getting started
Tableau AI Assistant
Set up and run your first query in under 5 minutes
Before you start
Make sure you have the following ready:
- Tableau Server 2025.1+ or Tableau Cloud – with edit permissions on at least one dashboard.
- Tableau Personal Access Token (PAT) – see instructions below for your environment.
- API key from Anthropic Claude or Deepseek – Get Claude API key | Get Deepseek API key
How to generate a Tableau PAT
- Sign in to Tableau Cloud.
- Click your profile icon (top right) → My Account Settings.
- Go to the Settings tab.
- Find the Personal Access Tokens section.
- Click Create Token.
- Enter a token name (e.g., "X-Tableau-Auth").
- Choose an expiration date (tokens are valid for up to 12 months, or 15 days of inactivity).
- Click Create Token.
- Copy the Token Secret — it will be shown only once!
- Sign in to your Tableau Server environment.
- Click your profile icon (top right) → My Account Settings.
- Go to the Settings tab.
- Find the Personal Access Tokens section.
- Click Create Token.
- Enter a token name (e.g., "X-Tableau-Auth").
- Expiration is automatic: tokens expire after 15 consecutive days of inactivity, or after 1 year maximum.
- Click Create Token.
- Copy the Token Secret — it will be shown only once!
- A user can have up to 10 active PATs (vs. 104 for Tableau Cloud).
- PATs cannot be used to sign in to the web interface.
- If you change your password or authentication method, your PATs are automatically revoked.
- The same PAT cannot be used for multiple concurrent sessions.
Step 1: Download the extension
Click the button below to download the .trex file.
The file is small (≈ 5 KB). Save it somewhere you can easily find (Desktop or Downloads folder).
- Sign in to Tableau Server as a Server Administrator.
- Navigate to the site settings:
Single-site server: Go directly to Settings -> Extensions from the sidebar.
- Check the box for Allow extensions to run on this site.
- Scroll down to the Enable Specific Extensions (or Safe List) section.
- Enter the URL of the extension.
- Copy https://aiextension.vizuators.com/
- Configure the permissions for the URL:
- Full Data Access: Select Allow or Deny based on whether the extension needs access to underlying data.
- User Prompts: Select Show or Hide to determine if users see a data access prompt.
- Click Save.
Step 2: Add to dashboard
Open any dashboard in Tableau Desktop or Tableau Cloud (edit mode). Drag the downloaded .trex file directly onto the dashboard.
The extension panel will appear. It may be empty until configured.
Step 3: Connect to Tableau
Open the extension settings (gear icon in the top‑right corner). Fill in your Tableau credentials:
Field | What to enter |
Server URL | https://your-tableau-server.com (or your Tableau Cloud URL) |
Site Name | Your site name – use Default if you have a single site |
PAT Name | The name you gave your Personal Access Token |
PAT Value | The token value (paste carefully, no extra spaces) |
Your PAT is stored only in your browser‘s local storage. We never see or store it on our servers.
No manual setup — the extension identifies your dashboard‘s data source automatically.
Step 4: Connect your LLM
In the same settings panel, select your preferred LLM provider and paste your API key:
- Choose provider: Anthropic Claude or Deepseek.
- Paste your API key (it will be masked – e.g., sk-ant-... or ds-...).
- Click Save.
Your API key is sent directly to the LLM provider. We don‘t store it or mark up usage.
Step 5: Ask your first question
You‘re all set! Type a question in the chat input and press Enter.
Try this example:
“Show me sales by region for the last quarter.”
The extension will:
Try this example:
“Show me sales by region for the last quarter.”
The extension will:
- Build a VizQL query (respecting your dashboard filters and RLS).
- Execute it through Tableau.
- Send the aggregated results to your chosen LLM.
- Display a human‑readable answer.
EVENTS
Inspect every answer
Toggle Events mode to see the exact query, returned data, LLM prompt, and raw response
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Full audit transparency
Toggle Events mode to see the query, data, prompt, and response — every step of every request. -
Instant debugging
When an answer looks wrong, Events mode shows you why. Fix it in seconds, not hours.
