About Tableau Pulse

Applies to: Tableau Cloud

With Tableau Pulse, users receive personalized data insights about metrics that they follow. These insights are sent directly to users in Slack and email digests, giving them access to the data they need in the tools they already use. If users want to learn more about their data, they can visit a metric's insights exploration page on Tableau Cloud. On that page, users can engage in guided data analysis to understand what is driving changes to their data.

Tableau Pulse is available for Tableau Cloud. To get a site ready for Tableau Pulse, a site administrator must first turn on the setting and make sure that there's appropriate data to work with. Then, users can create metric definitions, which specify the core metadata for metrics. Users create metrics based on these definitions by adjusting filter and time options to scope the data in ways that are useful for different groups of followers.

The articles here help you get started with Tableau Pulse, whether you're a Tableau administrator setting up your site, a Creator defining the metadata that metrics are based on, a Viewer exploring existing metrics, or a developer embedding metrics.

Article	Audience	About
Set Up Your Site for Tableau Pulse	Site Administrators	Settings, permissions, and requirements for Tableau Pulse
Create Metrics with Tableau Pulse	Creators, Site Administrator Explorers, and Explorers (can publish)	Definitions and metrics and how to create them
Explore Metrics with Tableau Pulse	Creators, Explorers, and Viewers	The types of analysis you can do with existing metrics
Set Manual Goals and Thresholds with Tableau Pulse	Creators, Explorers, and Viewers	Goals and thresholds that let you track metric performance
Ask Questions and Discover Insights in Tableau Pulse(Link opens in a new window)	Creators, Explorers, and Viewers	Options for finding insights with Ask Q&A (single metric exploration) or with Enhanced Q&A (grouped metric exploration powered by AI in Tableau)
The Insights Platform and Insight Types in Tableau Pulse	Creators, Explorers, and Viewers	The insight types available in Tableau Pulse and general information about how the Insights platform works
Get Alerts About Tableau Pulse Insights	Creators, Explorers, and Viewers	New unfavorable trend alerts for the metrics that you follow
Work with Tableau Pulse Metrics and Dashboards	Creators, Site Administrator Explorers, and Explorers (can publish)	The Pulse dashboard object and recommended metrics based on dashboard data
Tableau Pulse REST API Methods(Link opens in a new window)	Developers	The API methods to create metrics, get metric details, generate insights, and more
Embed Tableau Pulse(Link opens in a new window)	Developers	The Tableau Embedding API web component for embedding metrics in a web page
Set Up the Pulse for Salesforce App	Salesforce customers	The Pulse app that Salesforce customers can purchase
Configure a Tableau Pulse Lightning Web Component	Salesforce customers	The Tableau Pulse Lightning web component for Salesforce Lightning pages
Interact with Data on Tableau Mobile(Link opens in a new window)	Creators, Explorers, and Viewers	Tableau Pulse on Tableau Mobile

Tableau Pulse release notes

Added May 22, 2025

Set thresholds for metrics

Measure how a metric is performing relative to a threshold value by setting a data source or manual threshold. Data source thresholds are dynamic values that you set on a metric definition. Manual thresholds are a single static value that you set on an individual metric. Anyone who views a metric sees the threshold value. For more information, see Configure data source goals and thresholds and Set Manual Goals and Thresholds with Tableau Pulse.

Threshold set on a metric

Added May 7, 2025

Set a custom calendar

If the standard Gregorian calendar doesn't fit your organization's data, set a custom calendar. You now have the flexibility to configure calendars such as a 4-5-4 retail calendar. Tableau Pulse aggregates metric data for different time ranges and comparison periods based on the custom calendar. For more information, see Set a custom calendar.

Custom calendar settings

Ask questions based on dimension members in Enhanced Q&A (Discover)

Let your users follow their curiosity freely—exploring different regions, segments, or time periods—all through natural language in Enhanced Q&A (Discover). Discover can now handle questions that filter metrics based on dimension values (region, product, segment) or compare dimension members (West versus East) to uncover meaningful patterns.

