Manage a Flow

Applies to: Tableau Data Management, Tableau Prep

Once you publish a flow to Tableau Server or Tableau Cloud, you can manage your flows and make changes to them as necessary. This topic describes the various actions you can take to manage your flows.

Note: The content in this topic applies to both Tableau Server and Tableau Cloud, exceptions are called out specifically.

Managing your flows

Following is a list of actions you can take to manage your flows:

  • Create flows: Starting in version 2020.4, as a Creator you can create flows directly on the web. From the Home page, click Create > Flow or from the Explore page, click New > Flow. For more information, see Tableau Prep on the Web.

  • Edit flows: Starting in version 2020.4, as a Creator you can edit flows directly on the web. Navigate to the list of flows, select Actions and click Edit Flow, or open a flow and click the Edit button.

    When you edit a flow, your changes are moved to a draft state. When you're finished, publish your flow to commit your changes and create a new version of the flow. For more information, see Autosave and working with drafts.

    You can edit the data connection using the Edit Connection menu option from the Connections view, Actions (…) menu for the data source. The new connection is saved and used the next time the flow runs in Tableau Prep Conductor. However, when you open the flow to view it, the original connection persists and won't be updated until you edit the flow, update the connector, and republish it.

    If you open, edit, and republish the flow without changing the original connection, any connection changes made using the Edit Connection menu will be overridden and replaced with the original connection.

  • Run flows: You can manually run a flow in addition to creating scheduled flows tasks that run at a specific time.

  • Note: The Data Management is not required to manually run flows, but is required to schedule flows to run.

  • Navigate to the list of flows, select one or more flows you want to run, select Actions and click Run Now.

  • Tag: Tags are keywords you can create for flows to help you find, filter, and categorize content. Authors can add tags to flows when they publish it. But you can also add tags to any workbook, view, or data source that you are allowed to access and you can delete any tags you have added. You can add a tag to a list of flows.

    Navigate to the list of flows, select one or more items you want to tag, select Actions and click Tag. To add a tag to a specific flow you can do it from the list of flows as described above. Open the Flow, from the Overview tab, select Actions, and click Tag.

  • Change Owner: Administrators and flow owners can change owners, and only to themselves.

  • Permissions: You can set permissions for users and specify if they can perform edit actions like save, download, move to a different project and delete. In addition, you can specify who can view and run the flow.

  • Download: You can download a flow to view or modify it using Tableau Prep Builder. To download a flow, you need download permissions. You’ll have that by default if you are the owner, but you might need to add it for other users.

  • Revision History: When you make a change to the flow, and republish it to the same project with the same name, a new version of the flow is created. You can view the revision history by selecting revision history from the actions menu. Flow owners have permissions to restore a previous version of a flow.

  • Move: You can move flows between projects. To move a flow, users need Move permission. You’ll have that by default for flows you own, but you might need to add it for other users.

  • Rename: You can rename a flow. To rename a flow, users need the Save permission. You'll have that by default for flows you own, but you might need to add it for other users.

  • Delete: You can delete a flow. To delete a flow, users need the Delete permission. You’ll have that by default for flows you own, but you might need to add it for other users.

Who can do this

Tableau Server Administrator

Can do the following tasks across all the sites:

  • Create flows

  • Edit published flows

  • View a list of all draft flows

  • Run flows

  • Delete flows

  • Download flows

  • Change Owner

  • Change Permissions

  • Change Project

  • Add/Remove Tags

  • Change Description

  • Change Name

  • Update Flow Task

  • Delete Flow Task

  • Create a Flow Task*

  • Version Management*

*Some additional conditions apply to these actions:

  • To create a flow task:

    • A flow schedule must be available. Only Server Administrators can create a schedule.
    • The flow must have at least one output step.
    • The flow version must be compatible with the Tableau Server version.

  • Version management:

    • Revision history must be enabled on the site.

    • User role is allowed to publish to the project.

Tableau Site Administrator

Can do the following tasks on flows published to the sites that they are site administrator for:

  • Create flows

  • Edit published flows

  • View a list of all draft flows

  • Run flows

  • Delete flows

  • Download flows

  • Change Owner

  • Change Permissions

  • Change Project

  • Add/Remove Tags

  • Change Description

  • Change Name

  • Update Flow Task

  • Delete Flow Task

  • Create a Flow Task*

  • Version Management*

Some additional conditions apply to these actions:

  • To create a flow task:

    • A flow schedule must be available. Only Server Administrators can create a schedule.
    • The flow must have at least one output step.
    • The flow version must be compatible with the Tableau Server version.

