chunked

Any thoughts?

jarrod_r

Well, I figured it out! It was the API version! Needed to use 3.11!

adoen17

Excellent macro, but I have the error of Incorrect authentication, using my credentials, I dont know if you have any suggest to this. @alberto_herni

gokulraj_23

i got the same error, :Incorrect Authentication" were you able to fix it ?

adoen17

No, maybe a problem with the API and tableau in our organization

jarrod_r

Do you know if something similar is possible with Power BI? I can't seem to find anything for it. ☹️

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