For example, you could ask "Show sales for California" or "Compare APAC vs. EMEA" to automatically expand your exploration to the full set of compatible metrics. For more information, see Ask Questions and Discover Insights in Tableau Pulse.

The Discover page with a question about dimension members for scoping the context

Ask questions and get responses in your preferred language with Enhanced Q&A (Discover)

Enhanced Q&A (Discover) now supports multilingual questions and responses, aligned with Tableau Cloud supported languages. Suggested questions, follow-up questions, and insight briefs adapt to the site’s language setting. Discover detects your input language as you ask questions and it returns LLM responses in that language—even if it differs from the site or data language. Metric names and filters always remain in their original, authored language for clarity and consistency. For more information, see Multilingual support for questions and responses in Discover.

Enhanced Q and A Discover page with insight brief and question in Spanish

Added April 24, 2025

Certify metric definitions

Tell others that a metric definition is trusted and recommended by certifying it. A certified badge appears on metrics that are based on certified definitions. That badge helps users feel confident relying on those metrics to make business decisions.

You certify a metric definition on the new governance step that is part of editing or creating definitions. The existing permission settings for metric definitions have also moved to the governance step. For more information, see Configure governance.

Certified definition toggle

Added April 10, 2025

Customize the metrics in your insights summary

When you follow a metric, notable changes about that metric can appear in the insights summary at the top of your Tableau Pulse home page and in your Slack and email digests. You can now further customize these summaries by muting metrics. When you mute a metric, insights about that specific metric are removed from your summary without unfollowing the metric. For more information, see Customize your home page and digests.

Added March 27, 2025

Set a custom comparison date for metrics

For metrics filtered to Today or Yesterday, a custom comparison overrides the comparison to the prior day or the same day from a year ago. This comparison option allows you to compare data for events that don’t fall on the same date each year. For more information, see Set a custom daily comparison.

Custom daily comparison and reference date settings

Choose the number of decimal places for metric values

If your data needs to be formatted with a consistent number of decimal places, you can choose the precise number, from 0 to 5. By default, Tableau Pulse automatically determines the number of decimal places to show, with larger values showing fewer decimal places. For more information, see Define metric options.

Decimal place options 0 through 5

Added March 13, 2025

Discover more insights with enhanced Q&A (Tableau+)

Enhanced Q&A (Discover) makes it easier to explore insights across groups of business-critical metrics, and then dig deeper on the Discover page. When metrics in Tableau Pulse are grouped by data source, definition, or time range, Discover uses statistical algorithms to examine grouped metrics and surface insights that are relevant, interesting, and worth investigating.

The Discover page in Tableau Pulse with an insight brief, metric sources, and new question entered by a user

The enhanced Q&A experience provides intuitive key insights, relevant visualizations, source references, and suggested follow-up questions to help you dig deeper. Because it is powered by AI in Tableau, you can ask questions in your own words to get relevant, natural language answers about your data.

Enhanced Q&A (Discover) is available as a Tableau+ premium feature in Tableau Pulse on both web and mobile. Enhanced Q&A (Discover) must be turned on in Tableau Cloud site settings, and requires a connection to a Salesforce org that has Einstein generative AI set up for the selected Salesforce org. For more information, Ask Questions and Discover Insights in Tableau Pulse(Link opens in a new window) and Turn on enhanced Q&A (Discover) in Tableau(Link opens in a new window).

Better semantic matches in any language for Ask Q&A

Turning on this setting enhances semantic matching for any language when you use Ask Q&A. When this setting is on, questions and insights text are sent to OpenAI as part of semantic matching. All calls to OpenAI go through the Einstein Trust Layer(Link opens in a new window). For more information, see Turn on better semantic matches for Ask Q&A in Tableau(Link opens in a new window)

Get alerts for new unfavorable trends

If Tableau Pulse detects a new unfavorable trend in the data for a metric that you follow, you receive an alert about that trend in your email and Slack digests. If you use Tableau Mobile, you also receive a notification on your mobile device. For more information, see Get Alerts About Tableau Pulse Insights.

