Archiving Tableau

Overview

Tableau is a data visualization software company that queries spreadsheets and databases to generate graph-type visualizations and dashboards. This guide provides an overview of how to properly format, scope, and crawl Tableau seeds.

Known issues

Because Tableaus are highly dependent upon human interaction, it can be challenging to collect all necessary pieces required to replay in Wayback. Unfortunately we are not able to devote engineering resources to individual issues with Tableau at this time.

For a full list of known issues for archiving various platforms please visit our Status of monitored platforms page.

On this page:

• How to select and format your Tableau seeds
• Scoping Tableau seeds
• Running your crawl
• What to expect from archived Tableau dashboards

How to select and format your Tableau seeds

For pages that contain Tableau dashboards, we recommend adding the direct URL for the embedded dashboard as a seed to your collection and crawling it directly where possible.

Sometimes you can find the direct URL for the embedded Tableau by looking for the iFrame source under your browser’s hood. The quickest way to do this is by using the “Inspect Element” feature in your browser's Developer Tools. You can read more about how to look under your browser’s hood and why in our blog. 

If you can find this direct URL, we recommend adding it as a private, One Page “helper” seed and crawling it together with your main seed URL in order to make the most direct and complete capture that we can. For example:

• https://leg.colorado.gov/agencies/legislative-council-staff/severance-tax/  
• https://public.tableau.com/views/SeveranceTaxRevenue/SeveranceD?:showVizHome=no:embed=y&:display_count=no

Scoping Tableau seeds

We recommend adding the following expand scope rule for crawling Tableau seeds using Archive-It:

• Expand the scope of your seed to include public.tableau.com

Running your crawl

• Crawl using Brozzler crawling technology.
• Because expanding the scope can increase the amount of data captured, we also recommend running a test crawl before committing data directly to your account.
• After the crawl data is saved, use Wayback QA on the archived pages if you notice any missing functionality. 

What to expect from archived Tableau dashboards

Tableau dashboards contain known collection and replay constraints. Because elements that require a user’s input, like a form or database, will generally not work in Wayback, most Tableaus will appear as a static image often overlaid with a loading wheel or error message.

You may be able to get a more complete capture of content using manual web crawling software where you can directly activate all of the dynamic functionalities at the time of capture. If you choose to use third-party capture software, we cannot guarantee Wayback replay of uploaded WARCs that include Tableaus.