Tableau Desktop and Web Authoring Help

This article describes how to connect Tableau to an OData data source. Tableau connects to OData V1, V2, and V4.

Before you begin

Before you begin, gather this connection information:

• Server URL for the data you want to connect to
• Sign-in credentials (user name and password), if necessary

Make the connection and set up the data source

1. Start Tableau and under Connect, select OData. For a complete list of data connections, select More under To a Server. Then do the following:
   1. In Server, type one of the following:
      • A service URL to access all feeds inside the service.
      • A feed URL to access a specific data feed.
   2. From the Authentication dropdown, select the authentication mode for this connection.
      • If you select Username and Password, also type a username and password.
      • Otherwise, select No Authentication.
   3. Select Sign In.

      If Tableau can't make the connection, verify that your credentials are correct. If you still can't connect, your computer is having trouble locating the server. Contact your network administrator or database administrator for more assistance.

2. On the data source page, do the following:

   1. (Optional) Select the default data source name at the top of the page, and then enter a unique data source name for use in Tableau. For example, use a data source naming convention that helps other users of the data source figure out which data source to connect to.

      Note: If you publish the data source to Tableau Server or Tableau Cloud, the data source name is limited to 255 characters. Longer names cause a RepositoryException error.

   2. Select the sheet tab to start your analysis.

      After you select the sheet tab, Tableau imports the data by creating an extract. For more information about extracts, see Extract Your Data.

      Note: Tableau Desktop only supports extracts for OData.

OData connector support

• The OData connector supports only extracts, which means that some OData V4 functionality isn’t supported. For example, interactive query arguments such as $expand or $select.
• Tableau supports these OData versions and formats:

  • OData V1 and V2 – We support OData XML/Atom format for feed responses.

  • OData V4 and V4.01 – We support OData-JSON format for feed responses.

• Tableau assumes metadata documents for all supported OData services are in XML format.

• Collection-valued properties aren’t supported, Tableau interprets them as nulls.

Note: Tableau can't guarantee that using a third-party OData service, such as Intelex, or using a feed will result in successfully connecting and extracting data. Tableau customer support gives a basic level of troubleshooting for third-party OData connections. Tableau customer support doesn't have access to Apache Olingo library. Contact your system administrator for in-depth OData troubleshooting.

See also

• Set Up Data Sources – Add more data to this data source or prepare your data before you analyze it.
• Build Charts and Analyze Data – Begin your data analysis.