Activate and Register Tableau Server


Before you can use Tableau Server, you must activate and register it.

Tableau Server requires at least one product key that both activates the server and specifies the number of licence levels you can assign to users. You can access your product keys from the Customer Portal.

If you need to activate Tableau Server on a computer that is offline, see Activate Tableau Server Offline. If you need to activate additional product keys to add capacity to an existing Tableau Server installation, see Add Capacity to Tableau Server.

Prerequisite

Before proceeding with the procedures in this topic, complete the following prerequisites as outlined in Install and Configure Tableau Server:

  1. Sign in to Tableau Services Manager Web UI.

    The account you use must have administrative privileges on the computer where TSM is installed.

  2. On the Activate page, Enter or paste your product key and click Activate Product Key.

    Note: In versions prior to 2023.3.0 an option to activate a trial licence displays. This option was retired (removed) starting version 2023.3.0. To learn about options for trying Tableau Server, contact your account representative.

    After your product key is activated, it appears under Activated Product Keys.

  3. To activate another product key, type over the key you just entered to add the new product key, and then click Activate Product Key. After your product key is activated, it appears under Activated Product Keys. Continue adding product keys in this manner until you're done.

  4. When you’re finished activating product keys, click Next.

    Note: If the product keys you have activated don’t have the necessary capacity, such as not enough cores or only a Viewer role product key, Tableau Services Manager displays the Insufficient licences applied dialog box. Click Activate Another Product Key to add another product key and increase capacity on your Tableau Server installation.

  5. On the Register page, enter your information into the fields and click Register.

Activate Tableau Server

To activate Tableau Server for production use, you must have a product key.

To activate a product key, run the following command:

tsm licenses activate -k <product key>

To activate a two-week trial, run the following command:

tsm licenses activate -t

If you are unable to activate Tableau, for example, if you get an error like this:

License Server not available

see Activate Tableau Server Offline.

What if I get an access denied error when I attempt to run TSM commands?

The account that you use to configure the rest of the installation must be a member of the tsmadmin group that was created during initialisation. To view the user accounts in the tsmadmin group, run the following command:

grep tsmadmin /etc/group

If the user account is not in the group, run the following command to add the user to the tsmadmin group:

sudo usermod -G tsmadmin -a <username>

Register Tableau Server

After activation, you need to register Tableau Server. To do this, create a registration file and then pass it as an option with the tsm register command.

  1. Generate a template that you can edit by running the following command:

    tsm register --template > /path/to/<registration_file>.json

  2. Edit the template file to create your completed registration file.

    Here is an example of a registration file in the required format:

    {
    "first_name" : "Andrew",
    "last_name" : "Smith",
    "phone" : "311-555-2368",
    "email" : "andrew.smith@mycompany.com",
    "company" : "My Company",
    "industry" : "Finance",
    "company_employees" : "500",			
    "department" : "Engineering",
    "title" : "Senior Manager",
    "city" : "Kirkland",
    "state" : "WA",
    "zip" : "98034",
    "country" : "United States",
    "opt_in" : "true",
    "eula" : "true"
}

  3. After saving changes to the file, pass it with the --file option to register Tableau Server:

    tsm register --file /path/to/<registration_file>.json

    For example:

    tsm register --file /usr/share/tableau-reg-file.json

If you have a product key for Data Management or Advanced Management, you must activate that key to use the additional functionality. Product keys for these licences should only be activated after at least one capacity product key has been activated on the server.

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