Every workbook that is published to Tableau Server contains one or more connections. These connections are listed under the Admin tab, on the Data Connections page:
The Difference Between Data Connections and Data Sources
Data connections are different from data sources in that each connection is associated with a single workbook and describes the attributes required for connecting to a data source (e.g., server name, database name, etc.). That means if you have three workbooks that connect to the same data source, you will still have three connections listed on the connections page.
Searching for Data Connections
The Search area at the top of the Data Connections page helps you find connections by database server name, username, port, general connection type, and by whether or not the database credentials are embedded. To use this area to search for a connection, fill in one or more areas and click Search:
Which Connections Can I Edit?
You can edit connection information for live database connections and for extracts that need to be refreshed by Tableau Server. For example, you may have a large number of workbooks that connect to a database on a specific database server. If the name of the server changes, you can update all of the workbooks at once so they reference the new server name. Another example is if a workbook connects to a database using a specific user name and password.
You can quickly update all of the workbooks to use a different set of credentials.
For details on how to edit data connections, see the related topic link below.
Edit Data Connections
On the Data Connections page, server administrators can manage the connection information for published workbooks. Here you can change the connection type to store a different user account or type of authentication with a data source, or remove embedded passwords and require users to sign in each time.
For example, for some cloud data sources, instead of database credentials, you might want the connection to use a pre-configured OAuth access token. For information about OAuth
connections, seeOAuth Data Connections on page 283.
Note If you are not a server administrator, but you have edit permissions for a data source, you can access the data connection settings on the Data Sources page.
1. Sign in to the site that has the data connections you want to modify, and click Data Connections to display the Data Connections page.
2. Browse the list of connections or use the search filters at the top of the list to narrow down the results.
You can search by the data server name and port, connection type, and the database user name. You can also exclude or include data sources with embedded passwords.
The values you type into the Server and Database User Name fields are treated as regular expressions.
4. Type a new value for one or more of the connection attributes.
For connection options for Google and Salesforce.com data sources, see
Authentication Options for Google and Salesforce.com belowlater in this topic.
If a database or database driver doesn’t support connecting by using an IP address, you must enter the database name as the value for Server. All attributes selected in the Change? column will be updated when you click Submit. If you select the check box for an attribute and leave the New Value field blank, the attribute will be empty.
5. Click Submit.
6. Refresh the Data Connections page (press F5 or Ctrl+R) for your changes to take effect.
Authentication Options for Google and Salesforce.com
Google BigQuery, Google Analytics, and Salesforce.com provide a protected authentication option. When you select this option, the connection is created through an OAuth access token.
Database credentials do not need to be stored in Tableau, and all users connect through this access token, including Tableau Desktop users who want to create or edit workbooks using this connection.
For an overview of the OAuth process, seeOAuth Data Connections on page 283.
Google Authentication Options
When you edit Google BigQuery or Google Analytics connections, select either of the following options in the Edit Data Connection dialog box:
l Select Always access…to authenticate through a designated account, and then select an existing account from the list or select authenticate account now... to add a new one.
When you add a new account, the Google sign-in page appears. After you provide your database credentials, Google prompts you to confirm Tableau access to the data. When you click Accept, Google returns an access token to use for connecting to the data.
If you create extracts of your Google data source, select this first option, so that you can schedule refresh tasks.
l Select Prompt users to require users to connect through their own individual access tokens or sign in each time they connect.
Salesforce.com Authentication Options
When you edit Salesforce.com connections, you can select any of the following options in the Edit Data Connection dialog box:
l Select Enable scheduled extract refreshes using...to use a protected OAuth connection and schedule refresh tasks, and then select an existing account from the list or click authenticate account now on Salesforce to add a new one.
When you add a new account, the Salesforce.com sign-in page appears. After you provide your database credentials, Salesforce.com prompts you to confirm Tableau access to the data.
When you allow Tableau access, Salesforce.com creates an access token through which it connects to the data.
l Select Embed a username and password to use a traditional authentication method.
l Select No scheduled refreshes to require users to sign in to Salesforce.com each time they connect.
Monitor Progress
When you save your changes in the Edit Data Connection dialog box, the dialog displays the progress. If you close the dialog box, the modifications continue to run in the background until completed. Tableau Server will make as many changes as possible. Any failures will be skipped, but they will not impede other changes. For example, if you try to change the server name and add a password to several connections, the server names will be changed, and the passwords on workbooks will be changed. However, because you cannot add a password to a data source, the passwords for the data sources will not be changed.
For information about checking the progress of these tasks, seeBackground Tasks on page 162.