Connecting Tableau to Collate: Unlocking Cross-Source Data Lineage

Introduction

In the world of modern data analytics, understanding the origin of your data and its flow is crucial. When you're running Tableau dashboards that pull from multiple data sources, tracking that lineage becomes even more critical. With over 50,000 companies using Tableau, it is a robust tool that many organizations rely on. That's where Collate's Tableau connector comes into play, offering comprehensive metadata management and cross-source lineage tracking.

Why Connect Tableau to Collate?

The primary use case for connecting BI tools like Tableau to Collate centers around cross-source lineage. This isn't just about tracking data movement within Tableau itself—it's about understanding the complete journey of your data from source systems through transformations and ultimately to your business intelligence reports and dashboards.

When you connect Tableau to Collate, you bring in projects, reports, and dashboards, gaining insights into how data flows through your entire analytics ecosystem. This visibility becomes invaluable when troubleshooting data issues, understanding impact analysis, or simply documenting your data architecture. It all starts with that connection.

Setting Up the Connection

The initial setup process for connecting Collate to Tableau is straightforward. Starting from Collate's landing page, navigate to Settings > Services > Dashboards, where Tableau can be easily located among the extensive list of supported connectors. The process looks like this:

1. Navigate to Settings: Begin by accessing the services section in Collate's settings.

2. Add New Dashboard Service: Select “Services”, then “Dashboards”, then "Add New Service" and search for Tableau in the service list.

Authentication and Security

Rather than using basic authentication, the recommended approach is to use personal access tokens. This provides better security by using a dedicated service account rather than individual user credentials. In Tableau, you'll create a personal access token through your account settings, which includes both a token name and a secret key.

Back in Collate, the connector offers several configuration options:

• Site-specific ingestion if you only want to connect specific Tableau sites
• SSL verification for secure connections
• Pagination limits to control data flow
• Filtering capabilities using regex expressions to include or exclude specific dashboards, charts, or projects

Ingestion Runners

For organizations using hybrid deployments, Collate supports both cloud-based and on-premises ingestion runners. If you're using Tableau Server (on-premises) rather than Tableau Cloud, you might need an on-premises agent to establish the connection.

Now, press the Test Connection button to ensure you have connectivity. Note, however, that if the service isn’t running and the test connection is what wakes it up, the first try might fail if it doesn’t start fast enough. If that’s the case, wait a couple of minutes and try the test again; it should work. It is always best practice to test your connection. Once done, click Next.

Collate uses filters to control what data is ingested, databases, schemas, or tables, via names or regular expressions (regex). Out of the box, it excludes system schemas, such as "information*schema" or "performance_schema", to focus on user data.

Accept the defaults for a full ingest, or customize: for instance, include only schemas matching "^prod*.*" to target production data. Use the filtering options to control which databases, schemas, or tables are imported, thereby reducing unnecessary bloat.

What Collate Captures from Tableau

Collate's Tableau connector is comprehensive, supporting virtually every dashboard feature available:

• Charts and visualizations with full metadata
• Complete lineage tracking, including column-level lineage
• Ownership information and user permissions
• Tags and classifications for better organization
• Project structures and hierarchies
• Usage statistics for optimization insights
• Reverse metadata capabilities for pushing tags back to Tableau

This reverse metadata feature is compelling; you can set tags and classifications in Collate and push them back to Tableau, creating a centralized metadata management system.

The Power of Cross-Source Lineage

Here's where things get really interesting. Once your Tableau connection is established, Collate can trace data lineage across different systems. Imagine a Redshift table that feeds data to multiple Tableau dashboards. With cross-source lineage, you can visualize the entire flow, from the source database table through any transformations and ultimately to the specific charts and dashboards that consume that data.

To enable this cross-source capability, you'll configure your data source's lineage agent to include the BI service name in its cross-database service names configuration. This simple setup enables Collate to connect the dots between your data sources and BI tools automatically. From the example below, you’ll see data in Redshift that moves through a flow, eventually feeding a Tableau dashboard (Customers), which in turn feeds another Tableau dashboard (Customer Report).

Real-World Impact

This comprehensive lineage tracking delivers immediate value in several scenarios:

• Troubleshooting: When a dashboard shows unexpected data, you can quickly trace back through the entire data pipeline to identify where issues might have originated.
• Impact Analysis: Before making changes to a data source, you can see exactly which Tableau dashboards and reports will be affected.
• Documentation: The visual lineage serves as living documentation of your data architecture, making it easier for new team members to understand data flows.
• Governance: With complete metadata and lineage tracking, you can effectively implement data governance policies and ensure compliance with requirements.

Conclusion

Connecting Tableau to Collate transforms isolated BI dashboards into part of a comprehensive, traceable data ecosystem. The ability to see how data flows from source systems through transformations and into business reports provides the visibility modern data teams need.

The Tableau connector is available out of the box with Collate, and the public documentation provides detailed setup instructions and requirements. The metadata agent handles most of the heavy lifting, pulling connection strings, queries, and relationships needed to build comprehensive lineage maps.

For organizations already using Collate with database services, adding Tableau follows a similar pattern, but focuses specifically on the metadata agent, as it captures all the necessary information for BI tool integration.

Whether you're troubleshooting data quality issues, planning system changes, or simply seeking to understand your data architecture better, this integration provides the insights needed to make informed decisions. With cross-source lineage tracking, you're not just managing Tableau metadata; you're gaining end-to-end visibility into your entire data pipeline.

The setup is straightforward, the benefits are immediate, and the comprehensive feature support means you can capture virtually everything Tableau has to offer within your centralized metadata management system.

To explore further, consider the Collate Free Tier for managed OpenMetadata or the Product Sandbox with demo data.