Set Up Your Site for Tableau Pulse

Applies to: Tableau Cloud

Tableau Pulse provides users with personalized insights about the metrics that matter to them, directly in their flow of work. Users with a Creator, Site Administrator Explorer, or Explorer (can publish) site role can add metric definitions, and all users can follow metrics to discover insights and learn about changes to the data. For information about definitions, metrics, and how to create them, see Create Metrics with Tableau Pulse. For information about how viewers interact with metrics, see Explore Metrics with Tableau Pulse.

Pulse home page

Users who follow metrics receive regular digests with insights about their data by email or in Slack. Tableau Pulse allows users who don't regularly access Tableau to understand their data without leaving the places they normally work. If these users want to learn more, they can visit a metric on Tableau Cloud to engage in guided, self-service data analysis and see how different factors impact their data.

Deploy Tableau Pulse for your site

The site setting to deploy Tableau Pulse is off by default. When you deploy Tableau Pulse, you can choose to turn it on for a single group of users or for all users on your site. You might want to have a controlled roll out for Tableau Pulse and turn it on for a single group so that a subset of users can explore and evaluate it before you make it available to your entire organization. To learn how to create a user group for Tableau Pulse, see Create a Group and Add Users to It.

To deploy Tableau Pulse, visit the settings page for your site.

  1. From the main Tableau Cloud navigation menu, select Settings.
  2. Under Tableau Pulse > Deployment, select Turn on Tableau Pulse.
  3. Choose whether to turn on Tableau Pulse for all users or for a specified group.
  4. If you choose to limit Tableau Pulse to a group, select the group.
  5. Select Save.

Users without access will get a message informing them if they visit a Tableau Pulse URL. Also, if you limit Tableau Pulse to a group, that group is the only one available when you search to add followers, even if those same users are part of a different group.

API availability of Tableau Pulse

Limiting Tableau Pulse to a specified group isn't supported at the external API level. If the site setting is turned off entirely, the API won’t allow users to access Tableau Pulse. If the site setting for Tableau Pulse is on, all users will be able to access it in situations where it's being called through the API, such as in embedded scenarios, regardless of whether the setting limits it to a specified group. For more information about using the API for Tableau Pulse, see Embed Tableau Pulse and Tableau Pulse REST API Methods.

Stop digests that persist for users without access

After you initially deploy Tableau Pulse, the services that query data sources and send metric digests continue to run whether the site setting is on or off. The site setting controls whether Tableau Pulse appears in the navigation menu and whether users are able to access the Tableau Pulse home page and individual metric pages.

Because the services for Tableau Pulse continue to run, any users who previously had access and followed metrics will receive digests for those metrics, even if you restrict access to a group that they aren’t in or remove those users from the group with access to Tableau Pulse. If these users attempt to open the links to metrics that are sent in digests, they'll get a notice that they don’t have access to Tableau Pulse, and they'll be unable to unfollow these metrics.

To prevent users who can’t access Tableau Pulse from receiving digests, remove those users from the metrics that they follow. Do this before you turn off Tableau Pulse or limit it to a smaller set of users, so these users don’t receive digests with links to metrics they can’t access.

Set up your site

As a Tableau administrator, you can help your users get the most from Tableau Pulse. Before your users get started, check that the data required for metrics is available and turn on optional features.

The legacy Metrics feature was retired on Tableau Cloud in February 2024. Any legacy metrics on your site won’t carry over to Tableau Pulse. If you had legacy metrics, note the data source, measure, and time dimension, then recreate them in Tableau Pulse. For more information about legacy metrics, see Create and Troubleshoot Metrics (Retired).

Understand governance for Tableau Pulse

A combination of settings and permissions control access to Tableau Pulse and its features.

How site roles impact Tableau Pulse access

Users must have a site role of Creator, Site Administrator Explorer, or Explorer (can publish) to create, edit, or delete metric definitions in Tableau Pulse. There are no site role limitations for creating and viewing metrics, following and adding followers to metrics, or setting and editing goals for metrics. Users who have site roles that don’t allow an action won’t be able to take that action, regardless of the permissions they're granted.

Permissions for viewing metrics

Metrics in Tableau Pulse aren’t part of the project content hierarchy in Tableau Cloud or governed by content-based permissions, meaning you can’t deny a user the ability to see an individual metric. However, by adjusting permissions on a published data source, you can control whether users can view metrics based on that data source. Also, the data that users see when viewing a metric respects row-level security applied to the data source.

To view a metric, users must have:

  • The Connect and View permission capabilities for the published data source that the metric is connected to. For more information about permissions, see Permission Capabilities and Templates.
  • Access to the data in the data source that the metric is connected to.

