auto refresh ?

[chqzeng]

great work to setup this WDC for csv, thx! I am wondering if the csv file will be auto refreshed into Tableau, and if yes, at what frequency? could we somewhere to set this frequency in Tableau or your script? I am very new to Tableau, and currently use the Tableau Desktop and connect to a url of csv file in our shared FTP. and this csv file will updated every few hours, and I will need these changes be updated pretty frequently to Tableau. Chui

[KeshiaRose]

Hi @chqzeng, thanks for the feedback! 🙂 The WDC data will not be refreshed automatically but you have a couple of options for refreshes:

Manual Refresh in Tableau Desktop

You can always select the data source > Extract > Refresh Extract to refresh the data at any time from within Tableau Desktop.

Automate Refresh in Tableau Server

If you want to use this WDC on your Tableau Server you will first need to add it to your safelist with the following commands:

tsm data-access web-data-connectors add --name "CSV WDC" --url https://basic-csv-wdc.herokuapp.com:443
tsm pending-changes apply

Applying this change will cause your server to restart. Once completed you can simply publish the data source to Tableau Server and set it up to refresh on a schedule there.

Automate Refresh in Tableau Cloud/Online with Bridge

If you want to use this WDC on Tableau Online you will need to set it up using Tableau Bridge

Hope this helps!

[chqzeng]

thank you for the quick reply! with Tableau Bridge, do I need a local machine always running to keep refreshing the data from WDC? We have a Tableau Creator subscription that I assume have Tableau Cloud, and currently we use Tableau Desktop to push the data to Tableau Public Vizzes. It updates daily, without local machine, using Google Drive datasource. I want to replace this google drive datasource with your WDC approach, while still able to auto refreshing without requiring a local machine running dedicated for that purpose. I am very new to Tableau, so some comment would be very appreciated. Chui

[KeshiaRose]

@chqzeng Yes, unfortunately for Tableau Bridge you need to have a machine (local or not) always running to refresh a WDC automatically. Honestly, I think using Google Sheets as the data source with an app script that automatically fetches data and populates the sheet is a good idea. I've done this for a couple of people through Fiverr and this always ends up being the preferred method because of how easy it is to keep fresh. I have an old blog post that shows one way you can do this if you're interested in trying it out with your CSV. Other than that, I haven't tried out the new WDC 3.0 so perhaps there are some new benefits there?