'Export to Excel' plugin for Tableau Server

Use this plugin to export data from multiple views in a single dashboard. The plugin generates an Excel file with multiple tabs; each tab contains data from a different view.

How to install it

• Download xlsx_exporter.html
• Publish it as a web data connector to your Tableau Server:

  tabadmin import_webdataconnector xlsx_exporter.html
  

  Note down the URL which was returned from the command. The URL should look like this:

  http://<your Tableau Server address>/webdataconnectors/xlsx_exporter.html  
  

  Once you have the URL you can test it in a browser. You should see an empty page with an 'Export to Excel' button:

How to use it

• When creating a dashboard embed a web page object using the URL of the published connector.
• Publish the dashboard to Tableau Server.

How it works

The plugin uses JavaScript API to access data from the dashboard. In order to use JavaScript API without embedding, we publish the page with the JavaScript code as a web data connector to Tableau Server. See http://databoss.starschema.net/auto-refresh-tableau-dashboard-without-embedding/ for a detailed explaination of this method.

The script iterates over all views in the current dashboard and uses getSummaryDataAsync() function to load aggregated data into the browser memory. Once the data is loaded, the Excel file is constructed on the client side by the browser.

Known limitations

This method does not work with Tableau Online as Tableau Online does not permit publishing of customised web data connectors.