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Using the Tableau Table Writer

The Tableau Table Writer extension allows for exporting data as .tde or .hyper Tableau extract files directly from RapidMiner Studio. It also lets you upload your .tde or .hyper file to a Tableau Server. The document will walk you through the installation and usage of these functionalities.

The extension runs on Windows (64 bit), Mac OS X (64 bit) and Linux distributions (64 bit).

Install the Tableau Table Writer extension

To use the Tableau Table Writer extension you need to first install either:

Note that Tableau SDK creates .tde extract files, Tableau Data Extract writes into the new .hyper format. There is no way to change from one format to the other without changing the setup and restarting RapidMiner Studio or Server.

Download the appropriate API (C/C++/Java 64 bit version) from the official Tableau website (see links above) and follow the instructions below for Windows, Mac OS or Linux depending on the target platform. Note that the extension also supports the deprecated Tableau Extract API for backward compatibility, but it is no longer recommended.

  1. The SDK/API is provided as ZIP archive. Extract all contents of the archive to your hard drive, e.g., to a folder under your Program Files folder. We will use the folder name Tableau Data Extract API as an example.

  2. Open the Advanced system settings in Windows and click on Environment Variables.

  3. Add the location of the Data Extract API to your system Path variable in System variables, e.g., if you extracted the API to C:\Program Files\Tableau Data Extract API, add ;C:\Program Files\Tableau Data Extract API\bin to the end of the variable value (please note the semicolon at the beginning).

  4. Add a new entry to the User variables and System variables lists as well called TAB_SDK_TMPDIR. Specify a location where your user has write privileges, e.g., C:\Users\<yourusername>\Documents, where <yourusername> is your user name. If this folder is not specified and the default (e.g. RapidMiner Studio installation directory) cannot be written by your user, you may get an error saying Hyper Server did not start correctly.

  5. It is also recommended to add TAB_SDK_LOGDIR to the User variables and System variables lists and set it to the same directory as TAB_SDK_TMPDIR points to. Data extraction operations are logged into a log file in the specified directory.

  1. The SDK/API is provided as image (.dmg) file. Open the .dmg file you downloaded.

  2. Drag all files in the Frameworks directory to /Library/Frameworks. You may be asked for your password.

  3. Specify environment variable TAB_SDK_TMPDIR to point to a location where your user has write privileges, e.g. /tmp. The steps for doing this may depend on your OS X version, see an example below. If this folder is not specified and the default (e.g. RapidMiner Studio installation directory) cannot be written by your user, you may get an error saying Hyper Server did not call back on the callback port.

For OS X High Sierra, you can set an environment variable permanently by following these steps:

  1. Create a plist file, e.g., com.rapidminer.tableauTableWriter.plist under ~/Library/LaunchAgents/:

     <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

 <!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">

 <plist version="1.0">
 <dict>
  <key>Label</key>
  <string>com.rapidminer.tableauTableWriter</string>
  <key>ProgramArguments</key>
  <array>
  <string>sh</string>
  <string>-c</string>
  <string>launchctl setenv TAB_SDK_TMPDIR /tmp</string>

  </array>
  <key>RunAtLoad</key>
  <true/>
 </dict>
 </plist>

  2. Activate this plist file, so this changes are used immediately, not just after restart:

     launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.rapidminer.tableauTableWriter.plist
 launchctl start ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.rapidminer.tableauTableWriter.plist

For older OS X versions, see this article.

  1. The SDK/API is provided as an archive file (you may use .deb or .rpm versions as well). Download it to e.g., your $HOME/tableau folder.

  2. You can extract the files using the command line: tar xvf $HOME/tableau/*.tar.gz. This may extract a subdirectory with a name depending on the version, but we will ignore this subdirectoy for simplicity in the following steps when referring to a path. Make sure you check the path you are using.

  3. Add the location of the extracted bin directory to your PATH variable, e.g., if you extracted the API directly to $HOME/tableau, add $HOME/tableau/bin to the variable.

  4. You may need to specify environment variable TAB_SDK_TMPDIR to point to a location where your user has write privileges, e.g. /tmp. If this folder is not specified and the default (e.g. RapidMiner Studio installation directory) cannot be written by your user, you may get an error saying Hyper Server did not start correctly.

You need make sure that the Tableau libraries are loaded to the shared library cache when running the Tableau extension in RapidMiner Studio. Follow these steps to achieve that:

  1. Create an empty file in the etc/ld.so.conf.d directory by issuing $ sudo touch /etc/ld.so.conf.d/tableau_lib.conf

  2. Edit the file and paste the absolute path of the tableausdk libraries. For example, following the $HOME/tableau/ pattern above, paste $HOME/tableau/lib64/tableausdk into the file.

  3. Update the library cache with the new libraries by issuing a sudo ldconfig. To check if the libraries where indeed loaded, run sudo ldconfig -p | grep libTableauCommon.so

Alternatively, you may achieve the same with setting (temporarily or permanently) the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable instead:

  1. Set LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable to the absolute path of the tableausdk libraries. For example, following the $HOME/tableau/ pattern above, use $HOME/tableau/lib64/tableausdk.

Once the Tableau SDK / Data Extract API is properly installed you can proceed with the installation of the Tableau Table Write extension from the RapidMiner Marketplace:

Install Tableau Table Writer in Studio

View in the RapidMiner Marketplace

How to install extensions

Export data to Tableau's format

To export data as .tde or .hyper file from RapidMiner Studio, perform the following steps:

Select the Write Tableau Extract operator:

Import and select data file, e.g., from your Local Repository:

Connect the “out” port with the “inp” port:

Select a path for the output file (.tde or .hyper file extension depending on using SDK or Extract API 2.0, respectively):

Connect the “thr” port with the “res” port to see the result in the RapidMiner Studio:

Run your process to start the export!

Upload to Tableau Server

You can upload a .tde or .hyper data source to a Tableau Server using the Upload Tableau Data Source operator provided by the extension. You'll need a Tableau Server connection entry defined where you point to your target Tableau Server instance. Please follow the tooltips next to the fields on the connection editor dialog and test your connection.

Combine the two operators to directly upload a RapidMiner data source to a Tableau Server. First, convert the input data to the Tableau data format using a Write Tableau Extract operator, then, without specifying a local output path, simply connect the "fil" (file) output port directly to the "fil" input port of the Upload Tableau Data Source. This way, a local temporary file is used for the transformation and it is automatically deleted from your local disk once the process completes. In the example shown below, the upload operator receives the Tableau Server connection on its "con" input port, but you can also use the operator's connection entry parameter instead.

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