Use Admin Insights to Create Custom Views

Applies to: Tableau Cloud

You can get more visibility into your Tableau Cloud deployment by using Admin Insights.

Admin Insights is a Tableau Cloud-only project that is pre-populated with carefully curated data sources and a pre-built workbook of your site's data. Using the resources available to you through the Admin Insights project, you can create custom views to help answer a range of common questions you might have about your site.

For example:

What's my Tableau Cloud adoption rate in my organization?
What are common trends around the site’s deployment?
What content is popular?
What are my users doing?
How should licenses be allocated?

Connect to Admin Insights data

If you're a site admin or someone who has been granted access to the Admin Insights project, you can access the Admin Insights data sources directly from Tableau Cloud using Web Authoring or through Tableau Desktop.

From Tableau Cloud

Sign in to Tableau Cloud and navigate to the Admin Insights project.
Select Create > Workbook and select one of the data sources to get started.

From Tableau Desktop

Open Tableau Desktop, under Connect, select Tableau Server.

Note: If you're not already signed in to Tableau Cloud, in the Tableau Server Sign In dialog, click the Tableau Cloud hyperlink. Enter your Tableau Cloud credentials and then click Sign In.
In the search box, type the name of the data source you're looking for.
Select a data source and click Connect to get started with your analysis.

Start creating custom views

As you think about how you want to approach the analysis of your site and user metrics, consider some of the following questions that organizations commonly ask:

What are the most popular views or data sources?
Who are the most active users (i.e., who are the power users)?
What are the most common tasks performed on the site?
How many licenses are being used?
Who hasn't signed in to the site in more than 90 days?

Explore the pre-built workbook

To help you answer the previous questions (and more), go to the pre-built workbook, Admin Insights Starter, to see what kind of insights it can offer. The workbook serves as a template for creating more detailed dashboards and workbooks that address unique questions related to your site or organization.

Focus: Site activity
Data source: TS Users

Use this dashboard to explore high-level site activity by user role.

This dashboard shows you some of the ways you can analyze your site’s log and activity metrics. Although Admin Insights captures up to 90 days of data (365 days with an Advanced Management license), the “Last Publish” and “Last Access” dates can go back to as early as the date the site was created.

Do more with this dashboard:

Change the "Inactivity threshold" (yellow by default) using the parameter control in the upper-right corner.
Create URL actions that can email users based on their activity type. For example, email users when they haven’t signed in to the site, accessed content, or published content in the last 90 days.
Create additional views for this dashboard that compares the last 90 days (default) of activity (sign in, access, or publish) to the last 30 days, 60 days, and all days.

Focus: Group membership and licensing
Data source: Groups, TS Events, TS Users

The dashboard shows you the count of groups and grouped users on the site. Use the filters or click a row or mark in the Group Breakdown worksheet to select a group. After a single group is selected, you can view membership and license details.

The dashboard shows you the following types of information:

Group membership: How many groups and grouped users are on the site
License consumption: The percentage of groups using licenses on sign-in
Site roles and license type: Which users are members of the group and what site role are they assigned

Do more with this dashboard: Select a user from the membership worksheet to email all group members.

Focus: Sign-in activity
Connects to: TS Events (primary), TS Users (secondary)

Use this dashboard to explore trends in sign-in activity.

Using the “Select Events or Distinct Actors” selector on the left, you can see your site’s weekly, daily, and hourly sign-in-related activity. Because there are two data sources behind this dashboard, you can see sign-ins by all users, not just users with recent sign-in activity.

Do more with this dashboard: Duplicate the dashboard and keep only the “Login user breakdown.” Then change the filter on the “Last Login Date” to null to see a list of users who have never signed in to the site. You can also email them depending on what kind of action you want users to take.

Focus: Content access and usage
Connects to: TS Events

The information in the dashboards show you the following types of information:

View access activity: When a view has been accessed and by whom.
Data source access activity: When 1) a published data source has been connected to through Web Authoring or Tableau Desktop or 2) a user has viewed or published a workbook that uses the published data source.
Workbook publish activity: When a workbook has been published and by whom.
Data source publish activity: When a published data source has been published and by whom.

Do more with this dashboard: Using the “Project Name” selector in the upper-right corner, select a project on your site to filter on. This filter affects all sheets in the Admin Insights Starter.

Focus: Content usage and disk space
Connects to: Site Content, TS Events

The dashboard shows you the following types of information:

Disk space usage by activity: Amount of space used by stale content and content considered active - content accessed in the time frame below the stale threshold.
Space used by item: Amount of space used by content on the site. The x-axis shows the number of days since the content was last viewed, while the y-axis shows the size.
Space used by stale and unused content: Total amount of space used by stale and unused content. You can use this information to determine which content is the most stale or takes the most space.

