Tableau Server
Requirements
REST API and Metadata API enabled
A valid Personal Access Token
Tableau Server version 2020.4.6 (build number 20204.21.0618.0842) or later. If you need to upgrade your Tableau Server, here are a few helpful links:
1. Enable REST API and Metadata API
Tableau's REST API and Metadata API must be enabled in order to see Tableau metadata in Select Star.
The REST API is permanently enabled for Tableau Cloud, and is enabled by default on all supported versions of Tableau Server.
To enable the Metadata API, a server admin must enable the Metadata API on Tableau Server using the tsm maintenance metadata-services enable command through the Tableau Services Manager (TSM) command line interface (CLI). For more information, see Tableau Documentation.
For both Tableau Cloud and Tableau Server, go to Settings > Automatic Access to Metadata about Databases and Tables, and make sure the checkbox is checked.
2. Create a Personal Access Token
Navigate to My Account Settings on the top right of the screen.
Scroll down to Personal Access Tokens.
Enter a name for your token and click Create new token.
Copy the Token Secret from the popup and store it somewhere safe. You will need it later on during this setup.
3. Grant access to Tableau Server database (Tableau Server)
Tableau Server uses an External Repository to store data about all user interactions, extract refreshes, and more. Select Star needs access to this External Repository in Postgres to properly generate lineage and popularity for Tableau and its data sources.
To provide access, create a new database user with access to all of the following tables in the public schema (table and row level):
public.hist_users
public.hist_views
public.historical_events
public.system_users
public.users
public.views
Note for advanced Postgres setups with Row-Level Security (RLS)
If your PostgreSQL instance has Row-Level Security (RLS) enabled on any of the above tables (e.g. users, views), the new user may not see any data — even with SELECT permissions.
-- Check if RLS is enabled
SELECT relname, relrowsecurity FROM pg_class WHERE relname IN ('users', 'views');In that case, you’ll need to grant access at the row level by adding a policy like:
-- For the users table
CREATE POLICY selectstar_users_access
ON public.users
FOR SELECT
TO selectstar_user
USING (true);
-- For the views table
CREATE POLICY selectstar_views_access
ON public.views
FOR SELECT
TO selectstar_user
USING (true);4. Create a Tableau Data Source
Go to the Select Star Settings > Data
Click + Add to create a new Data Source.
Fill out the set up form with the information as outlined below.
Display Name: Give your data source a meaningful name, the default is Tableau.
Access Token Name: The Personal Access Token Name.
Access Token Secret: The Personal Access Token Secret.
Base Url: The main URL for your site, such as
https://10ax.online.tableau.comSite Id: The name of your site in tableau. You can extract this from the URL you access in Tableau. Example, analytics is the name of the site for the URL
https://10ax.online.tableau.com/#/site/analytics/home.
Click the Connect button at the bottom of the modal.
5. Connect Tableau External Repository (Tableau Server)
To connect Tableau External Repository, use the details of the user, database, and schema that you granted access to in Step 3 for Tableau Server. Select Star will connect to
Introduce the details in the setup form as shown in the example below.
Your metadata should start loading automatically. Please allow 24-48 hours to completely generate popularity and lineage.
When the sync is complete, you'll be able to explore Tableau in Select Star. See the link below for more information on Tableau in Select Star.
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