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Access Data Tables from Tableau

All Anvil apps, including Tableau Extensions built with Anvil X, have a built-in database called Data Tables. You can connect your extension’s Data Tables as a data source in Tableau.

Enable access in Anvil

To do this, open the Anvil X configuration in the left-hand sidebar of the Anvil Editor:

Scroll down to “Access your Data Tables from Tableau”, and click Enable:

You will now see the authentication details required to access your extension’s Data Tables from Tableau:

Add the data source to Tableau

Now, you can add your app’s Data Tables to your Tableau dashboard as a Postgres data source. Follow Tableau’s instructions to add and query the data source.

For security reasons, Anvil X does not permit Tableau to make direct connections to Anvil’s internal Postgres database. Instead, the connection details provided go via a “virtual database” that provides access to only your own Data Tables. This may affect performance for complex queries.

Testing and Published versions

If you have published your extension, it’s possible you are using separate databases for your personal testing and for your deployed extension. Anvil will offer you connection details for both testing and published versions of your extension:

In order to make sure that your Tableau dashboard sees the correct data, make sure that dashboards using the testing version of your extension use the testing password, and dashboards using the published version use the published password.

Learn more about testing vs published versions of your extension.


Do you still have questions?

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