Tableau Pulse doesn’t prompt users to sign in to the database or data connection for the data source. Instead, one of the following must be true for users to access the metric data:

If users try to view a metric that they don’t have the correct permissions for, they see a message that the metric doesn’t exist or that they don’t have permission to access it.

Permissions for creating metric definitions

Any user with a site role of Creator, Site Administrator Explorer, or Explorer (can publish) can create metric definitions. You can’t deny users the ability to create definitions; however, you can limit the data sources that users can connect to when creating metric definitions.

To create a metric definition from a data source, users must have the Create Metric Definitions permission capability for the data source. They must also have the same access that is required to view a metric that is connected to that data source. For more information, see Permissions for viewing metrics.

If you want users to be able to view metrics based on a data source but don’t want users to be able to create metrics based on that data source, allow the View and Connect capabilities but deny the Create Metric Definitions capability.

Permissions for creating metrics

There’s no setting to limit who can create metrics in Tableau Pulse, and there are no site role limitations for creating metrics. A new metric is created any time a user filters an existing metric if one doesn’t already exist with that combination of filters. As long as users can view an existing metric, they can create new metrics by adjusting the filters.

Permissions for editing metrics and goals

You can adjust settings on a metric definition to control who can edit or delete the metric definition and who can set, edit, or delete goals for the metrics based on that definition. Note that these settings won’t grant users the ability to edit a definition if their site role doesn’t allow it. Tableau administrators don’t need to be added as editors, because their site role gives them the ability to edit all metric definitions and goals. For more information, see Restrict definition and goal editing.

Set the digest start time

Set the time at which Tableau Pulse starts generating digests. Setting a start time is useful if your data refreshes at a specific time, so that Tableau Pulse digests include the latest data.

  1. From the main Tableau Cloud navigation menu, select Settings.
  2. Under Tableau Pulse > Digest Schedule, for the Digest start time, select a time.
  3. Select Save.

Note: The start time isn’t the time at which the digests are sent. It can take more than an hour to generate and send the digests.

AI in Tableau for Tableau Pulse

AI in Tableau is Tableau's generative artificial intelligence technology. Tableau Pulse uses AI in Tableau to provide these capabilities:

  • Personalized summaries of insights for the metrics that you follow.
  • Better semantic matches in any language for Ask Q&A.
  • Enhanced Q&A (Discover) for an in-depth, conversational exploration of groups of metrics and insights.

Settings for these features are off by default, so you will need to turn on each setting individually in Tableau Cloud to use them.

Note: AI in Tableau settings for Tableau Pulse are independent of the setting to deploy Tableau Pulse, meaning that turning on Tableau Pulse doesn't turn on settings for AI in Tableau.

Tableau Pulse doesn't use your site’s data to train its generative AI. When AI in Tableau processes a prompt to generate an insights summary or insights brief, the prompt and the response are forgotten. Your data isn’t stored outside of Tableau, and the only data that AI in Tableau collects is the voluntary feedback users can submit about their insights summaries. For more information, see Einstein Generative AI for Tableau(Link opens in a new window).

Turn on metric insight summaries

When you follow two or more metrics, Tableau Pulse provides an overview to help you quickly see the latest insights across your metrics of interest. When available, this insights summary appears in digests and in the Tableau Pulse home page. For more information, see Insight summaries highlight metrics of interest(Link opens in a new window).

AI in Tableau settings are turned off for your site by default. Turn on this setting so your users can see their personalized insights summaries and get a quick overview of important changes to their metrics.

Note: This feature doesn't require you to log into your Salesforce org.

  1. From the main Tableau Cloud navigation menu, select Settings, and then select the General tab.
  2. Under AI in Tableau, select Tableau Pulse: Summarizes key metric insights.
  3. Select Save.

Note: AI in Tableau settings for Tableau Pulse are independent of the setting to deploy Tableau Pulse, meaning that turning on Tableau Pulse doesn't turn on settings for AI in Tableau.

When you turn on an AI in Tableau setting for Tableau Pulse, users will see a notice informing them that generative AI can produce inaccurate or harmful responses. Users have the option to leave feedback about the quality of the insights summaries that they see by selecting a thumbs-up or thumbs-down rating.

AI in Tableau for Tableau Pulse is used to generate the language for insight summaries, but AI in Tableau isn't involved in the identification of data insights, and there are checks to ensure that no numbers change in the insights summaries. The insights that Tableau Pulse finds are grounded in the same types of statistical modeling used to analyze data in the traditional Tableau viz authoring experience.

