Hello Tableau Community. My name is Phillip Cheung and I'm a product manager on the Hyper team. I'm here to let you know that we will be deprecating the TDE extract file format in 2023. Depending on what Tableau products you use, this deprecation can impact you differently. Please read below to see if/how you are affected.  

For Tableau Server customers:

• Starting in the March 2023, with the release of 2023.1 and future version, Tableau Server will by default not allow publishing TDE content. Read below for more details.

For Tableau Online and Public customers:

• There is no action needed. Tableau will convert published content for you.
• Starting in June 2022, we will restrict the ability to publish TDE content to Tableau Online and Public.
• Starting in June 2022, we will convert all existing TDEs in Public and Online to Hyper.

Hyper was released in 2018 with Tableau version 10.5 as a replacement for the TDE file format. Since that release, Tableau has continually improved our ability to work with any data, anywhere, providing speed, security, and scalability to allow anyone to see and understand data. Deprecating the TDE format will allow us to continue developing new features to help with this mission. Please read below for the details on the deprecation and what to do if you are impacted.

The majority of Tableau customers are already using the Hyper format and are no longer creating new TDE files. If you started your Tableau use with version 10.5 or later, you likely do not have any existing TDE content. If you started your Tableau use before version 10.5 you may have TDEs stored in Server, Online, or Public and might consider conversion. Please read the details below to determine if you are impacted and how to convert.  

Will the TDE deprecation impact me?  

You can see if you have TDE’s published on Server or Online from the home page of your site. Go to Explore and filter to All Data Sources, select All Data Sources from the Data source type, and pick the Tableau Data Engine (dataengine) connection type. If you see content listed, you have content using TDE and should consider removing the content or converting. If you only see the Tableau Data Engine (hyper) you are already using the Hyper format and are not impacted. 

I have some TDEs published. What should I do?  

If you are an Online or Public customer, your TDE content will be converted to Hyper automatically in 2023. You do not need to perform any actions. If you are a Server customer, there are several ways that you can convert your content from TDE to Hyper format.  

• The easiest way to automatically convert all TDE to Hyper is to turn on Encryption at Rest for Server (set to enforce mode). Encrypting Hyper extracts stored on Server increases safety and security of your Server deployment and the encryption process will automatically convert TDE to Hyper format. Once converted, there is no mechanism to revert back to TDE format. Please read the Extract Encryption at Rest document for details on the encryption process. If you are comfortable with the increased backgrounder load used for the encryption process, we highly recommend this method because of the increased security.  
• A one time or scheduled refresh will convert the format from TDE to Hyper.
• You can programmatically convert TDE to Hyper using the Hyper API. Download our example script on GitHub and try it out.  
• A manual or scheduled refresh will automatically convert the format from TDE to Hyper. If you are not able to perform an refresh because the source is no longer available, you can manually convert by doing the following:

1. Download the workbook from Server.  
   1. In Tableau Desktop, open the downloaded workbook.
   2. Select the extract data source from the Data menu and then select Extract > Upgrade
   3. Save the workbook to complete the conversion.
   4. Publish the converted workbook back to Server.  

For more details, please read the Extract Upgrades from TDE to Hyper help document which has the most up to date information.  

I would like to block TDEs from being published. Is there a way to do that?  

In the upcoming Tableau Server 2022.1 and later versions, there is a TSM command that will allow you to prevent publishing a workbook with TDE. A Server Admin can run the commands below to block or allow publishing TDE. When the command is set to True, the user publishing will receive an error message saying “publishing TDE extracts is not allowed on this Tableau Server instance.”  

To enable, from any node in the Tableau Server cluster, run the following commands.  

tsm configuration set -k features.Hyper_DisallowTDEPublishing -v True
tsm pending-changes apply 
(this will trigger a server restart)

For more information on TSM commands, see this help article.  

I hope this information is helpful and allows you to prepare for the deprecation of TDE. Please let me know if you have any additional questions.