Do more with this dashboard:

Use the Inactivity Threshold to determine how long content can go unused before it’s deemed stale. Changing this value filters content items that don't meet the threshold.
Use the Project Name selector to filter content by project. This filter affects all sheets in the Admin Insights Starter.
To maintain a clean site, remove content that is no longer in use. If you’re unsure, select an item to email the content owner before deleting it.

Focus: Content ownership and disk space
Connects to: Site Content, TS Events

The dashboard shows you the following types of information:

Site capacity: Amount of space used in relation to the total site capacity.
Space usage by project: Amount of space used by top-level projects. Selecting a project filters the other worksheets to show content items, size, and ownership details.
Space usage by item: Amount of space used by content items, such as workbooks, data sources, flows, and virtual connections.
Space usage by user: Check how much space content owners are using and identify if any groups or users are exceeding their allotted space.

Do more with this dashboard:

Use the Project Name selector to filter content by project. This filter affects all sheets in the Admin Insights Starter.
Select an item or user to send an email and clarify how the content is used.

Explore the data sources

Alternatively, you can connect to the Admin Insights data directly. Explore the data on your own by hovering over each field (both dimensions and measures) to read a description of the data that's being captured.

TS Events functions as a primary audit data source. It contains data about the various events happening on your site, including sign-ins, publishes, and accessed views.

Example: What are the most popular views?

Connect to the TS Events data source using one of the procedures listed in Connect to Admin Insights data.
From the Data pane, drag Item Name to the Rows shelf and Number of Events to the Columns shelf.
From the Data pane, drag Item Type to the Filters shelf, and select the View checkbox.

Do more with this data source: Using Tableau Prep, you can join Admin Insights data sources on the following fields to get more visibility into your site. If you're analyzing data from multiple Tableau Cloud sites, you must also join on "Site LUID = Site LUID".

Join TS Events to TS Users on "Actor User ID = User ID"
Join TS Events to Site Content on "Item ID = Item ID" and "Item Type = Item Type"

For more information, see Aggregate, Join, or Union Data(Link opens in a new window) in Tableau Prep Help.

TS Users contains data about your users, such as remaining licenses, site roles, and workbooks owned by a user. Starting May 2023, TS Users includes product activation and usage data for Tableau Desktop, Tableau Prep, web authoring, and site role-specific capabilities.

Example: How many licenses are being used?

Connect to the TS Users data source using one of the procedures listed in Connect to Admin Insights data.
From the Data pane, drag Measure Names to the Rows shelf and Measure Values to the Columns shelf.
Right-click the Measure Names field in the Rows shelf and select Show Filter.
Click the Measure Names filter dropdown menu, and select Customize > Show Apply Button.
In the filter, select the Total Allowed Licenses and Total Occupied Licenses checkboxes, and then click Apply.

Join TS Users to Groups on “User LUID = User LUID”
Join TS Users to TS Events on “User ID = Actor User Id”
Join TS Users to Site Content on “User Email = Owner Email” or “User Email = Item Parent Project Owner Email”

For more information, see Aggregate, Join, or Union Data(Link opens in a new window) in Tableau Prep Help.

Groups identifies the group membership of users. There’s one row of data for each unique combination of group and user pairing. Groups without members, and users not in a group, will be included as a row of data with null values represented as "NULL".

Example: Which users are in a given group?

Connect to the Groups data source using one of the procedures listed in Connect to Admin Insights data.
From the Data pane, drag Group Name to the Rows shelf.
(Optional) In the view, select the groups you want to explore, and then select Keep Only.
From the Data pane, drag User Email to the Rows shelf, placing it to the right of the Group Name field.

Join Groups to TS Users on "User LUID = User LUID"

For more information, see Aggregate, Join, or Union Data(Link opens in a new window) in Tableau Prep Help.

Site Content provides essential governance information about the projects, data sources, flows, workbooks, and views on a site. The data provided about a content item may be unique to its item type. Item types with unique fields are in folders with titles that correspond to their Item Type.

Note: Users that connect to the Site Content data source see data about all content items on the site, regardless of the permissions set for each item. Keep this in mind if you plan to distribute to non-administrative users.

Example: What percent of the site's published data sources are certified?

