Dataskera

Auto Refresh (Beta)

A dashboard on a wall, or open on a desk all day, shows whatever it loaded this morning until somebody presses F5. This asks Tableau to refresh the data sources behind it on a timer, pauses while nobody is looking at it, and says when it last refreshed and when it will next. It is a dashboard extension, so it takes a zone rather than a worksheet, and it ships as a beta while the dashboard line is young.

What It Needs

Configure it with:

  • Interval, set in Configure. How often, in minutes. Thirty seconds is the floor, enforced whatever is typed.
  • Pause when hidden, on by default. A dashboard in a background tab does not need refreshing, and on a live connection that is a query nobody asked for.
  • What it shows, set in Configure. A label, the last refresh, a countdown to the next, and a Refresh now button for the reader.

Add Auto Refresh (Beta) to your dashboard

First, download the manifest file. It tells Tableau where to load the extension from.

Download autorefresh.trex

Direct link: https://dataskera.com/downloads/autorefresh.trex

Then, in Tableau:

  1. Open the dashboard, and from the Objects pane drag Extension onto it.
  2. In the Add an Extension dialog, choose Access Local Extensions, then open the autorefresh.trex file you just downloaded.
  3. When Tableau asks, allow the extension to access the data in the workbook. It reads the sheets to find the members it shows.
  4. The welcome screen appears. Sign in with your Dataskera account, or on Tableau Desktop choose Use on Desktop without an account. See Signing in & access below.
  5. Open Configure, set how often it should refresh, and choose what the line shows.
Tableau Server or Cloud:
A site admin must allow the extension by adding its URL to the site's safe list, and the view needs the Download Summary Data permission. Extension URL: https://vizextension.dataskera.com/autorefresh/autorefresh.html

Signing in & access

Auto Refresh (Beta) is free. Whether you need to sign in depends only on what you are doing. Viewing a dashboard never asks for an account, and authoring is free too.

Viewing a dashboard
No account

People who only view a dashboard are never asked to sign in and are never blocked.

Editing on Tableau Desktop
Optional

Sign in, or continue without an account in a single click.

Editing on Server or Cloud
Free account

Sign in with your Dataskera account to author on the web.

No account yet? Create one free in under a minute. No credit card required.

Format panel

Open the Format panel from the extension menu to customize the chart. It is for the dashboard author and is not shown to viewers. It has four tabs:

  • Refresh: how often, pausing while hidden, and refreshing once as the dashboard opens.
  • What It Shows: the label, the last refresh time, the countdown, and the reader's button.
  • Appearance: alignment, text size, font and background.
It makes no network call of its own:
It asks Tableau to refresh, through your own connection, and Tableau does the work. Nothing is sent anywhere else, which is the same rule every Dataskera extension follows.
On a live connection, every tick is a query:
That is why thirty seconds is a floor rather than a suggestion, why it pauses when the dashboard is not on screen, and why the extension prints what it is about to do before it has done anything. On an extract the cost is small; on a live connection to a production database it is worth choosing the interval deliberately.
One refresh per data source, not one per sheet:
Four sheets sitting on the same source produce one refresh, not four. A dashboard usually has one or two sources behind a dozen sheets.
A refusal is shown, not swallowed:
A published data source that needs credentials, or a connection Tableau cannot reach, is reported in Tableau's own words. The author cannot fix what they cannot see, and a dashboard that quietly stopped refreshing is worse than one that says so.
A refresh that did not happen is not a refresh:
The last refresh time and the count only move when nothing was refused. A failed attempt says so instead of claiming the dashboard is up to date.