Tableau Desktop and Web Authoring Help

This article describes how to connect Tableau to OneDrive, SharePoint Online document library data, and set up the data source.

Before you begin

Before you begin, complete the following tasks:

1. Get the email address and password for your Microsoft account.
2. Add Delegated Permission for Microsoft Graph API to Azure AD.
3. Grant Tableau consent to use the following Application Programming Interface (API). permissions to access files in OneDrive and your Sharepoint Online document libraries:

• Files.Read.All
• Sites.Read.All
• User.Read
• Offline_access

Note: The OneDrive and Sharepoint Online connector doesn't support tenant-specific connections. The application connection will need to be configured for multi-tenant on the Microsoft side.

Recommendation

Set up a custom OAuth Client to use your company's IT policies

You can fully control your OAuth configuration according to your own IT policies with a custom OAuth client. The option to use your own OAuth client frees you from being tied to Tableau release cycles and Tableau’s OAuth client rotation schedule. For information on how to configure your own OAuth client see, Configure Custom OAuth for a site.

Make the connection and set up the data source

Note: Supported file types for use in Tableau are Excel, .csv/text, and JSON.

1. Start Tableau and under Connect, select OneDrive and SharePoint Online. In the tab Tableau opens in your default browser, do the following:

   1. Enter your email address and then select Next.

   2. Enter your password and then select Sign In.

   3. Select Yes to grant Tableau access to your OneDrive files and SharePoint Online document library files.

   4. Close the browser pane when notified to do so.

   5. Search for or select the file to connect to, and then select Connect. The file can be from one of three categories:

      • OneDrive (personal files): files owned by you
      • OneDrive (shared with you): files shared with you by another owner
      • SharePoint Sites: files in SharePoint Online document libraries that you have access to

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.

   2. To start your analysis, select the sheet tab.

Note: Tableau doesn't support pivot tables in OneDrive or SharePoint Online document libraries.

Use Data Interpreter to clean your data

If Tableau detects that it can help optimize your data source for analysis, it prompts you to use Data Interpreter. Data Interpreter can detect subtables you can use and remove unique formatting that can cause problems later on in your analysis. For information on data cleaning, see Clean Data from Excel, CSV, PDF, and Google Sheets with Data Interpreter.

Troubleshoot OneDrive and SharePoint Online

Connections to multiple accounts

When using web authoring or publishing to the web, you can’t use multiple OneDrive accounts in the same workbook. You can have multiple account connections in Desktop.

Web authoring with Internet Explorer 11 and Edge

In Internet Explorer 11 and Edge, you can't access a server using an unsecured connection (http). Use a secure connection (https) or switch to another browser.

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.