Tableau Server on Windows Help

An important administrative role in a Tableau Server deployment is the Tableau portal administrator. The portal administrator manages licensing and the associated keys for the Tableau deployment. As the portal administrator, your first step is to purchase licenses on the Tableau Customer Portal(Link opens in a new window). When you purchase licenses, the portal will return corresponding product keys. To renew your license, visit the Tableau renewal(Link opens in a new window) web page.

Tableau has a number of products (Desktop, Server, Prep Builder, and more). Each of the Tableau products require that you activate licenses by updating the Tableau software with the product keys that are purchased and stored on the Tableau Customer Portal. As the administrator who is tasked with activating Tableau licenses, it important that you understand the relationship between licenses and keys. See Understanding License Models and Product Keys.

Activation

Activation is the process of uploading and saving Tableau product keys to Tableau Server. This operation is done with Tableau Services Manager (TSM). TSM is a tool that makes changes to the local operating system and file system and therefore requires administrative access to the local computer. A TSM administrator requires different permissions and access than a Tableau Server administrator, which is the administrative role for day-to-day operation of Tableau Server tasks, such as adding users, sites, managing projects and permissions, etc. See Administrative roles for more information about various Tableau Server administrative roles.

The following topics describe how to connect to TSM:

• Sign in to Tableau Services Manager Web UI
• tsm Command Line Reference

Online activation

If your Tableau Server installation is able to communicate with the internet, then we recommend using the default online activation method.

• To understand how to activate during the installation process, see Activate and Register Tableau Server.
• To understand how to activate product keys after you have refreshed your subscription, see Refresh Expiration Date and Attributes for the Product Key.
• To understand how to activate product keys after you have added purchased new features or user licenses, see Add Capacity to Tableau Server.

Offline activation

If Tableau Server is running in an offline environment, where it is not possible to access the Tableau license servers on the internet, then you must activate licenses according to the Tableau offline activation process:

• To understand how to activate offline, see Activate Tableau Server Offline.
• To understand how to deactivate a product key that you activated using offline activation, see Deactivate Tableau Server Offline(Link opens in a new window).

Lost activation

In some cases license activations can fail after the license has been activated. These failures can occur due to connection failures with local processes or when a change has occurred with the VM or hardware configuration. For example, proxy changes, port blocking, network changes, or altering a machine hardware can cause the licensing activation to fail. If Tableau Server is unable to verify the license, operation may be interrupted and the server will be in an “unlicensed” state.

To view the product keys and the Tableau Server license state, run tsm licenses list and tsm status -v.

Depending on the product key that is unverified, Tableau Server may operate in a degraded state until the product key is in a valid state. See Troubleshoot Licensing.

Deactivate

You can activate the same Tableau Server product key on up to three environments. This allows you to test Tableau Server (in a sandbox or QA environments, for example), as well as use Tableau in production. To maximize your activations, you should deactivate your product key when you remove Tableau Server from a computer or close down a VM, unless you will be reinstalling Tableau on the same computer. Doing this gives you the opportunity to use the activation on a different computer. For example, if you move Tableau Server from one computer to another, deactivate the product key, then remove Tableau from the original computer. When you install Tableau on the new computer, you can activate the key there without any conflict. If you are removing Tableau Server to reinstall it on the same computer, you don't need to deactivate the key. Tableau will use the key when reinstalled unless an obliterate command was performed with the “-l” option

See Deactivate Product Key.

Tableau Server licensing and virtual machines (VMs)

If you run Tableau Server on VMs, either locally, or in the cloud, be aware of the potential for complications related to licensing. If you are simply upgrading Tableau Server on the VM, you do not need to take any extra action related to licensing. If you plan to clone the VM to create either a new production or test environment to upgrade, you need to deactivate any Tableau Server licenses before cloning. If you do not do this, the new VM environment will end up with untrusted licenses, and any attempts to upgrade or start Tableau Server will fail. You may also end up hitting the maximum number of activations for the licenses when trying to activate the product keys on the new VM.

To avoid issues with licensing on VMs, deactivate all Tableau licenses before cloning a VM or allowing it to be permanently shut down.

Adding users

Each user who accesses resources on Tableau Server must be licensed.

• To understand user roles and licensing, see Understanding License Models and Product Keys.
• To understand how to add users, see Add Users to Tableau Server.
• To understand how to activate product keys after you have added purchased new user licenses, see Add Capacity to Tableau Server.