Tableau Desktop and Web Authoring Help

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

Note: "Team" folders are currently unavailable through the Dropbox connector.

Before you begin

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

Make the connection and set up the data source

1. Start Tableau and under Connect, select Dropbox. For a complete list of data 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 select Sign in.

   2. Select Allow to let Tableau Desktop access your Dropbox files and folders.

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

   4. Search for or select the file to connect to, and then select 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. Select the sheet tab to start your analysis.

Note: Tableau doesn't support pivot tables in Dropbox.

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.

Troubleshoot Dropbox issues

Connections to multiple accounts

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

Web authoring with Internet Explorer 11 and Edge

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.