Create a Subscription to a View or Workbook

Subscriptions email you an image or PDF snapshot of a view or workbook at regular intervals – without requiring you to sign in to Tableau Server.

Note: Administrators determine whether subscriptions are turned on for a site.

If Tableau Catalogue is turned on for a site, administrators can also determine whether subscription emails include relevant upstream data quality warnings. Tableau Catalogue is available as part of the Data Management offering. For more information, see About Tableau Catalogue.

Set up a subscription for yourself or others

When you open a view in Tableau Server, if you see a subscription icon () in the toolbar, you can subscribe to that view or to the entire workbook. You can subscribe other users who have permission to view the content if you own a workbook, if you are a project leader with an appropriate site role, or if you are an administrator.

  1. From the Explore section of your site, select All Workbooks or All Views, or open the project that contains the view you want to subscribe to.

    Content type menu

  2. Open a view either directly, or after opening the containing workbook.

  3. On the view toolbar, select Watch > Subscriptions.

  4. Add the Tableau users or groups you want to receive the subscription. To receive a subscription, users must have the View and Download Image/PDF permissions and their accounts must also have email addresses.

    If you own the workbook, select Subscribe me.

    Notes: 

    • When you subscribe a group, each user is added individually at the time the subscription is created. If more users are added to the group later, you must re-subscribe the group for those new users to receive the subscription. Likewise, users later removed from the group will not have their subscriptions removed automatically unless their permissions to the subscribed view are removed.
    • You can't subscribe a group set.
  5. Choose whether subscription emails include the current view or the entire workbook. If the view contains data only when high-priority information exists, select Don't send if view is empty.

  6. Choose the format for your snapshot: as a PNG image, a PDF attachment or both.

    • If PDFs, choose the paper size and orientation you'd like to receive.

  7. To clarify subscription emails, customise the subject line and add a message.

    Note: To update the subscription message, you must unsubscribe from the existing subscription and create a new subscription with a different message. For more information, see Update or unsubscribe from a subscription.

  8. When the workbook uses one data extract on a published connection, you can pick a frequency:

    • When Data Refreshes: Sends only when data in the view or workbook is refreshed by running refresh schedules.
    • On Selected Schedule: Pick a schedule for the subscription.
  9. If frequency is not set to When Data Refreshes, pick a schedule:

    • Choose from subscription schedules established by your administrator.

    • For sites with custom schedules enabled(Link opens in a new window), click the drop-down arrow to the left of the current settings.

      Then specify a custom schedule that sends subscription emails whenever you wish. (The precise delivery time may vary if server load is high.)

      To change the time zone, click the Time Zone link to go to your account settings page.

  10. Click Subscribe.

When you receive a subscription email, you can select the image (or the link in the message body for PDF subscriptions) to be taken to the view or workbook in Tableau Server.

Update or unsubscribe from a subscription

You can unsubscribe from an existing subscription, or make changes to a subscription’s format, schedule, subject or empty view mode.

  1. Access your Tableau Server account settings by doing one of the following:

    • Click Manage my subscriptions at the bottom of a subscription email.

    • Sign in to Tableau Server. At the top of the page, select your user icon, and then select My Content.

  2. Click Subscriptions.

  3. Tick the box next to the view you want to unsubscribe from, click Actions, and then click Unsubscribe, or select the subscription option you'd like to change.

Resume or delete suspended subscriptions

Sometimes, subscriptions fail because of an issue with the workbook or a problem loading the view. If a subscription fails more than five times, you'll receive a notification email that your subscription has been suspended. There are a few ways to resume a suspended subscription if you're a subscription owner or administrator:

  • From the My Content area of Tableau web pages, an icon appears in the Last update column to indicate that the subscription is suspended. Select ... > Resume Subscription to resume.

  • From the Subscriptions tab of the affected workbook, an icon appears in the last update column to indicate that the subscription is suspended. Select ... > Resume Subscription to resume.

You'll receive an email notification when the subscription is working again.

See also

Change subscription settings(Link opens in a new window) in the Tableau Desktop and Web Authoring Help.

Project-level administration(Link opens in a new window) in the Tableau Cloud Help, to learn which site roles allow full Project Leader capabilities.

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