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I've had an issue pop up several times now where I'll refresh my extracts for a dashboard I've created, and then suddenly one or two of my variables will read as all nulls. When I go to "Data source", I get an error, and these errors vary. Some are invalid table name errors, some are insertdata unbound column errors. When I click "Data > Refresh data source", it fixes the problem. This has happened in multiple workbooks several times over the last couple of months. 

 

Is there a reason this issue is coming up in the first place, and is there anything I can do so it doesn't keep happening? Is it a Tableau bug or something I'm not structuring well on my end? 

 

#Tableau Desktop & Web Authoring

2 answers
  1. Oct 23, 6:07 PM

    Thank you! Generally this happens after I've made an update to the data and need to refresh it in my dashboards. It's usually additional data being appended to an existing sheet, but because I do my data cleaning and appending in R, it will override the existing sheet with a fresh copy every time I run my script. But column and table names aren't changing between updates.

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I always have to change the repository location from the default to where I have it stored on OneDrive. Is this usual behavior? Is there a way to set it somewhere else so I don't have to do this with every update? 

 

#Tableau Prep

1 answer
  1. Yesterday, 7:19 AM

    Hi 

    @Jonathan Rubin

     

    I think Tableau Prep Builder works this way. 

    I tried it. On a PC with Prep Builder 2025.2.4, I ran the 2025.2.5 installer. In other words, I upgraded it. The repository location went back to the default. 

    Next, on a PC with Tableau Desktop 2026.1.2, I ran the 2026.1.3 installer. When I started 2026.1.3, it used the same repository as 2026.1.2. 

    The Tableau help page says, “When you upgrade to a new release version of Tableau Desktop, bookmarks, workbooks, and data sources that you were working with (that is, that are in the local Tableau repository on your computer) are still available in the new version.” So I think Desktop keeps the repository, but Prep Builder does not. 

    https://help.tableau.com/current/desktopdeploy/en-us/desktop_deploy_upgrade.htm

     

    I don’t know a way to keep the repository location in Prep Builder. 

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We moved from username/password to  OAuth for accessing snowflake data from our Tableau cloud environment.  The subscription button disappeared, and won't come back even when we embed email in the data source (previous subscriptions work with embedded eamil, but you can edit them in the workbook). The only other method that brings the subscription button back, is publishing the data source with embedded email. 

 

Is there any other way to get the subscription to work with OAuth? 

 

#Tableau Cloud

1 answer
  1. Oct 22, 12:54 AM

    Hi @Eryck Huizar

    , 

     

    From the docs, Subscribe is only available when Tableau Cloud can run the view unattended: for a live OAuth connection, the OAuth credential must be embedded or saved, and the refresh token must be valid (

    https://help.tableau.com/current/online/en-us/subscribe_trouble.htm

    ). The docs don't explain why a workbook-embedded OAuth connection would behave differently from a published data source with embedded credentials, so I can't confirm the cause. It may be a product limitation. 

     

    What I'd try: 

    - Delete and re-add the Snowflake credential under My Account Settings > Saved Credentials, then embed it again, to rule out an invalid token. 

    - Publishing the data source separately with embedded credentials (what you found) seems to be the supported path, and it gives you one place to manage the token. 

    - If you want a service-account style setup, Snowflake key-pair authentication is supported on Tableau Cloud (saved credential, published from Desktop; not available for web authoring):

    https://help.tableau.com/current/online/en-us/snowflake_key_pair_auth.htm

    . I haven't verified that it brings the Subscribe button back, though. 

     

    If the button still doesn't appear, a support case may be worth opening. Is the connection live or an extract, and is the data source published separately or embedded in the workbook?

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I created a Custom Theme, but it does not appear that the settings for Worksheet Titles are being applied.   Any advice is appreciated.  Thank you.  Dave 

 

        "worksheet-title": { 

            "font-color": "

#878a8f

", 

            "font-family": "Tableau Semibold", 

            "font-size": 14 

        }, 

 

 

Why are worksheet title Custom Theme settings not being applied

 

 

 

#Tableau Desktop & Web Authoring

2 answers
  1. Oct 22, 9:05 AM

    Hi David,  

     

    Before you file it as a bug, check if those titles were ever edited by hand. When you open Edit Title and change the font, size or colour there, Tableau saves that formatting on the title text itself. The Custom Themes help page says this directly: even with Override, an imported theme doesn't replace formatting done in the rich text editor, and Edit Title is that editor. A template workbook is the classic place for this, because someone styled the titles once and it stuck. Also check you picked Override and not Preserve when you imported the theme, since Preserve keeps whatever formatting the workbook already has.  

