Dear Tableau Desktop & Web Authoring Team,
We are currently using Tableau Server and Tableau Desktop to update existing reports.
We are running the latest version of Tableau Server.
We need to rename an item displayed across approximately 17 reports. To reduce the effort of editing and publishing each report individually, we would like to know whether this name change can be applied to multiple reports in bulk.
Could you please advise on the following?
- Is there a way to rename a common item across multiple reports at once using web authoring in Tableau Server or Tableau Desktop?
- Can renaming the corresponding field in a shared data source automatically update the name displayed in all reports that use it? If so, what conditions must be met, and what impact could this have on existing reports?
- If each report must be edited individually, is there a way to publish multiple updated workbooks in bulk?
- If these operations are not available through standard features, are there any recommended APIs or tools? Please also clarify which approaches are officially supported.
If you need additional information, such as how the reports are organized into workbooks and sheets, whether they share a data source, or details of the item being renamed, please let us know.
Thank you for your assistance.
Best regards,
#Tableau Desktop & Web Authoring
Hi, it depends on where the name lives. I'll assume it's a field name. If it's a member alias or text in a sheet title, the answer is a bit different.
If the 17 reports connect to one published data source and the item is a field in it, rename it there once: open the data source in Desktop (or Edit Data Source on the server), rename the field, and publish it back over the same data source. Shefali and Yasin say existing workbooks keep the old name. I'm not sure that's true in every case. As far as I know a rename made in the published data source usually shows up in connected workbooks the next time they're opened, unless a workbook renamed that field itself (then its local name wins). Calculations keep working either way, because they point at the field's internal name and not its display name. Text typed by hand into a title or caption won't change. Please test it with one workbook first, it only takes a few minutes, and then you know for your setup.
If each workbook has its own embedded data source, there is no bulk rename in Desktop or web authoring. You either edit them one by one or script it. A .twb is XML and the displayed name is the caption attribute of the field's column element (for .twbx it's the .twb inside the zip), so a script can change it before republishing. Tableau Support doesn't support editing the XML, so keep backups.
Publishing many workbooks at once: tabcmd publish with --overwrite in a loop, or the REST API. Those two are the officially supported options. Tableau's Python libraries, Tableau Server Client (for the REST API) and the Document API (for editing workbook files), are open source from Tableau and supported through GitHub and the community, not through support cases.
