A subscription is a view or workbook on Tableau Server that users can receive a snapshot of via email. When they click the snapshot in their email, the view or workbook opens on Tableau Server. To manage subscriptions, click Subscriptions on the Admin tab.
Requirements
For Tableau Server users to receive subscriptions, the following things need to be in place:
l Email settings configuration: As the system administrator, you configure the basic SMTP server settings for subscriptions on the Email Alerts/Subscriptions tab in the Configuration dialog box, which displays during Setup. This is the "from account" Tab-leau Server uses to email subscriptions to server users. You can access this tab after Setup as well. See Reconfigure the Server and Configure Email Subscriptions for steps.
l Credentials embedded or not required: From Tableau Server's perspective, a sub-scription includes a workbook, data, and a schedule. To deliver the data piece, Tableau Server needs to be able to access the data with no end-user involvement. This can be accomplished by using either a workbook with embedded database credentials, a Tab-leau Server data source, or by using data that doesn't require credentials, such as a file that's included with the workbook at publish time. Workbooks that prompt for credentials for live database connections can't be subscribed to.
l User requirements: If a user can see a view or workbook onTableau Server and it has the subscription icon ( ) in the upper right corner, he or she cansubscribe to it. The abil-ity to see a view or workbook is controlled by the View permission. A user must also have an email address. If Tableau Server doesn't already have an email address for a subscribing user, it prompts for one at subscription sign-up time. Users can change their delivery options, unsubscribe, or update their email address on theirUser Preferences page.
l No trusted authentication: If Tableau Server is configured for trusted authentication, subscriptions are disabled. Trusted authentication, in combination with Tableau's Local Authentication, creates a "login free" yet authenticated experience for end-users. To create this same experience and use subscriptions, use Active Directory (withEnable Automatic Login) as the user authentication type instead. You choose the user authen-tication type during Setup. See Configure the Server for details.
Additional Subscription Settings
As long as subscriptions are configured on the Email Alerts/Subscriptions tab and Tableau Server is using its default settings, server users can subscribe to the views and workbooks they see. To prevent users from subscribing or to customize their subscription experience, here's where to go:
l Sites page: By default, subscriptions are enabled for every site, but you can use the Sites pageto disable subscriptions on a per-site basis or to customize it. For example
you can enter a custom From address for subscriptions instead of the one you specified in the Configuration dialog box. You can also create your own footer for the subscription emails your users receive.
l Schedules page: Your users will need at least one subscription schedule to choose when they subscribe. Tableau provides two by default. As the system administrator, you can create additional schedules or remove the default ones. See Create or Modify a Schedule for details.
l Subscriptions page: This page lists all the subscriptions on the server or, if you're a site administrator, on the site. System administrators can use this page to change a server user's subscription schedule or delete their subscription. See the topics below for details.
For steps on how to test whether you've configured subscriptions correctly, see Test Your Sub-scription Configuration. If you're experiencing an issue with subSub-scriptions, see Troubleshoot Subscriptions.
Delete a Subscription
To delete a subscription, select the subscription you want to remove and click Delete:
Edit a Subscription Schedule
To change the schedule for a subscription, select the subscription, click Edit Schedule and select a schedule:
Test Your Subscription Configuration
As the administrator, you can test whether you've correctly configured subscriptions by doing the following:
1. Subscribe to a view.
2. On the Schedules page, select the schedule that contains your subscription.
3. Click Run Now:
4. In a few moments, your subscription should appear in your email inbox.
Troubleshoot Subscriptions
"The view snapshot in this email could not be properly rendered."
If you receive a subscription with this error message, there could be several reasons:
l Missing credentials: Some views are published with embedded credentials.You may receive the above error if the embedded credentials are now out-of-date, or if the view was republished without the embedded credentials.
l Database temporarily down: If the view has a live database connection and the data-base was temporarily down when the subscription was being generated, you might receive the above error.
l Background process timeout: By default, the background process that handles sub-scriptions times out after 30 minutes. In the majority of cases, this is plenty of time. How-ever, if the background process is handling an extraordinarily large and complex
dashboard, that may not be enough time. You can check the Background Tasks admin view to see if that's the case. To increase the timeout threshold, use the tabadmin option subscriptions.timeout.
Can't Subscribe
If you can see a view on Tableau Server and it has a subscription icon ( ) in the upper right corner, you can subscribe to it.
Two things need to be in place for you to subscribe to a view: Tableau Server needs to be cor-rectly configured (described in Manage Subscriptions) and the view you're subscribing to must either have embedded credentials for its data source or not rely on credentials at all. Examples
of the latter include a workbook that connects to an extract that isn't being refreshed, or a work-book whose data is in a file that was included with the workwork-book at publish time. Embedding credentials is a step that happens in Tableau Desktop (see theTableau Desktop helpfor details).
No Subscription Icon
It's possible to see a view on Tableau Server but be unable to subscribe to it. This happens for views with live database connections, where you’re prompted for your database credentials when you first click the view. A subscription includes a view (or workbook), data, and a sched-ule. To deliver the data piece, Tableau Server either needs embedded database credentials or data that doesn't require credentials. Where live database connections are concerned, Tab-leau Server doesn't have the credentials, only the individual users do. This is why you can only subscribe to views that either don’t require credentials or have them embedded.
You may also be able to see a view but be unable to subscribe to it (no subscription icon) if Tab-leau Server is configured for trusted authentication. SeeSubscription Requirementsfor more information.
Receiving Invalid or "Broken" Subscriptions
If you configured subscriptions on test or development instances of Tableau Server in addition to your in-production instance, disable subscriptions on your non-production instances. Keep-ing subscriptions enabled on all instances can result in your users receivKeep-ing subscriptions that appear to be valid, but which don't work, or receiving subscriptions even though they've unsub-scribed from the view or workbook.
Subscriptions not Arriving ("Error sending email. Can't send command to SMTP host.")
You may see the above error in Windows Event Viewer if subscriptions appear to be sent (according to the Background Tasks admin view), yet subscriptions aren't arriving, and your SMTP server is using encrypted (SSL) sessions. Subscriptions are only supported for unen-crypted SMTP connections. The solution is to use an unenunen-crypted SMTP server.
Sites
Use the Sites page to create independent sites for different organizations or groups on a single server system. Each site’s workbooks, data, and user lists are isolated from those of other sites. As the system administrator, only you can see every site and perform actions such as cre-ating sites and making system-wide changes. See the topics below for more information: