Manage Your Data with Tableau Data Management

Learning Objectives

After completing this unit, you’ll be able to:

• Describe Tableau Data Management.
  
• Describe the features and pages that make up Tableau Data Management.
  

What Is Tableau Data Management?

Need help managing your Tableau Server and Tableau Cloud content and data assets? If so, Tableau Data Management can help! Data Management includes features and functionality that help you manage Tableau content and data assets in your Tableau Server or Tableau Cloud environment. The Tableau Data Management license includes both Tableau Catalog and Tableau Prep Conductor.  

Get Data Insights with Tableau Catalog

Tableau Catalog audits and indexes (tracks) all of the content on your Tableau Cloud site or Tableau Server. The indexed content can include metrics, flows, and data sources.

When Tableau Catalog indexes your content, it gathers information about the data such as the content schema and lineage. Tableau Catalog uses the indexed data to identify all of your databases, files, and tables. 

Here are a few things you can do with Tableau Catalog. 

Data Discovery

• Search for databases, tables, and data sources.
  
• Connect to data sources from the search results.
  

Curation and Trust

• Search all Tableau objects for sensitive data.
  
• Add helpful metadata, like descriptions.
  
• Set data quality warnings.
  
• View data details.
  
• Certify assets.
  
• Remove assets from the catalog.
  

Lineage Analysis  

• View workbook and other Tableau content dependencies.
  
• Email authors that own related object content.
  
• Use lineage to find the fields your workbook depends on.
  
• When you use a Tableau visualization, you can see where the data came from that was used to create the view.
  

Track and Monitor Flows with Tableau Prep Conductor

When you publish your flows and schedule them to run, you want to know that they are running as expected and resolve any issues as they occur. You also want to monitor and understand the performance of your flows. Here are a few of the flow monitoring tasks you can do with Tableau Prep Conductor.

• View and monitor the details about your flow, including recent activity in the Content pages.
  
• Consolidate redundant data operations into a single flow–saves time and cost for Tableau + databases as redundancies are removed.
  
• Create upstream/downstream workflows using Linked Tasks.
  
• Edit your flow (starting in version 2020.4).
  
• View the results of the flow runs and any errors in the Run History tab.
  
• Use Administrative Views to monitor server and site activity.
  
• View detailed alerts for failed flow runs.
  
• Set-up “failed flow run” email alerts to flow owners.
  

Schedule Flow Tasks

Use the Flow Overview page to see the status of the most recent flow run and catch any errors. If a scheduled task is suspended, a warning icon shows next to the schedule. Hover on the icon to view the status.

Check Connections Status

Use the Connections page to see the most recent status and find any related connectivity errors.

Track Flow Health with Data Management

After you purchase and enable Data Management, you can access two additional pages to track your flow health: Scheduled Tasks and Run History.

View Scheduled Flow Tasks

Use the Scheduled Tasks page to view scheduled tasks assigned to a flow. If a scheduled task is suspended, you can see the task status, and then manually resume the task when you’re ready. You can use the links in the Schedule type column to view and edit the details of a scheduled task.

View Flow History

Use the Run History page to view the details of flow runs that are completed or are in progress. You can view error details by hovering over the error in the Errors column. The duration column shows you the run time of the flow. The Run Type field shows the refresh type for the output. 

Summary

You can manage your data and content easier by using Tableau Data Management. Tableau Catalog can Index all of your content. You can monitor your flow status and performance using the Flow Overview, Schedule Tasks, Connections, and Run History pages in Tableau Prep Conductor. 

Resources

• Tableau Help: About Tableau Catalog 
• Tableau Help: About Data Management
• Tableau Help: Use Lineage for Impact Analysis 
• Tableau Help: Flow Methods