Tableau Api

Tableau is the most widely deployed enterprise BI platform — the REST API enables programmatic content management, user provisioning, and data pipeline automation on top of Tableau Server or Cloud. For agents: trigger extract refresh jobs (update dashboard data after ETL completes), publish workbooks/datasources, retrieve view images for embedding, query metadata (which workbooks use which data sources), and manage user permissions. Personal Access Tokens enable headless API access without user interaction. Confidence is docs-derived.

REST API at {server}/api/{api_version}. Sign in: POST /auth/signin ({credentials: {personalAccessTokenName, personalAccessTokenSecret, site: {contentUrl}}}). Extract refresh: POST /sites/{siteId}/datasources/{datasourceId}/refresh. GET /sites/{siteId}/datasources lists datasources. GET /sites/{siteId}/workbooks lists workbooks. POST /sites/{siteId}/workbooks publish workbook (multipart). GET /sites/{siteId}/views/{viewId}/image retrieves PNG image of view. GET /sites/{siteId}/jobs/{jobId} retrieves job status. Metadata API (GraphQL): POST /api/metadata/graphql queries Tableau metadata ({query: "{ workbooksConnection { nodes { name, luid, upstreamDatasources { name } } } }"}). Python client: tableauserverclient (TSC) library wraps REST API.

Personal Access Token (PAT) auth: create in Tableau Cloud/Server profile settings. Sign in returns auth_token valid for session. Subsequent requests: X-Tableau-Auth: {auth_token} header. HTTPS enforced. No OAuth2. Connected App (Tableau Cloud): JWT-based token for embedded analytics and programmatic access. Server authentication: Tableau Server supports SAML, Active Directory. Site scoping: all operations require siteId in URL path.

Auth token expiry: 4 hours default — re-sign-in as needed. Extract refresh: async job — poll /jobs/{jobId} until status completed/failed. 404 for unknown workbook/datasource ID (use luid — Tableau's internal UUID). Content URL: each Tableau site has a URL identifier (empty string for default site). TSC client handles auth refresh automatically. Tableau Server uptime: operator-managed; Tableau Cloud uptime at trust.salesforce.com. Rate limiting: generous for standard automation. Background jobs queue: large refreshes may be queued behind other jobs.

help.tableau.com/current/api/rest_api covers REST API reference, Metadata API reference, and authentication guide. Getting started: Tableau Developer Program (free Tableau Cloud developer account), create PAT, first API call in under 15 minutes. tableauserverclient: pip install tableauserverclient. Tableau Postman collection available. Community via Tableau Community Forum (community.tableau.com — very active) and Stack Overflow. Comprehensive documentation; TSC Python library significantly simplifies API interactions.