When you publish extracts to the server you can schedule them to be refreshed automatically. That way you don't have to republish the workbook every time the underlying data has updated and you can still get the performance of a data extract. For example, let's say you have a workbook that connects to a large data warehouse that is updated weekly. Instead of publishing a workbook that queries the live data, you can create an extract including just the data necessary. This increases performance and limits queries to the live database. Then you can add that workbook to a schedule so that the extract gets refreshed each week with the updated data from the data warehouse.
Before you begin, scheduling must be enabled on the server. After you enable scheduling, you can add workbooks to schedules, create and edit schedules, mange scheduled tasks, and change schedule settings to allow publishers to assign workbooks to schedules.
When you publish a workbook that uses an extract the data from the extract is imported into a shared fast database, which increases overall performance and allows you to refresh the data on a schedule. Before you can add workbooks to schedules you need to enable scheduling on the Server Maintenance page.
Select Scheduling in the Settings table at the bottom of the Maintenance page.
Note: Because database passwords may be required to refresh the extract, you must enable embedded credentials in order to allow scheduling.
If you've installed Tableau Server prior to Version 6.0, you may have configured an external database for extract storage. While you can continue to use the external database, it is strongly recommended that you migrate the data to the built-in data engine. Refer to the Administrator Guide to learn how to upgrade your extracts to the new fast data engine.
Once you've enabled schedules you can add workbooks to schedules from the Workbooks list. By default Tableau Server has four built in schedules. Refer to Managing Schedules to learn how to create your own schedules.
On the workbooks page click the Tools button to show the toolbar.
Select one or more workbooks you want to schedule for refresh.
Click Schedule Refresh in the toolbar.
Select a schedule from the available list.
Note: The Schedule Refresh option is only available if all the selected workbooks connect to an extract data source. Tableau Server cannot refresh workbooks that connect to local file data sources on a mapped drive. Update the connection to use the full path to the data source to allow scheduled refresh.
Tableau Server comes with three schedules already set up. You can create your own schedules or modify the default schedules from the Schedules page. The Schedules page shows a list of schedules including their name, type, number of tasks and when it is scheduled to next run.
Click the Maintenance link in the Administration section on the left side of the page. Then click the Schedules link on the Maintenance page.
Click Create New Schedule at the bottom of the Schedules list.
Specify a descriptive Name for the schedule (e.g., Every Saturday Morning, Last day of the Month, etc.).
Optionally define a Default Priority from 0 to 100. This is the priority that will be assigned to the tasks by default. If two tasks are pending in the queue, the one with the highest priority runs first. Refer to Managing Tasks to learn more about modifying a task's priority.
Define the schedule using the controls. You can define an Hourly, Daily, Weekly, or Monthly schedule.
When finished, click Create Schedule.
On the schedules page, select the schedule you want to modify. You can only modify one schedule at a time.
Click Modify in the toolbar.
Change the schedule as needed. When finished, click Save Schedule.
You can also enable, disable, delete, or run schedules by selecting one or more schedules in the list and selecting an option on the toolbar.
You can see a list of all scheduled tasks on the tasks page. There you can change a task's priority, move it to different schedule, or run it. You can access the Tasks page by clicking the Tasks link on the Maintenance page. You can also see a list of tasks and their status using the Task History view available from the Maintenance page.
On the Tasks page select one or more tasks to modify.
Click Change Priority on the toolbar.
Type a new priority from 0 to 100 and click Modify.
On the Tasks page select one or more tasks to modify.
Click Change Schedule on the toolbar.
Select a new schedule from the list of schedules.
You can also delete and run tasks by selecting one or more tasks in the list and selecting an option on the toolbar.