Turn on better semantic matches for Ask Q&A in Tableau

Ask Q&A detects insights based on a single metric and suggests further questions. You can enter your own questions that adjust the time granularity and apply dimensional filters for the current metric view. For example, "Sales in California last week," "Zoom into technology," or "What about yesterday?" For more information, see Ask Questions and Discover Insights in Tableau Pulse(Link opens in a new window) and How Tableau Approaches NLP with Q&A to Empower Everyone(Link opens in a new window).

Better semantic matches for Ask Q&A is turned off for your site by default. Turn on this setting to get the best semantic results when you use Ask Q&A to explore a single metric, in any language.

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 the calculation process for semantic matching. All calls to OpenAI go through the Einstein Trust Layer(Link opens in a new window).

Note: This feature doesn't require you to log into your Salesforce org.

  1. From the main Tableau Cloud navigation menu, select Settings, and then select the General tab.
  2. Under AI in Tableau, select Tableau Pulse: Gets better semantic matches on insights in any language when asking questions.
  3. Select Save.

Note: AI in Tableau settings for Tableau Pulse are independent of the setting to deploy Tableau Pulse, meaning that turning on Tableau Pulse doesn't turn on settings for AI in Tableau.

When you turn on an AI in Tableau setting for Tableau Pulse, users will see a notice informing them that generative AI can produce inaccurate or harmful responses. Users have the option to leave feedback about the quality of the insights surfaced as answers by selecting a thumbs-up or thumbs-down rating.

Turn on enhanced Q&A (Discover) in Tableau

Enhanced Q&A (Discover) uses AI in Tableau to takes your analysis beyond individual metrics to reveal connections between groups of related metrics. In the Discover page, find summaries, comparisons, and trend analyses using a conversational interface. Dive deeper into your data by selecting relevant questions grounded in the insights detected for your metrics. For more information, see Ask Questions and Discover Insights in Tableau Pulse. Enhanced Q&A is a premium, Tableau+ feature in Tableau Pulse.

Enhanced Q&A (Discover) in Tableau is turned off for your site by default. Turn on this setting to enable a conversational question and answer experience based on groups of metrics in Tableau Pulse, including access to the Discover page.

Note: Enhanced Q&A (Discover) requires a Salesforce org to be connected to Tableau Cloud. The connection settings are at the beginning of the AI in Tableau section in General settings. For more information, see Configure Tableau Cloud sites for AI(Link opens in a new window).

  1. From the main Tableau Cloud navigation menu, select Settings, and then select the General tab.
  2. Under AI in Tableau, select Tableau Pulse: Uses Pulse Discover for an in-depth, integrated exploration of groups of metrics and insights.
  3. Select Save.

Note: AI in Tableau settings for Tableau Pulse are independent of the setting to deploy Tableau Pulse, meaning that turning on Tableau Pulse doesn't turn on settings for AI in Tableau.

When you turn on a Tableau AI setting for Tableau Pulse, users will see a notice informing them that generative AI can produce inaccurate or harmful responses. Users have the option to leave feedback about the quality of the insights summaries that they see by selecting a thumbs-up or thumbs-down rating.

Turn off Personalized Insight Ranking

The Personalized Insight Ranking setting is turned on for your Tableau site by default. When this setting is turned on, users can provide thumbs-up or thumbs-down feedback on insights. That feedback is then used by the Tableau Pulse insights platform to further personalize and rank the types of insights it shows to a user. This setting is independent of the setting to deploy Tableau Pulse.

  1. From the main Tableau Cloud navigation menu, select Settings, and then select General.
  2. Under Personalized Insight Ranking, select Turn on (Users can submit feedback to improve the insights they receive).
  3. Select Save.

When Personalized Insight Ranking is turned off, users won't be able to submit thumbs-up or thumbs-down feedback on individual insights.

Troubleshoot metrics

If users on your site don't see data when they create a metric definition or when they view a metric, there might be an issue with your data source. Be aware that if today’s date is the beginning of the current period for the time series, such as the first day of the month, the chart will display only that point. This isn’t an issue with your data source. New points in the time series will be added as the period progresses.

If a user is creating a metric definition and there's no data in the preview: Tableau Pulse presents preview data for the current period to date. If the measure selected has no recent data, the user won't see a preview on the chart. Check the data source to verify that the data is updating.

If a user is viewing a metric that previously had data, but now there's no data: Check to see if a field used by the metric was removed or changed in the data source. Edit the metric definition to account for this change, and the change will be reflected on all metrics based on that definition. For more information, see Edit a metric definition.

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