     

    Easy test: add a new sheet to the same workbook and don't touch its title. If the new one comes out in 

    #878a8f

     Tableau Semibold 14 and the old ones don't, it's the per-title formatting, not the theme.  

     

    I checked the behaviour with Format > Workbook > Worksheet Titles on Superstore (screenshot): the sheet with the untouched title changed, the one I had formatted in Edit Title kept its own font and colour 

     

    To fix the existing titles: right-click the title, Edit Title, click Reset, OK. That puts it back to the default title and the theme can style it again. If a title had custom text you'll have to retype it after the reset, just don't change the font while you do.  

     

    Hi David, Before you file it as a bug, check if those titles were ever edited by hand.

     

    After.png

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Hi all! 

 

I am experiencing an issue with my Tableau dashboard scroll position. When I navigate to different tabs on my dashboard, the scroll position will reset to the bottom of the dashboard. It does not matter if I have scrolled to the bottom or not when on the current page.  

 

I am using Tableau Desktop to build, Tableau Public to publish, and am embedding the dashboard on a private company-wide site. The issue reproduces on Tableau Public and embedded on my private company site. I have published dashboards using these steps before, and have not run into this issue before.

 

I have managed to rule out the following solutions:

  • Dashboard device view (ex: preview, desktop, default)
  • Dashboard navigation buttons are at the very top of my page
  • Issue reproduces on Tableau Public and embedded on my private company site
  • Each dashboard page is around the same dimensions
    • I have not experienced this issue with the scroll bar with dashboard pages of different dimensions previously, so I strongly believe this is not the issue
  • To test, I uploaded a dashboard that I built on Tableau Desktop, published to Tableau Public to publish, and embedded on a private company-wide site without this issue
    • My result was that I experienced the same issue with the scroll bar when this was not previously present :(

 

Does anyone have any advice for this issue? Thank you! 

 

#Tableau Public

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Hi everyone,

I’m working on a Tableau dashboard where users select a Mission ID using a filter dropdown.

Some Mission IDs are milestone-based, while others are not.

I have a field [Milestone Rank], and the condition for a milestone-based Mission ID is:

COUNTD([Milestone Rank]) > 0

I have a separate dashboard section containing several milestone-related charts. What I want is:

  •  If the selected Mission ID is milestone-based → show the milestone section. 
  •  If the selected Mission ID is not milestone-based → completely hide the milestone section. 
  •  When the section is hidden, I also want the empty space to collapse, rather than leaving a blank area. 
  •  The Mission ID list comes from the database, so new Mission IDs can be added over time. 
  •  Ideally, I want to keep the Mission ID as a filter dropdown, rather than requiring the user to manually change another Show/Hide parameter. 

I tried using Dynamic Zone Visibility, but Tableau does not show my Boolean calculated field as an available value for “Control visibility using value.”

I also tried a Boolean parameter for Show/Hide, but then the user has to manually change the parameter every time they select a different Mission ID, which isn't practical.

Is there a way to make Dynamic Zone Visibility respond automatically to the selected Mission ID while keeping the Mission ID as a filter?

If not, what would be the recommended Tableau approach for achieving:

Mission ID filter → detect whether milestone exists → automatically show/hide a dashboard zone → collapse the space when hidden?

Thanks! 

 

#Tableau Desktop & Web Authoring  #Reports & Dashboards  #Tableau Cloud  #Automation  #Analytics

4 answers
  1. Oct 22, 9:10 AM

    Chris's set idea is the right way, I built it on Superstore to make sure it really drives the zone (screenshots below). A few details that made it work:  

     

    Create a set on Mission ID (right-click the field > Create > Set) and use it in place of the Mission ID filter, so every sheet that was filtered by Mission ID now has the set on Filters showing IN. Then right-click the set > Show Set, and on the card's menu choose Single Value (dropdown). For your users it looks almost the same as the dropdown they have now, the only difference is there's no (All) option in single value mode.  

     

    Keep the set dropdown outside the container you hide. If it sits inside it, it disappears with the section and nobody can switch back.  

     

    The visibility field must be one value for the whole workbook, so the whole comparison goes inside the braces:  

     

    { FIXED : COUNTD(IF [Mission ID Set] THEN [Milestone Rank] END) > 0 }   

     

    Written as { ... } > 0 it won't show up in the list, that's the bit Chris mentioned. And because it's a FIXED, normal filters don't affect it. If another filter on the dashboard should count too (date, region...), right click it and Add to Context.  