  • Version management:

    • Revision history must be enabled on the site.

    • User role is allowed to publish to the project.

Project Leader

Can do the following tasks on flows published to the projects where they have project leader permissions:

  • Create flows

  • Edit published flows

  • Run Flows

  • Delete

  • Download

  • Change Permissions

  • Change Project

  • Add/Remove Tags

  • Change Description

  • Change Name

  • Update Flow Task

  • Delete Flow Task

  • Create a Flow Task*

  • Version Management*

*Some additional conditions apply to these actions:

  • To create a flow task:

    • A flow schedule must be available. Only Server Administrators can create a schedule.
    • The flow must have at least one output step.
    • The flow version must be compatible with the Tableau Server version.

  • Version management:

    • Revision history must be enabled on the site.

    • User role is allowed to publish to the project.

Project Owner

Can do the following tasks on flows published to the projects that they own:

  • Create Flows

  • Edit published flows

  • Run Flows

  • Delete

  • Download

  • Change Permissions

  • Change Project

  • Add/Remove Tags

  • Change Description

  • Change Name

  • Update Flow Task

  • Delete Flow Task

  • Create a Flow Task*

  • Version Management*

* Some additional conditions apply to these actions:

  • To create a flow task:

    • A flow schedule must be available. Only Server Administrators can create a schedule.
    • The flow must have at least one output step.
    • The flow version must be compatible with the Tableau Server version.

  • Version management:

    • Revision history must be enabled on the site.

    • User role is allowed to publish to the project.

Flow Owner

Can do the following tasks on flows that they own:

  • Create Flows

  • Edit Draft (flows they own) and Published Flows

  • Run flows

  • Delete flows

  • Download flows

  • Change Owner

  • Change Permissions

  • Change Project

  • Add/Remove Tags

  • Change Description

  • Change Name

  • Update Flow Task

  • Delete Flow Task

  • Create a Flow Task*

  • Version Management*

*Some additional conditions apply to these actions:

  • To create a flow task:

    • A flow schedule must be available. Only Server Administrators can create a schedule.
    • The flow must have at least one output step.
    • The flow version must be compatible with the Tableau Server version.

  • Version management:

    • Revision history must be enabled on the site.

    • User role is allowed to publish to the project.

User with Creator License

Can do the following tasks:

  • Create Flows

  • Edit Draft (flows they own) and Published Flows

  • Run Flows (with Run flow permissions)

  • Delete (with delete permissions)

  • Download (with download or Save as, and read permissions)

  • Change Permissions (with Change Permissions)

  • Change Project (with move permissions, and write permissions on the destination project)

  • Add/Remove Tags (with read permissions)

  • Change Description (with Save permissions)

  • Change Name (with Save permissions)

  • Update Flow task (with Execute permissions)

  • Delete Flow Task (with Execute permissions)

  • Create a Flow Task* (with Execute permissions)

  • Version Management* (with view, read, save as, download permissions)

* Some additional conditions apply to these actions:

  • To create a flow task:

    • A flow schedule must be available. Only Server Administrators can create a schedule.
    • The flow must have at least one output step.
    • The flow version must be compatible with the Tableau Server version.

  • Version management:

    • Revision history must be enabled on the site.

    • User role is allowed to publish to the project.

User with Explorer License

Can do the following tasks:

Note: Starting in version 2020.4, Explorer license users can no longer run flows on Tableau Server.

  • Explorer license users (with Run flow permissions) can run flows on Tableau Cloud.

  • Delete (with delete permissions)

  • Download (with download or Save as, and read permissions)

  • Change Permissions (with Change Permissions)

  • Change Project (with move permissions and write permissions on the destination project)

  • Add/Remove Tags (with read permissions)

  • Change Description (with Save permissions)

  • Change Name (with Save permissions)

  • Update Flow task (with Execute permissions)

  • Delete Flow Task (with Execute permissions)

  • Create a Flow Task* (with Execute permissions)

  • Version Management* (with view, read, save as, download permissions)

*Some additional conditions apply to these actions:

  • To create a flow task:

    • A flow schedule must be available. Only Server Administrators can create a schedule.
    • The flow must have at least one output step.
    • The flow version must be compatible with the Tableau Server version.

  • Version management:

    • Revision history must be enabled on the site.

    • User role is allowed to publish to the project.

User with Viewer License

Viewers cannot manage flows, they can however view the flow and the different versions of the flow.

For more information about the full capabilities you can set on flows, see Permission capabilities(Link opens in a new window).

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