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Tableau Server (Collector method) - v3.0.0

Owned by Chichi
Last updated: May 09, 2023
8 min read

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About Collectors

Collectors are extractors that are developed and managed by you (A customer of K).

KADA provides python libraries that customers can use to quickly deploy a Collector.

 

Why you should use a Collector

There are several reasons why you may use a collector vs the direct connect extractor:

  1. You are using the KADA SaaS offering and it cannot connect to your sources due to firewall restrictions

  2. You want to push metadata to KADA rather than allow it pull data for Security reasons

  3. You want to inspect the metadata before pushing it to K

 

Using a collector requires you to manage

  1. Deploying and orchestrating the extract code

  2. Managing a high water mark so the extract only pull the latest metadata

  3. Storing and pushing the extracts to your K instance.

Pre-requisites

Step 1: Create the Source in K

Create a Tableau source in K

  • Go to Settings, Select Sources and click Add Source

  • Select “Load from File” option

  • Give the source a Name - e.g. Tableau Production

  • Add the Host name for the Tableau server

  • Click Finish Setup

Step 2: Getting Access to the Source Landing Directory

Collector Method

Step 3: Install the Collector

It is recommended to use a python environment such as pyenv or pipenv if you are not intending to install this package at the system level.

Some python packages also have dependencies on the OS level packages, so you may be required to install additional OS packages if the below fails to install.

You can download the latest Core Library and whl via Platform Settings → Sources → Download Collectors

Run the following command to install the collector

pip install kada_collectors_extractors_<version>-none-any.whl

You will also need to install the common library kada_collectors_lib for this collector to function properly.

pip install kada_collectors_lib-<version>-none-any.whl

Step 4: Configure the Collector

The collector requires a set of parameters to connect to and extract metadata from Tableau.

FIELD

FIELD TYPE

SUPPORTED VERSION

DESCRIPTION

EXAMPLE

FIELD

FIELD TYPE

SUPPORTED VERSION

DESCRIPTION

EXAMPLE

server_address

string

2.0.0+

Tableau server address inclusive of http/https

“https://10.1.19.15”

username

string

2.0.0+

Username to log into tableau API

“tabadmin”

password

string

2.0.0+

Password to log into tableau API

 

sites

list<string>

2.0.0+

List of specific sites that you wish to extract, if left as [] it will extract all sites. If you wish to extract the default site only you may do so specifying “default”

[]

db_host

string

2.0.0+

This is generally the same as server address less the http/https

“10.1.19.15”

db_username

string

2.0.0+

By default the tableau database use is readonly. You should not need to change this unless you actively manage the database

“readonly”

db_password

list<string>

2.0.0+

Password for the database user

 

db_port

integer

2.0.0+

Default is 8060 unless your tableau is configured differently

8060

db_name

string

2.0.0+

Default database to use is workgroup

“workgroup”

meta_only

boolean

2.0.0+

If for some reason you want to extract meta only set this to true otherwise leave it as false

false

retries

integer

2.0.0+

Number of retries that the extractor should hit the API incase of intermittent failures, default is 5

5

dry_run

boolean

2.0.0+

By doing a dry run you produce the mapping.json file which is used to populate the mapping field below. It is recommended you do a dry run first to see what databases are available to map.

true

output_path

string

2.0.0+

Absolute path to the output location where files are to be written

“/tmp/output”

mask

boolean

2.0.0+

To enable masking or not

true

mapping

json

2.0.0+

Add the mapping for each data source in Tableau to a data source that is loaded into K. You will need to map the data source name in Tableau to the data source host name in K (these can be found on the Sources page)

Skip any data sources are not onboarded in K (these will be loaded in as references until the source is added to K).

See Host / Database Mapping for more details

Where somehost is the alternate name created in Tableau for the Analytics database that has been onboarded to K

{ "somehost.adw": "analytics.adw" }

ssl_verification

boolean

2.1.0+

Enable or disable ssl verification for tableau API requests

true

compress

boolean

3.0.0+

To gzip the output or not

true

 

These parameters can be added directly into the run or you can use pass the parameters in via a JSON file. The following is an example you can use that is included in the example run code below.

kada_tableau_extractor_config.json

Step 5: Run the Collector

The following code is an example of how to run the extractor. You may need to uplift this code to meet any code standards at your organisation.

This can be executed in any python environment where the whl has been installed.

This is the wrapper script: kada_tableau_extractor.py

 

Advance options:

If you wish to maintain your own high water mark files elsewhere you can use the above section’s script as a guide on how to call the extractor. The configuration file is simply the keyword arguments in JSON format. Refer to this document for more information Collector Integration General Notes | Storing HWM in another location

If you are handling external arguments of the runner yourself, you’ll need to consider additional items for the run method. Refer to this document for more information Collector Integration General Notes | The run method

server_address: server address
username: username to sign into server
password: password to sign into server
sites: list of sites to extract.
ssl_verification: Should ssl verification be enabled for API requests.
db_host: Tableau database address
db_password: Tableau database password
db_port: Tableau database port
db_name: Tableau database name
db_username: Tableau database username
meta_only: extract metadata only
events_only: extract events only
retries: Number of attemps if an API fails on NonXMLResponse Error, default is 5
dry_run: If specified the extractor will do a dry run to produce a template mapping.
output_path: full or relative path to where the outputs should go
login_timeout: The timeout for snowflake Auth
mask: To mask the META/DATABASE_LOG files or not
compress: To gzip output files or not

Step 6: Check the Collector Outputs

K Extracts

A set of files (eg metadata, databaselog, linkages, events etc) will be generated. These files will appear in the output_path directory you set in the configuration details

High Water Mark File

A high water mark file is created in the same directory as the execution called tableau_hwm.txt and produce files according to the configuration JSON. This file is only produced if you call the publish_hwm method.

Step 7: Push the Extracts to K

Once the files have been validated, you can push the files to the K landing directory..

You can use Azure Storage Explorer if you want to initially do this manually. You can push the files using python as well (see Airflow example below)

Example: Using Airflow to orchestrate the Extract and Push to K