Our team is currently setting up Tableau for this season. We have everything set up how we like with multiple sheets and views. We were wondering how we would be able to view the data from a mobile device. The mobile app uses Tableau Server or Tableau Online. From our understanding, the promo code that FIRST gives out does not include either of these services. Is the only other way to use Tableau Public? Is there something we’re missing here? With Tableau Public, does it live update, or do we need to manually refresh/publish the data each time?
For the time being, we have a trial on Tableau Online. It seems the only way to get data into there would be to create a workbook directly in there. I may just be missing something, but I cannot figure out how to publish a workbook into Tableau Online from the Desktop.
It currently seems that Tableau Public is the only option, but it seems to be very inconvenient in terms of data updating (if that makes sense).
Essentally, Tableau (herein “Tableau Desktop”), Tableau Public, Tableau Online and Tableau Mobile are all just different versions of Tableau, and (for the most part) are all connected.
Tableau Desktop and Tableau Public are directly connected. You can publish via the “server” options in Tableau, which will have you sign into your account and publish to your account, and to update you must manually push the update to it from Tableau Desktop. Ive found some documentation that it updates “once overnight” if on a Gsheet, but ive never seen it happen.
Tableau Mobile on the other hand grabs from Tableau Online. The only way ive gotten it to work is via the free trials, and the moment it runs out it dumps all your data and locks that email out until you buy, which isint worth the cost. Tableau online i’ve only interacted with once or twice, but you basically do all of the work in a web browser which then just follows on the viewer on Tableau Mobile. From this tutorial, it seems you can do it from desktop, but I havent had much success. I know of no way to use Tableau Mobile with a public workbook either, which nerfs its usefulness a bit more.
You’re totally right. This setup is not friendly at all for sharing online mid-event, and its frustrating when all your work is dumped with no backup. At least the data still exists…
I will just say that I don’t like Tableau. I think it is a great tool, but I have always built data analytics using Google Sheets (or Excel, one year). The graphs look very nice, and it only takes a little bit of learning to accomplish. I can’t show you this year’s, but I’d be happy to talk a little more about using Google Sheets for data analytics.
Completely agree that Tableau Public is not convenient to use at the competition venue. Tableau Desktop does have the option to print the entire workbook to a PDF file (under File>Print to PDF), which is the format of the briefings we send to our drive team. You do lose the ability to interact with the visualizations (RIP Tooltips) but the sheets still show up and can be supplemented with annotations.
You can then transfer the exported PDF version of the workbook to whatever device you want (At SERT we copy it onto an Ipad through USB using this tool). It’s somewhat clunky, but it’s the best way we’ve found to view Tableau data on a mobile device at competition where wifi connection is not available.
