Tableau Cloud Help

Capacity management is a collection of capabilities found on the Capacities page in Tableau Cloud Manager (TCM). Capacity management in TCM gives cloud administrators greater visibility and control over how resources are distributed across the sites on a tenant.

Starting from May 2026 (Tableau 2026.1), capacity is a combination of fixed site limits and site limits that are configurable at the tenant-level. Certain capabilities are consolidated into tenant-level limits, referred to as cloud limits, that form a shared pool of capacity. As a cloud administrator, you can draw from this pool to allocate capacity to sites that need it the most.

The following capacity types can be managed through in TCM:

• Extract concurrency
• Extract APIs
• Subscription concurrency
• Publish APIs
• Flow concurrency
• VizQL Data Service APIs
• Visualizations (if licensed with capacity-based model)
• Pulse digests (if licensed with capacity-based model)

Notes:

• The type of capacity that you can manage in TCM is subject to change as we evolve our infrastructure.
• Capacity can be increased by the Tableau Cloud edition, number of Creator licenses; or by enabling the capacity-based license model for viewers.

This topic covers the tenant-level capacities that are configurable and can be allocated across the sites on the tenant by using TCM. For capacities with fixed limits, optimizing for those limits, and troubleshooting suggestions, see Capacity Set at the Site.

Benefits of managing capacity in TCM

Capacity management in TCM provides the following benefits:

• Proactive visibility. See tenant-level and site capacity limits. Use consumption data and highlights to take timely action when sites are approaching or reaching limits to reduce impacts on your users.
• Flexibility to redistribute resources. Move tenant-level capacity between sites based on usage and business need.
• Centralized administration. Manage allocation at the tenant level in TCM. You don't need to be a site admin on a specific site to view or adjust capacity.
• Support growth. Reserve capacity for new sites, seasonal spikes, or other periods of high demand.

Capacity in TCM

The Capacities page displays three categories of information:

• Cloud limits: Cloud limits is the pool of capacity for the sites on a tenant. The capacity values represent the maximum capacity available.
• Default site limits: Default site limits are the capacity allocated to all new sites and sites whose limits haven't been customized.
• Resource allocation and usage: Dashboard to monitor resource allocation and consumption across sites on the tenant. Consumption is represented by concurrency usage or rate-limit usage depending on the capacity type and highlighted by visual indicators when limits reach certain thresholds. For more information, see Capacity Metrics in Tableau Cloud Manager.

Note: Rate-limited usage capacity in TCM is measured on an hourly basis with the exception of Pulse digests (if available), which are measured on a daily basis.

Extract concurrency

A tenant comes with designated capacity for extract refresh jobs. Extract capacity is the number of concurrent extract refresh jobs a site on the tenant can run at one time.

Depending on available system resources, the wait time (that is, the time before a job starts) is adjusted to start a job within 15 minutes or less from the scheduled start time.

Jobs that count toward extract capacity include:

• Scheduled refreshes
• Manual refreshes
• Extract creation
• Certain command line or API calls that trigger refreshes, including appending data incrementally

For extract refresh job runtime and memory size limits, see Extracts - daily, runtime, and memory usage.

Note: Tableau Bridge refreshes of embedded extracts and virtual connections impact a site's extract concurrency capacity. For more information about which capacity types are impacted by Tableau Bridge, see Bridge Site Capacity

Extract APIs

A tenant comes with designated capacity for extract refresh API calls. Extract API capacity is the number of calls that can be made on a site during a one-hour period.

Calls that count toward extract API capacity include:

• Tableau REST API: Run Extract Refresh Task(Link opens in a new window), Update Data Source Now(Link opens in a new window), and Update Workbook Now(Link opens in a new window)
• tabcmd: refreshextracts(Link opens in a new window)
• Tableau Client (Python) library(Link opens in a new window): calls to initiate extract refresh jobs

Note: If the number of calls exceed the API or command line calls capacity described above, you see one of the following errors: Unknown 429 or ApiCallError: 429000: Too Many Requests – Too many requests for <job type> ‘api.rest.refresh_extracts’. Please retry after 146 second(s).

Subscription concurrency

A tenant comes with designated capacity for subscription jobs. Subscriptions capacity is the number of concurrent subscription jobs a site can run at one time.

Depending on available system resources, the wait time (that is, the time before a job starts) is adjusted to start a job within 15 minutes or less from the scheduled start time.

Jobs that count toward subscription capacity include generating emails from subscriptions created through Tableau Cloud directly or API calls that generate the email subscriptions.

For subscription job runtime and email size limits, see Subscriptions - runtime and email size.

Publish APIs

A tenant comes with designated capacity for publish API calls to initiate publish and update jobs.

Calls that count toward publish API capacity include:

• Tableau REST API: Publish Workbook(Link opens in a new window), Publish Data Source(Link opens in a new window), Update Workbook(Link opens in a new window), Update Data Source(Link opens in a new window), Tableau Prep flow runs(Link opens in a new window)

• tabcmd: publish(Link opens in a new window)

• Tableau Client (Python) library(Link opens in a new window): Calls that initiate publish or update jobs for workbooks and data sources

Flow concurrency

Flows capacity is measured in resource blocks. Each resource block represents the number of concurrent flow jobs that can run at one time.

