How to Use the Tableau App

In this article, we’ll show you how to set up and use the Tableau app to display Dashboards on digital signs.

• What You’ll Need
• Step 1: Set Up OptiSigns as a Connected App in Tableau
• Step 2: Set Up Tableau Integration in OptiSigns
• Step 3: Creating a Tableau Asset
• Additional Notes

With the Tableau app, it’s possible to securely display Tableau dashboards on your large TVs and screens. This can dramatically increase communication and information across office spaces.

To do this, you’ll need to follow three steps:

1. Set up OptiSigns as a Connected App within Tableau
2. Set up the Tableau Integration in OptiSigns
3. Create a Tableau Asset and Assign it to a Screen

Let’s get started.

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What You’ll Need

• OptiSigns Pro Plus subscription or greater
• A screen, set up and paired with OptiSigns
• Tableau Cloud account
• A fully created Tableau Report

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Step 1: Set Up OptiSigns as a Connected App in Tableau Cloud

To view Private reports in OptiSigns, it needs to be set up as a Connected App in Tableau Cloud. If you’re only interested in displaying Public reports, this step can be skipped - however, we highly recommend it, as setting up this integration will allow you to use it for any future reports you want to display from this account. If you are only interested in displaying Public reports, though, feel free to skip to step 3.

To begin, find your Settings tab within Tableau. Once there, click Connected Apps → New Connected App.

Select Direct Trust.

You’ll open the Create Connected App window. Here, you can give your connected app a name (we recommend “OptiSigns” so you know it’s for us), restrict its access, and provide allowed domains. For the purposes of this example, we’ll apply it to “All projects” and “All domains.”

Once created, it will appear in a list of Connected Apps. Select the app.

On this screen, you'll want to Enable the OptiSigns app by hitting the Three Dots. Then, you'll want to hit Generate New Secret:

The blurred out values are your Secret ID, Secret Value, and Client ID. These values will be critical to setting up your integration with OptiSigns, so keep this tab open.

With this information and the app Enabled in Tableau, we can configure the integration in OptiSigns.

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Step 2: Set Up Tableau Integration in OptiSigns

Before starting this step, you should have:

1. Your Secret ID, Secret Value, and Client ID from your Connected App in Tableau on hand
2. Your Connected App set to Enable

When you’re ready to go, navigate to the Integrations tab within OptiSigns:

Under the Tableau section of the Integrations page, select Add Connection.

The Add window will pop up:

You’ll need to fill in 5 values:

• Name - The name of the integration. Put whatever you want to help identify it.
• Email - The email associated with your Tableau account. This has to match.
• Client ID - The Client ID from the last step.
• Secret ID - The Secret ID from the last step.
• Secret Value - The Secret Value from the last step.

Last, make sure the Active box is checked. When unchecked, this saves the integration but does not activate it.

Once these values are filled in, hit Add. We are now ready to create a Tableau Asset.

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Step 3: Create a Tableau Asset and Assign it to a Screen

Now that we’ve got the Tableau integration set up, it’s time to create a Tableau asset. This asset determines how your report will show up on your screens.

NOTE

See Note 2 if your workbook contains Broad Views.

First, find the report you’d like to display. Hit Share:

On the Share View window, hit Copy Link:

Now go back to the OptiSigns portal and hit Files/Assets → Apps:

Now find the Tableau app.

Clicking the app will open this window:

• Name - The name of your Asset. This is used entirely in OptiSigns and can be anything you like.
• Tableau Shared Report URL - This is where you’ll input the Share URL you copied earlier.
• Update Interval - Denotes how often the app will sync, measured in seconds.
• Authenticate with Connected App Integration - Tick this box if you want to use Private reports. Since we set this up in Steps 1 and 2, we recommend ticking this box. If you skipped those steps and only want to use Public reports, no need to check the box.

NOTE

Tableau Cloud only allows 600 Update Interval requests per user/hour. See Note 3 for more information and solutions on how to handle this.

Now it's time to authenticate your Shared Report URL with an appropriate Connected App Integration you set up earlier:

• Connected App Integration - Select the integration you set up in Step 2 in this box.

Once you input the Tableau Shared Report URL and have selected your Integration, hit Save and your report should appear as a Preview:

Once you have tailored it to your liking, you can Close it. This will create a Tableau asset that can be added to a Playlist or directly assigned to a screen:

In order to display different tabs of a report, select the tab you'd like to view on Tableau site, then hit Share, same way as before:

You'll then create a new Asset with that Share link as the Site URL:

To display all the tabs in a report on a screen, these Assets can be placed in a Playlist to show the complete report.

Additional Notes

Note 1

Content display may vary based on device type and screen resolution.

Note 2

If your workbook contains broad views:

• • • Create Custom Views on the Tableau site and use the Custom View's URL as the Shared Report URL.
    • Set the View Size to either Fit Width, Fit Height, or Entire View:
      

Note 3:

Tableau currently limits its maximum number of refresh requests to 600 per hour/user. This means you'll want to be careful on how you set the "Update Interval," especially if you have numerous devices wanting to display Tableau reports.

We have several recommendations on how to handle this with multiple devices:

1. Set the Update Interval to match the number of devices. For example, if you have 50 devices, you can have a maximum Update Interval of 5 minutes (300 s) for a single report. With more devices this Update Interval will need to be longer, with less, it can be shorter.
2. For using Reports in a Playlist, the Report will update each time it is played. You'll need to set the proper duration, factoring in the number of reports and the number of devices. For example, if you have 10 reports on a single playlist across 5 devices, you can have a Playlist duration of 5 minutes (300 s).
3. To scale beyond these limitations, you'll need to create more connected apps under different Tableau Cloud users. Each Tableau Cloud user will have 600 requests an hour.

That’s all!

OptiSigns is the leader in digital signage software. If you have any additional questions, concerns or any feedback about OptiSigns, feel free to reach out to our support team at support@optisigns.com.