Connect to the Site Content data source using one of the procedures listed in Connect to Admin Insights data.
From the Data pane, drag Migrated Data (Count) to the Columns shelf.
From the Data pane, drag Data Source Content Type to the Filters shelf, clear the All checkbox, and select the Published checkbox.
From the Data pane, drag Data Source Certified to Color on the Marks card.
Right-click the CNT (Migrated Data) field in the Columns shelf and select Quick Table Calculation > Percent of Total.

Join Site Content to TS Events on “Item ID = Item ID” and “Item Type = Item Type”
Join Site Content to TS Users on “Owner Email = User Email” or “Owner Email = Item Parent Project Owner Email"

For more information, see Aggregate, Join, or Union Data(Link opens in a new window) in Tableau Prep Help.

Viz Load Times contains the load time information for views on your site to help content authors better understand the user experience when loading views.

Example: Which views take the longest to load?

Connect to the Viz Load Times data source using one of the procedures listed in Connect to Admin Insights data.
From the Data pane, drag Item Name to the Rows shelf and Duration to the Columns shelf.
From the Data pane, drag Status Code Type to the Filters shelf and select the Success checkbox.
In the Columns shelf, right-click Dimensions and select Measure (Count) > Median.

Join Viz Load Times to TS Events and Site Content on “Item Repository URL = Item Repository URL”
Join Viz Load Times to TS Events and Site Content on “Item Type = Item Type”

For more information, see Aggregate, Join, or Union Data(Link opens in a new window) in Tableau Prep Help.

Job Performance contains events and runtime information for background jobs on the site, such as extract refreshes and flow runs. Starting May 2023, Job Performance includes Tableau Bridge refresh data, including the Bridge client name, pooling data, and refresh started and completed times.

Example: How many extract refreshes and flow runs occur on the site?

Connect to the Job Performance data source using one of the procedures listed in Connect to Admin Insights data.
From the Data pane, drag Item Name, Item Type, Owner Email, and Job Type to the Rows shelf.
In the Rows shelf, right-click Item Name and select Sort.
In the Sort dialog, select Sort By > Field and Field Name > Job ID. Close the dialog.
From the Data pane, drag Started At (local) to the Columns shelf.
In the Columns shelf, right-click Started At (local) and select Exact Date. This converts the dimension to a measure.
From the Data pane, drag Job Result to Color and Job Execution Duration (Days) to Size on the Marks card.

Example: What is the average job queued duration?

Connect to the Job Performance data source using one of the procedures listed in Connect to Admin Insights data.
From the Data pane, drag Started At to the Columns shelf and Started At (local) to the Rows shelf.
In the Columns shelf, right-click the Started At field and select Day from the second set of values (i.e., May 11, 2022). This converts the field to a measure.
In the Rows shelf, right-click Started At (local) and select More > Hour from the first set of values (i.e., 9).
On the Marks card, select Square from the Shape dropdown menu.
From the Data pane, drag Job Queued Duration to Color on the Marks card. Right-click the field and select Measure > Average.
From the Data pane, drag Job ID to Size on the Marks card. Right-click the field and select Measure > Count (Distinct).

Join Job Performance to Site Content on "Item ID = Item ID"

For more information, see Aggregate, Join, or Union Data(Link opens in a new window) in Tableau Prep Help.

Permissions contains the effective permissions for all users and content on the site. Administrators can use the data source to identify gaps in permissions security and ensure that only the appropriate users can access content items.

Note: Site roles determine the maximum capabilities a user can have. For example, a Viewer can’t web edit, even if they’re allowed in a user or group rule. Based on the order that permissions are evaluated, users may have different capabilities than listed in the data source. For more information, see Effective permissions.

Example: Which users and groups have access to content?

Connect to the Permissions data source using one of the procedures listed in Connect to Admin Insights data.
From the Data pane, drag Item Type, Item Name, Item Parent Project Name, and Controlling Permissions Project Name to the Rows shelf. This creates a hierarchical view of your site content and shows how permissions are determined, for example, if permissions are set at the project level or on individual pieces of content.
From the Data pane, drag Grantee Name and Grantee Type to the Rows shelf. Adding these dimensions shows the users and groups with access to the content.
From the Data pane, drag Capability Type to the Rows shelf. The capabilities for users and groups are displayed.

Joining Permissions with other Admin Insights data sources may result in large datasets if the site has more than 1000 users or if you assign permissions to multiple large groups on individual content assets. A large group contains hundreds of members.

Join Site Content to Permissions on "Item LUID = Item LUID" (left join)
Join Permissions to TS Users on "User LUID = User LUID"
Join Permissions to Groups on "Grantee LUID = Group LUID" (right join)

Tip: To streamline analysis, delete the All Users group rule or edit the rule to remove permissions.

