FAQ & Support

Tableau Server is currently open to all faculty and staff at Purdue. Within Tableau Server, there are several projects which are controlled by various departments around campus. If you are missing access to your department's project, you can start by checking to see if your area has a Tableau Project Leader.

Tableau Server is available for Purdue users to store data sources and Tableau Workbooks. Websites can be linked to the content and dashboards stored in the server for shared use internally and/or externally. Please contact BICC@purdue.edu with any questions you may have on connecting data sources or servers to the Purdue Tableau Server. 

Tableau Server Production https://tableau.it.purdue.edu 

Tableau Server QA https://qa.tableau.it.purdue.edu 

Free online training videos for Tableau Desktop are available on Tableau's website.  Courses are subject-driven and use the data sources provided with the Tableau Desktop license. 

Tutorial: Get Started with Tableau

Project Leaders are users with full access to the project folder. Project leaders grant specific access to individual users or active directory groups. Project leaders are, essentially, local admins for the project without access to site or server settings.

It is best practice to have two Project Leaders within each department as Project Leaders maintain access to the department’s dashboards. To access those dashboards, contact the department’s Tableau Server Project Leader. If you would like to see who the Tableau Server Project leaders are, please refer to the Tableau Server Project Leaders list.

When an employee is set to depart their job position, the below checklist should be used by the supervisor to ensure content is transitioned for the department correctly and in the most efficient manner.  These steps are critical to address before the staff departs contain one asterisk (*).  If these tasks are not completed before departure, content may fail and the consumer may receive invalid results in their reports or dashboards.  

Cognos and Tableau Offboarding Checklist

Your Tableau repository is currently located in your Documents folder. Occasionally a lag can prevent the application from completing tasks and can generate error messages. A simple workaround would be to move your repository location to a local drive.

1. Open Tableau Desktop
2. Navigate to File > Repository Location
3. Locate a local drive (Ex: directly on your C: drive) 
4. Create a new folder directly on the C: drive
5. Select and save the repository in the new folder
6. Restart Tableau so that it uses the new repository

Keep in mind that Tableau will now store your extracts locally unless you change the location when you create the extract. This should not be a long-term storage location. It would be best practice to move your content back to a network drive once your work is published. The network drive is backed up and provides the strongest security.  

Should you have additional Tableau questions, please contact BICC@purdue.edu. 

Eligible students can request their own individual student license of Tableau Desktop + Prep (full version) through this program. They must submit a license request form; they are then verified by a third-party verification supplier, who checks against an international database to ensure the user's requests are legitimate. These licenses are also valid for one-year upon activation and must be renewed each year by the user.

Tableau for Students (for full-time students) -- request form here

Tableau has two programs within Tableau Academic Programs, Tableau for Teaching Program (which has various license types) and Tableau for Students Program (only one license type):

1. Tableau for Teaching (for instructors teaching Tableau in the classroom)
   1. Individual Instructor license -- request form here: Valid for one year upon activation. Includes Tableau Desktop + Prep (full version) and one-year access code for Tableau eLearning for Creator.
   2. Student Bulk license -- request form here (select 'I need student licenses' checkbox): For instructors who would like a license key for a specific course to distribute to their students. This license key is time-based, and valid for the duration of the course, start and end dates specified by the instructor in the request form. Instructors will receive a single key for all students and activation instructions to send along to their students.
   3. Lab License -- request form here (select 'I need lab licenses' checkbox): For physical or virtual computer labs accessed by students at a university. Requestors are sometimes instructors, but mostly IT Admins who would install the lab key. Lab license years are valid for one year.
   4. Tableau Online site -- request form here (select 'I need a Tableau Online Site' checkbox): Instructors are eligible to receive a Tableau Online site for in-class collaboration and work sharing. They are assigned as site administrators and may add (or import a list) of 100 (student) users and assign specific roles and permissions to them. The site is live for one year and must be renewed each year.
2. Tableau for Students (for full-time students) -- request form here
   1. Eligible students can request their own individual student license of Tableau Desktop + Prep (full version) through this program. They must submit a license request form; they are then verified by a third-party verification supplier, who checks against an international database to ensure the user's requests are legitimate. These licenses are also valid for one-year upon activation and must be renewed each year by the user.

It's important to note all requesting users must submit proof/verification of their active teaching (or student) status in their request form. For instructors, this could be a link to their publicly-facing faculty webpage or a screenshot of their course syllabus. This helps Tableau (or in the case of students, the verification supplier) confirm eligibility for the free offerings. Here is Tableau for Teaching FAQs for reference.