Enable Tableau Catalog

Applies to: Tableau Cloud, Tableau Server

Tableau Catalog(Link opens in a new window) discovers and indexes all of the content on your Tableau Cloud site or Tableau Server, including workbooks, data sources, sheets, metrics, and flows. (The legacy Metrics feature was retired in February 2024 for Tableau Cloud and will be retired in Tableau Server version 2024.2. For more information, see Create and Troubleshoot Metrics (Retired).) Indexing is used to gather information about the content, or metadata, about the schema and lineage of the content. Then from the metadata, Catalog identifies all of the databases, files, and tables used by the content on your Tableau Cloud site or Tableau Server.

Catalog is available with the Data Management license. For more information, see About Data Management.

In addition to Catalog, metadata about your content can also be accessed from both the Tableau Metadata API(Link opens in a new window) and the Tableau REST API using Metadata Methods(Link opens in a new window).

Catalog on Tableau Cloud

Catalog is automatically enabled when Tableau Cloud is licensed with the Data Management.

After your Tableau Cloud site has been licensed with the Data Management, the content that already exists on your Tableau Cloud site is immediately indexed. The time it takes to index the content depends on the amount of content you have. After the content is initially indexed, Catalog monitors newly published content and other changes to assets and continues to index in the background.

Troubleshoot Catalog

You or your users might encounter one of the following issues when using Catalog.

Timeout limit and node limit exceeded messages

To ensure that Catalog tasks that have to return a large number of results don’t take up all system resources, Catalog implements both timeout and node limits.

  • Timeout limit

    When tasks in Catalog reach the timeout limit, you and your users see the following message:

    “Showing partial results, Request time limit exceeded. Try again later.” or TIME_LIMIT_EXCEEDED

  • Node limit

    When tasks in Catalog reach the node limit, you and your users see the following message:

    NODE_LIMIT_EXCEEDED

Disable Catalog

As a Tableau Cloud site admin, you can disable Catalog by turning off its capabilities.

Turn off Catalog capabilities

(Requires Data Management)

You can turn off Catalog capabilities at any time. When Catalog capabilities are turned off, the features of Catalog, such as adding data quality warnings or the ability to explicitly manage permissions to database and table assets, are not accessible through Tableau Online. However, Catalog continues to index published content and the metadata is accessible from the Tableau Metadata API and metadata methods in the Tableau REST API.

  1. Sign in to Tableau Cloud using your site admin credentials.

  2. From the left navigation pane, click Settings.

  3. On the General tab, under Tableau Catalog, clear the Turn on Tableau Catalog check box.

Stop indexing metadata

Indexing cannot be stopped for a Tableau Cloud site.

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