Tableau Desktop and Web Authoring Help

This article describes how to connect Tableau to Box data and set up the data source.

Before you begin

Before you begin, get the email address and password for your Box account.

Make the connection and set up the data source

1. On the start page, under Connect, click Box. For a complete list of connections, select More under To a Server. In the tab Tableau opens in your default browser, do the following:

   1. Enter your email and password and then click Authorize.

   2. Click Grant access to Box.

   3. Close the browser window when notified to do so.

   4. Search for or select the file to connect to, and then click Connect.

      Note: This connector might not support all file types. Unsupported file types are grayed out.

2. On the data source page, do the following:

   1. (Optional) Select the default data source name at the top of the page, and then enter a unique data source name for use in Tableau. For example, use a data source naming convention that helps other users of the data source figure out which data source to connect to.

   2. Click the sheet tab to start your analysis.

Use Data Interpreter to clean your data

If Tableau detects that it can help optimize your data source for analysis, it prompts you to use Data Interpreter. Data Interpreter can detect sub-tables that you can use and remove unique formatting that might cause problems later on in your analysis. For more information, see Clean Data from Excel, CSV, PDF, and Google Sheets with Data Interpreter.

Adding Tableau to your Box account

You can officially enable Tableau as an approved app for your Box account. For information on enabling this feature, please see Adding Apps to Your Box Account(Link opens in a new window) on the Box website.

Limitations and known issues

The Box connector limits connecting to a single Excel, JSON, or text-based file.

Known issues

• If you click Grant Access to Box repeatedly during the authentication phase an error results.

• Long file names cause the column to be pushed out of alignment.

• The file window does not resize.

• When using web authoring or publishing to the web, you cannot use multiple Box accounts in the same workbook. You can have multiple Box account connections in Desktop.

• In Internet Explorer 11 and Edge, you cannot access a server using an unsecured connection (http). Use a secure connection (https) or switch to another browser.

See also

• Set Up Data Sources – Add more data to this data source or prepare your data before you analyze it.
• Build Charts and Analyze Data – Begin your data analysis.