Tableau Mobile Pulse alert for new unfavorable trend

Control who can create metric definitions from a data source

Data sources have a new Create Metric Definitions permission capability. With this capability, you can now separately control who can create metric definitions from a data source and who can view metrics that use that data source. For more information, see Permissions for creating metric definitions.

Data source permission for Create Metric Defintions

Adjust when Tableau Pulse starts generating digests

Tableau site administrators can set the time at which Tableau Pulse starts generating email and Slack digests. That way, if your data refreshes at a specific time, the digests reflect the freshest data. For more information, see Set the digest start time.

Site setting for Digest start time

Set the aggregation type for data source goals

You can now choose how Tableau Pulse aggregates the data for a data source goal. Measures can be aggregated as a sum, average, median, maximum, or minimum, and dimensions can be aggregated as a count or distinct count to produce a measure. Previously, all data source goals were aggregated as a sum. Additionally, you can now set data source goals for metric definitions that use any aggregation. Previously, you could create data source goals only for metric definitions where the measure was aggregated as a sum or count. For more information, see Configure data source goals and thresholds.

Data source goals aggregation selector

Create an advanced data source goal

The advanced editor lets you create data source goals using the familiar Tableau viz authoring environment. You can use the advanced editor to create goals based on calculated fields. For more information, see Configure data source goals and thresholds.

Data source goal advanced goal option

Added in January 2025

Added in December 2024

Added in November 2024

Added in September 2024

Added in July 2024

Added in June 2024

Added in March 2024

Added in February 2024

Tableau Pulse follow metrics

Adjust filter values and follow different metrics based on the same definition. When you follow a metric, the time period and filter selections are preserved in your Tableau Pulse home page and digests. For more information, see Follow metrics.

Tableau Pulse guided insights

Tableau Pulse provides a path for exploring your data by surfacing questions for each insight that it detects for a metric. As you click through the suggested questions about your data, answers are revealed in easy-to-read charts with insights about the underlying data. For more information, see Explore metrics in detail, adjust the time range, or apply filters.

Tableau Pulse insights platform

The insights platform automatically detects drivers, trends, contributors, and outliers for metrics. It proactively flags and describes insights that matter using natural language and visual explanations. For more information, see The Insights Platform and Insight Types in Tableau Pulse.

Tableau Pulse insight summaries

Tableau Pulse looks across the metrics that you follow and leverages AI in Tableau to summarize the most important insights. Insight summaries make use of a large language model (LLM) to provide a personalized overview in plain language. AI in Tableau is built on the Einstein Trust Layer, meaning it enables trusted, ethical, and open AI-powered experiences without compromising data security and privacy. For more information, see Insight summaries highlight metrics of interest.

Tableau Pulse metrics layer

The metrics layer provides a single source of truth for your data. Create metric definitions to specify the core metadata that metrics are based on, then adjust filters and time options to create metrics for different groups of followers. For more information, see Create Metrics with Tableau Pulse.

Tableau Pulse recommended metrics for dashboards

Get a head start on creating metrics by selecting the recommended metrics displayed for Tableau dashboards. For more information, see Add metrics to dashboards and create metrics from dashboards.

Tableau Pulse deployment setting

Choose to deploy Tableau Pulse for a single group of users or for all users on your Tableau site. For more information, see Deploy Tableau Pulse for your site.

Tableau Pulse insight summaries setting

Insight summaries can be turned on or off independently of the site setting used to deploy Tableau Pulse. For more information, see AI in Tableau for Tableau Pulse.

Tableau Pulse fiscal calendar support

Tableau Pulse now reflects fiscal calendars that have been set on a data source or on specific fields in a data source. For more information, see How fiscal calendars work with metrics .

Tableau Pulse admin insights

Tableau Puse metadata has been added to the Site Content, Users, and Subscriptions data sources for Admin Insights. Admins can use these data sources to learn about the definitions and metrics on a site. For more information, see Use Admin Insights to Create Custom Views.

Tableau Pulse primary time comparison

You can now set a primary time comparison as part of a metric definition, and all metrics based on the definition will use that comparison in digests and insights. For more information, see Define the metric value.

Tableau Cloud Help