Trying to navigate workbooks at my job (sizes range from 5-60 MB). They are all extracts. They all run very smooth on the server and editing the workbooks on the server is no issue either.
When working from Tableau desktop, however, I may wait 5-10 minutes just to wait for a dashboard to load, or to open a worksheet on a dashboard. I've found that action filters and viz in tooltips significantly slow workbooks.
I've run the optimizer. All of them show "non-materialized calculations" as a "Take Action" item. However, I'm struggling to understand why these workbooks would then be able to run so smoothly on the server?
Please keep in mind this is all coming from a very non-technical Tableau user. Our IT dept. has looked into this matter in the past but was ultimately unable to solve the underlying issue. Updated to Tableau 2023.3 improved desktop speed minimally.
Server has three advantages Desktop can't match:
1. **Caching** — Server caches queries, tiles, and images. Desktop re-runs everything from scratch each time.
2. **Hardware** — Server has lots of RAM and fast disk. Your laptop is also running Teams, browsers, antivirus, etc.
3. **Extract location** — if the .hyper file lives on a network drive, Desktop pulls it across the network every open. Server keeps it on local storage.
The "non-materialized calculations" flag is real, but Server's caches hide the cost — that's why Desktop feels it and Server doesn't.
Worth trying:
- Right-click data source → Extract → Compute Calculations Now, then refresh and save.
- Aggregate the extract and filter out unused rows.
- Right-click → Hide All Unused Fields.
- If the extract is on a network share, copy it locally first.
- Use viz in tooltip and action filters sparingly — each fires its own query chain.
For the heaviest workbooks, editing on Server is a legitimate workflow.