For more information, see Aggregate, Join, or Union Data(Link opens in a new window) in Tableau Prep Help.

The Subscriptions data source provides comprehensive details about subscriptions on the site, including the name of the creator and recipient, content item, job status, and schedules. Admins can use this data to improve the viewing experience for users who access content through subscriptions.

Example: How often do users receive subscriptions?

Connect to the Subscriptions and TS Events data sources using one of the procedures listed in Connect to Admin Insights data.
Select Data > Edit Blend Relationships.
In the Blend Relationships dialog, set the primary data source to Subscriptions, and select the Custom radio button.
Click Add.
In the Add/Edit Field Mapping dialog, map Subscriber Email to Actor User Name, and click OK.
Click OK to exit the Blend Relationships dialog.
From the Data pane, drag Subscriber Email, Subject, and Last Sent (local) to the Rows shelf.
From the Data pane, drag Number of Events to the Columns shelf.
Verify that Item LUID, Item Type, and Actor User Name are the linking fields in the Data pane. If there are broken links, click the icon next to the field name to link the two data sources.
From the Data pane, drag Subscription Status to Color on the Marks card.

Join Subscriptions to TS Events on "Subscriber Email = Actor User Name"

For more information, see Aggregate, Join, or Union Data(Link opens in a new window) in Tableau Prep Help.

Tokens contains information about active, unexpired user tokens on the site, including personal access tokens (PATs), refresh tokens, and OAuth tokens. Site administrators can monitor token usage and expiration through the data source, rotating essential tokens as needed.

The following tokens are included in the data source:

OAuth Database - Manage the access tokens used for OAuth connections. The tokens are valid until a Tableau Cloud user deletes it, or the data provider revokes it. For more information, see OAuth Connections.
OAuth Client - Manage refresh tokens used by connected clients, such as Tableau Desktop and Tableau Prep. For more information, see Access Sites from Connected Clients.
Personal access tokens (PATs) - Manage long-lived authentication tokens used to sign in to Tableau Cloud, such as automated scripts and tasks that are created with the Tableau REST API. For more information, see Personal Access Tokens.

At any time, site administrators can quickly revoke a token by unlicensing a user with the undesired token. With the caveat that new tokens have to be created when the user is relicensed. For steps on removing or revoking specific types of tokens, follow the links in the previous section.

Example: When were OAuth Database tokens last updated?

The following example measures token rotation compliance within an organization.

Connect to the Tokens data source using one of the procedures listed in Connect to Admin Insights data.
From the Data pane, drag Token Type to the Filter shelf. Select the OAuth Database checkbox, and click OK.
Drag Database Type, Database User Name, and Last Updated to the Rows shelf.
On the Rows shelf, right-click Last Updated and select Exact Date from the context menu. Change the field from continuous to discrete.
From the menu, click Analysis > Create Calculated Field.
1. Name: Days Since Last Update
2. Calculation: ROUND(TODAY()-[Last Updated])
Click OK.
From the Data pane, drag Days Since Last Update to the Rows shelf. Change the field from continuous to discrete.

Example: Which users own PATs on the site?

The following example displays the names and site roles of users who own PATs on the site. You can adjust the filter for other token types.

Connect to the Tokens and TS Users data sources using one of the procedures listed in Connect to Admin Insights data.
Select Data > Edit Blend Relationships.
In the Blend Relationships dialog, set the primary data source to Tokens, and select the Custom radio button.
Click Add.
In the Add/Edit Field Mapping dialog, map Owner Email to User Email, and click OK > OK.
From the Data pane, drag Token Type to the Filter shelf. Select the PAT checkbox, and click OK.
From the Data pane, drag User Name, User Site Role, Expires At, and Last Used At At to the Rows shelf.
Verify that User Email is the linking field in the Data pane. If there is a broken link, click the icon next to the field name to link the two data sources.
On the Rows shelf, right-click Expires At and select Exact Date from the context menu. Change the field from continuous to discrete.
Repeat step 7 for Last Used At.

To see the site role of the token owner, join Tokens to TS Users on “Owner Email” = “User Email”
To see group membership of the token owner, join Tokens to Groups on “Owner Email” = “User Email”

For more information, see Aggregate, Join, or Union Data(Link opens in a new window) in Tableau Prep Help.

Tableau Cloud Help

Use Admin Insights to Create Custom Views

Connect to Admin Insights data

Start creating custom views

Explore the pre-built workbook

Explore the data sources

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