#TabExport Tableau PowerPoint Word Excel High Resolution

[tableaujunkie]

TabExport: A High Resolution MS Office Plugin For Tableau Server

Updated version for Tableau Server v10.5+

Anybody who has ever used or seen Tableau understands the power of interactive visual analytics. So when someone asks 'can we just get that analysis in Powerpoint / Excel / Word please?' there are a million reasons why we try and persuade them on the benefits of the secure, interactive, visual experience that Tableau brings. However, even the most die hard Tableau fans will admit that sometimes there are legitimate reasons why this is not possible, and let's face it, your users are going to find another way if they can't do what they (think) they want in Tableau. Examples I have come across recently include organisations who state, 'we provide analysis to external stakeholders who do not have access to Tableau Server and we can't insist on them installing Tableau Reader' and 'we want people to use Tableau Server but its going to take some time before we can persuade our execs to stop relying on MS Office'.

TabExport is an html/javascript plugin for Tableau Server which allows your users to export their Tableau Dashboards and Workbooks in glorious high definition to MS Powerpoint, Word, Excel, and .PNG. To install the plugin you will first need to clone/download the code from my github repository here.

Given that the tabadmin import_webdataconnector command was deprecated in Tableau Server v10.5 you will need to manually copy the tabexport folder you downloaded from github to the webdataconnectors folder on all nodes running your gateway service. On windows the directory will be C:\Program Files\Tableau\Tableau Server\data\tabsvc\httpd\htdocs\webdataconnectors by default. 

Now you should be able to test the plugin in your browser by navigating to http://<tableauserver>/webdataconnectors/tabexport/html/tabexport.html (it won’t do anything yet!).

The plugin accepts 3 URL parameters to enable you to specify the file formats you want to display, the pixel size of the icons, and the background colour.

format: string containing the first letter of the file formats to display 'p', 'e', 'w', 'i'. Default value 'wepi'.

size: integer containing the pixel size for the buttons. Default value 50.

background: string containing the hex colour value for the background excluding the leading '#'. Default value 'ffffff'.

For example, the following url will display only the powerpoint and excel icons with size 25px and a blue background: https://tabserver.tableaujunkie.com/webdataconnectors/tabexport/html/tabexport.html?format=pe&size=25&background=000FFF 

To use this on your dashboard, simply add a web part with the URL format above and publish to Tableau Sever (or use web edit on Tableau Server).

Once your dashboard has been published to Tableau Server your users will be able to export high resolution files. The behaviour is as follows:

PowerPoint: Exports all sheets in the current workbook as high resolution images with hyperlinks to the original viz on Tableau Server. Each sheet is sized to fit a single PowerPoint slide.

Word: Exports all sheets in current workbook as high resolution images with hyperlinks to the original viz on Tableau Server. Each sheet is sized to be 600px wide and maintains aspect ratio.

Excel: Exports current dashboard as high resolution image on first tab of Excel Workbook. Summary data for all views on current dashboard is also exported as separate Excel tabs (using the JavaScript API).

Image: Exports a high resolution image of the current dashboard in .png format.

Here is an animated gif of the plugin in action:

via GIPHY

This plugin would have not been possible without exploiting a number of techniques that have been promoted by the awesome Tableau Community:

Tamás Földi: Pushing the Limits of Tableau Server – Practical Lessons from a Zen Master

Alan Eldridge: Generating high resolution images of Tableau views

Alex Lokhov: Export To Excel Plugin for Tableau Server

Mark Jacobson: The Unofficial Guide to Tableau’s Vizportal API

TabExport also makes use of a number of open souce javascript libraries for generating MS Office documents: PptxGenJS, html-docx-js, and SheetJS.

There are of course a few known limitations including the fact that the plugin is not compatible with Tableau Online and will export the published version of a workbook as opposed to the current state (i.e. filters and selections are ignored). If a user would like to export a customised version of the dashboard they will need to save a customised view and make it their default.

Hopefully people in the community will find this tool useful for those exceptional cases where users just must have their PowerPoint deck :)