Important: Capacity management in TCM displays both concurrency usage and configurable limits. While usage represents all flow jobs on a site, only purchased resource blocks are reflected in the limits and available for configuration.

A site has a default capacity of 1 concurrent flow job, which is the equivalent of having one Resource Block. This default Resource Block is not viewable or moveable between sites in capacity management in TCM.

If there are no Resource Blocks available when a flow job starts, the job goes into a queue to wait for a resource block to be available. A flow job might also go into a queue during busy hours even when there are available resource blocks to make sure that system resources remain available to support flow jobs across all of Tableau Cloud.

For user request rates, flow job runtime, and memory usage limits, see Flows - user requests, daily, runtime, and memory usage.

VizQL Data Service APIs

A tenant comes with designated capacity for calls to the VizQL Data Service (VDS) API(Link opens in a new window). VDS API capacity is the number of VDS API calls that can be made on site during an hourly period.

Notes:

• If your organization uses usage-based licensing (UBL), this capacity won't appear in TCM. This is because your account is managed by usage, not by a configurable capacity limit.

• If your organization uses capacity-based licensing, VDS API capacity is determined by the Visualizations capacity.

Visualizations

Visualization capacity in TCM, available through capacity-based license model, is the tenant-wide number of requests that can run on a site during an hourly period to load dashboards and views, refresh view data, make calls to the VizQL Data Service (VDS) APIs(Link opens in a new window), explore Pulse metrics, and make calls to the Pulse APIs(Link opens in a new window).

Notes:

• While a capacity-based licensing model provides a flexible tenant-wide request pool across your sites, each user is still subject to 600 requests per hour. The user request rate is fixed at the site level and not configurable in TCM.

• If a capacity-based license model has not been enabled, visualization capacity is fixed at the site level and not configurable in TCM. For more information, see Visualizations - load time, timeout, request rate, memory usage.

• If a capacity-based license model has not been enabled, VDS API capacity is tracked as a standalone capacity type. For more information, see VizQL Data Service APIs.

Pulse digests

Pulse digests capacity in TCM, available through capacity-based license model, is the number of scheduled digests that can be generated and sent on a site during a 24-hour period.

Note: Pulse digests don't have capacity limits in role-based usage models.

Manage capacity

Click the drop-down arrow button below to expand each section.

Changes introduced by capacity management

Click the drop-down arrow button to expand the section and see the changes introduced by capacity management in TCM.

Frequently asked questions (FAQs)

Click the drop-down arrow to expand the section and see the capacity management frequently asked questions.

Customize site limits

Each site on the tenant is allocated capacity limits. You can reallocate or modify capacity limits based on each site's capacity needs.

1. Sign in to Tableau Cloud Manager(Link opens in a new window) as a cloud administrator.

2. In the left-navigation pane, go to the Capacities page.

3. On the Capacities page, click the Customize Site Limits button.

4. Under the capacity type for a specific site, enter a new capacity limit or click the up or down arrow to adjust the capacity limit.

   Note: The value you enter can't exceed the available limits for that particular capacity type.

Change default capacity limits

Each new site created on the tenant is allocated with default capacity limits. You can modify these limits.

Note: New sites are created with minimum capacity if there isn't enough default capacity available for the site. Without minimum capacity, site creation will fail with an error until the cloud administrator makes capacity available by moving it from existing sites. For more information, see Add, Delete, or Activate Sites.

1. Sign in to Tableau Cloud Manager(Link opens in a new window) as a cloud administrator.

2. In the left-navigation pane, go to the Capacities page.

3. On the Capacities page, click the Edit Default Site Limits button.

4. Under the capacity type, enter a new capacity limit.

Troubleshoot capacity management

Use this section to help troubleshoot issues you might have with capacity management in TCM.

Unable to add new site

When adding a site to your tenant, you see the following error:

"Site couldn't be created because there is no available capacity. Edit the default site limits or customize the cloud limits and try again."

This issue can occur when there isn't enough minimum capacity available to create the new site. Every site on the tenant requires a minimum allocation of capacity to run. To resolve this issue, review the table for minimum capacity limits (which are defined by Tableau) and make more capacity available for the new site.

Capacity type	Minimum capacity limit
Extract concurrency	1
Extract API	5
Subscription concurrency	1
Publish API	5
Flow concurrency	0
VizQL Data Service API	0
Visualizations (if licensed with capacity-based model)	10
Pulse digests (if licensed with capacity-based model)	0

To make more capacity available, consider moving capacity from other sites to make more unallocated capacity available.

1. Sign in to Tableau Cloud Manager(Link opens in a new window) as a cloud administrator.

2. In the left-navigation pane, go to the Capacities page.

3. On the Capacities page, click the Customize Site Limits button.

4. Identify the site and capacity types that have capacity that you can make available.

5. Enter a value or select the down arrow button next to the capacity type to reduce the capacity limit.

6. When done, click Save.

After you have made some capacity available by customizing the capacity limits, add the new site again. For more information about adding sites, see Add, Delete, or Activate Sites.