     

    Put the milestone sheets in one tiled container, select the container, go to the Layout tab, tick Control visibility using value and pick the field. When it's False the container goes away and the tiled items around it take the space, so no blank area.  

     

    In my test the field is "does the selected state have any order with a 50% or bigger discount": Texas shows the section, California hides it. Same structure as yours, just swap in Mission ID and Milestone Rank.  

     

     

    Chris's set idea is the right way, I built it on Superstore to make sure it really drives the zone (screenshots below).

     

     

    dzv-set-california.png

     

     

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2 answers
  1. Oct 22, 9:00 AM

    That message comes up because your dashboard is set to add new objects as Tiled. Tiled is the default, so everything you drag in snaps into the layout and into whatever container is under the mouse. Holding Shift just flips it for that one drag, which is why it keeps asking.  

     

    If you mostly want floating objects, change the default instead. In the Dashboard pane on the left, just under the Objects list, there are two buttons: Tiled and Floating. Click Floating and every new object you drag in will float, no Shift needed. Screenshot below shows where it is.  

     

    For something that is already on the dashboard, click it, open the small dropdown arrow on its border and tick Floating (untick it to put it back in the layout).  

     

    That message comes up because your dashboard is set to add new objects as Tiled. Tiled is the default, so everything you drag in snaps into the layout and into whatever container is under the mouse.

     

     

     

    Just keep in mind a floating object sits on top of the containers, it is not part of them. If you want it to move and resize with a container, it has to be tiled inside that container. 

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My Average Line is going beyond my line chart Using dual Axis. Guide me how can i solve it  

My Average Line is going beyond my line chart

 

 

 

#Tableau Desktop & Web Authoring

1 answer
  1. Oct 22, 8:58 AM

    Create:

    BAT

     

    tableau isn’t fully supported. Syntax highlighting is based on BAT.

     

    WINDOW_AVG(SUM([Measure]))

    Then:

    1. Drag it to Rows.
    2. Make it Dual Axis.
    3. Synchronize Axis.
    4. Change Marks type to Line.
    5. Format as a dashed line.
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Our Tableau server's SSL certificate (from GoDaddy) expired today so we installed a new one. Users who browse to our Tableau site with Chrome or with Edge have no problems and the browsers indicate that the cert is trusted and good until March. However, three of our users are using Tableau Desktop 26.2.2783. One of them tried to use 'activate by logging into a server' and chose our Tableau server, but received the error 'cannot connect to Tableau Server, server's certificate is not trusted'. 

 

I have confirmed that this user has no problems accessing our Tableau site via browser. it's just the app that gets the certificate error. 

 

#Tableau Desktop & Web Authoring  #Security

3 answers
  1. Oct 22, 7:30 AM

    Glad you got it working. What you found points to the actual cause, though: the server isn't sending the GoDaddy intermediate certificate along with yours. Chrome and Edge quietly fetch a missing intermediate on their own, so the site looks fine in the browser. Tableau Desktop doesn't do that, so it fails unless the intermediate is already in that machine's certificate store, which is why installing the .p7b fixed that one PC.  

     

    It may also explain why it broke exactly at renewal: GoDaddy has been moving renewals to a new intermediate (R1), so if the server still has the chain file from the old certificate, it won't match the new one.  

     

    If you fix it on the server instead, you won't have to repeat it on every Desktop machine. Tableau Server wants PEM files, not the IIS ones. Download the certificate again from GoDaddy and choose Apache (or Other) as the server type, which gives you your .crt plus a second file with "bundle" in the name. That bundle is the chain. In TSM go to Configuration > Security > External SSL, add it as the certificate chain file next to your cert and key, save and apply pending changes.  

     

    Or from the command line:  

    tsm security external-ssl enable --cert-file .crt --key-file .key --chain-file tsm pending-changes apply  

     

    To check what the server sends: openssl s_client -connect yourserver:443 -showcerts. You should see your certificate and, under it, GoDaddy's intermediate (the bundle can add a cross-signed root too, so two or three is fine). If only yours shows up, the chain isn't being sent. Applying the change restarts services, so do it out of hours 

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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?

  1. Is there a way to rename a common item across multiple reports at once using web authoring in Tableau Server or Tableau Desktop?
  2. 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?
  3. If each report must be edited individually, is there a way to publish multiple updated workbooks in bulk?
  4. 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

3 answers
  1. Oct 22, 7:30 AM

    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. 

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