Publish to Tableau Tool with Metadata (TDS)

[sm7746]

Hi, 

I am having trouble adding a metadata file location to the Publish to Tableau Tool. I have found a few other posts and made the required changes to my TDS file including the version and dbname path

1. https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Designer-Discussions/Publish-to-Tableau-Server-tool-With-Me...
2. https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Engine-Works-Blog/Publish-to-Tableau-Server-Tool-Updates-for-TDSX/b...
3. https://help.alteryx.com/2019.2/TableauServerPublish.htm

My workflow runs successfully when there is no metadata file location specified. 

When I try to add a metadata file, I get an error message saying it can't access a TDSX file in C:\Users\<Username>\AppData\Temp

While trying to troubleshoot the issue, I opened the PublishtoTableauServer.yxmc file and noted the text box for the TDS file path only has 1 outgoing connection to an error message tool....ie it seems the TDS file path input isn't actually used anywhere else in the macro?

I am using Alteryx Designer 2019.4 and v2.0.0 of the PublishToTableauServer tool

[jonriddle · Accepted solution]

A few bugs were introduced in Alteryx 2019.4 involving publishing data to Tableau.

1. Fixed Decimal values are published as string rather than fixed decimals.  This was fixed with version 2020.1.  The only way I know to fix this is to either upgrade to 2020.1 or downgrade to 2019.2.  I'm not sure if 2019.3 works or not.  We skipped that version.
2. Publishing Hyper with TDS files fails.  This is still failing in any version 2019.4 and up.  A defect ticket has been created for their developers to resolve this issue.  (DE24553 - unable to publish .tds files in 2019.4+).  The only way I know to get Hyper+TDS working again is to downgrade to 2019.2.  A work around for this while keeping on 2019.4 or higher is to switch to publishing data as TDE rather than Hyper.  To do this, you'll need to recreate your TDS file from scratch using TDE data rather than Hyper data because Tableau will not allow you to simply swap out the underlying data in your TDS.  This can be time consuming depending on the complexity of your TDS file.

We're currently running Alteryx 2020.1 and Tableau 2019.4.  Any data we're publishing to Tableau with a TDS file, we are doing so as TDE.  Any data we're publishing to Tableau without TDS, we're doing so as Hyper because it is faster.  Either way, I recommend not staying on 2019.4 because of the first issue I mentioned where fixed decimals get published as strings.  I'm pretty sure you can get around this by changing to float or double but my business stakeholders are pretty set on not having variable length decimal values.  So, this wasn't an option for me.

Hope this helps.  If it doesn't, I'm happy to jump on a call with you.

[sm7746]

Thanks for the reply. This is my first attempt at publishing with TDS so I can easily switch to TDE for now.

[MPohlers]

I am still experiencing these problems with Alteryx 2020.2.

[William100]

Also, having the "Cannot access file tdsx" error trying to publish using PublishToTableauServer_v2.0.0, since upgrading to Alteryx Designer 2020.2.

[William100]

I couldn't get TDS to work with TDE. I don't think TDS can work with TDE, got this error:

Error: Publish to Tableau Server (10): Tool #252: Tool #4: Tableau Server API Request (Publish file) Error Code 400011: Bad Request -- There was a problem publishing the file

[ElwinPang]

Anyone able to run this "publish to tableau" tool successfully with data source metainfo? i tried in ver2020.3 and still failed with the same error

"Error: Publish to Tableau Server (123): Tool #227: Cannot access file: C:\ProgramData\Alteryx\Engine\Engine_32236_97062d1d8e5b4a998aed9aeb7bdc8f41_\TrueTracker_5_ver02.tdsx"

Thanks

[SabrinaCB]

Thank you for the thorough post @jonriddle ! I'm sure others have found it useful.

DE24553 (Publishing Hypers specifically with TDS metadata file) should now be resolved in Alteryx Designer/Server 2020.4

@William100 Your other error with the TDE with TDS combination may have to do with how the TDS file was prepared.

If you continue to experience issues please contact Alteryx Support and we would be happy to help.

Have a great holiday season!

Sabrina