I was recently asked how to connect Tableau to a Microsoft Tabular model. The concept itself is straightforward in Tableau. In my opinion, tabular models will become more prevalent, so I will start to look at them more detail.
It turns out that the individual who questioned me was struggling, unfortunately. The resolution was that he wasn’t including the instance name as part of the connection.
In order to help business users to connect Tableau to the tabular model, I have included a brief video on how to achieve connectivity between Tableau and the Tabular model.
The video does include my Scottish accent, so please feel free to turn down the volume!
The link to the video is here:
I’m blogging this on my iPad so please excuse that I haven’t inserted the video itself! I will do this when I am back online properly. I am on holiday just now, but thought it worthwhile just to get the information out to help the individual ASAP
Jennifer Stirrup is the Founder and CEO of Data Relish, a UK-based AI and Business Intelligence leadership boutique consultancy delivering data strategy and business-focused solutions. Jen is a recognized leading authority in AI and Business Intelligence Leadership, a Fortune 100 global speaker, and has been named as one of the Top 50 Global Data Visionaries, one of the Top Data Scientists to follow on Twitter and one of the most influential Top 50 Women in Technology worldwide.
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7 thoughts on “Tabular models and Tableau”
Hi Jen, just out of curiosity, did you get Tableau time intelligence to work with date attributes from Tabular models? I am finding that they come through as strings and event after changing the data type to date, it still does not play nicely with SSAS tabular.
Thanks for the video. My company is considering moving from a multidimensional SSAS cube to the Tabular model. Do you know if the Tabular model can be extracted to a Tableau extract? I asked Tableau support, but they were not familiar with the database type.
Jen Stirrup 
Hi Jen, just out of curiosity, did you get Tableau time intelligence to work with date attributes from Tabular models? I am finding that they come through as strings and event after changing the data type to date, it still does not play nicely with SSAS tabular.
For anyone struggling with this same issue: https://melissayu3.wordpress.com/2016/02/05/getting-tableau-to-work-with-ssas-tabular-date-fields/
Jen,
Thanks for the video. My company is considering moving from a multidimensional SSAS cube to the Tabular model. Do you know if the Tabular model can be extracted to a Tableau extract? I asked Tableau support, but they were not familiar with the database type.
Hi Eric, I was wondering if you ever got this question answered? I’m wondering the same thing! Thanks
Nice post, very informative and helpful. thanks for sharing, keep posting.
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