Tableau Source Feature Flags

Legacy Framework

Applies to releases before 2020.3

Legacy Tableau integration framework is available in Alation by default. There are no pre-configuration steps involved: when you add a Tableau server as a BI Server source, Alation adds it using the Legacy framework.

If you want to use Tableau certification on the Legacy framework, you will need to enable this feature in Labs.

Enabling Tableau Certification for the Legacy Framework

This requires the role of the Server Admin.

To enable Tableau certification on the Legacy framework,

  1. Sign in to Alation as a Server Admin, and on the main toolbar, click the Settings icon to open the Admin Settings page.

  2. In the Server Admin section, locate and click Labs/Feature Configuration to open the Labs/Feature Configuration tab.

  3. To enable the certification features for Tableau, find and toggle ON the switches:

    • Enable Tableau Data Source Certification

    • Enable Tableau Workbook Certification

    You can enable either or both these features depending on what functionality you want to use.

    This action is reversible: you can turn these features off.

  4. On the upper right of the Labs/Feature Configuration tab, click Save changes and then confirm the change in the confirmation pop-up dialog. The changes will be applied to Alation: you have now enabled Tableau certification in your Alation instance.

Generic BI Model V2 (GBM V2)

Applies from version V R5 (5.9.x)

In releases V R5 (5.9.x) - V R7 (5.12.x), the Generic BI Model V2 (GBM V2) framework can be enabled using the dedicated feature flags. See Enable GBM V2 for instructions. Note that even if you enable this functionality, it only affects the new Tableau sources you will add to the Catalog, but the existing Tableau sources that were previously added on the Legacy framework will remain as is.

Important

In release 2020.3 and above, the Generic Business Model is turned ON by default and does not need to be manually enabled.

If you wish to use Tableau Certification on the GBM V2 framework, configure this option on your Tableau source Settings page: see Add Tableau Sources on Generic BI Framework. The Tableau certification flags you find on the Labs page only work for the Legacy Tableau sources.

Enable GBM V2

Applies to releases V R5 (5.9.x) - V R7 (5.12.x)

To enable the GBM V2, set the following feature flags to True:

Feature Flag

Should be

alation.feature_flags.enable_generic_bi

True (default)

alation.feature_flags.enable_gbm_v2

True

alation.feature_flags.enable_bi_catalog_browser_redesign

True

Restart Alation after setting the flags. For details on how to set feature flags, see How To Set BI Tool Feature Flags.

After you have enabled GBM V2 with the feature flags, all new Tableau sources you add to Alation will be use it.

There is a capability to migrate the existing Legacy Tableau sources to this generic model:

Migrate Catalog Data to a New Tableau Source on Generic Model.