Curator New Feature Spotlight: Multiple Tableau Server Connections

Matthew Orr
Curator Engineer
April 6, 2022


What’s up, everybody? Welcome back to my channel. Before we get started, please take a moment to visit the sponsor for today’s video: Sketchy VPN. I use Sketchy VPN to make sure all of my internet traffic is routed to exotic locales that will actively log my data and use it to steal my identity. The first 1000 people to use the special link in the description below will receive four months free and bonus ransomware for the life of your account!

All right, let’s jump right in!

One-to-One Relationship

Curator has always had strong ties with Tableau. However, this relationship has always been limited to one Curator instance per Tableau connection. While you could always publish dashboards from more than one Tableau Server, Tableau Online and Tableau Public by hand-entering the dashboard links, Curator would only be able to authenticate and check permissions for one of them. The dashboards from the secondary Tableau connections would either need to rely on guest access or show an additional login before the dashboard would load. Then you would need to control access to them within Curator using group membership from your primary Tableau connection instead of automatically inheriting access from Tableau.

For Enterprise Curator clients who had multiple Tableau Servers, Central Dispatch provided an easy way to spin up Curator portals as needed to connect each to a different Tableau Server. This works well for most Enterprise clients, but for others, this added too much complexity based on their use case. What they really need is the ability to connect a single Curator instance to multiple Tableau Servers. If this sounds like you, too, Curator’s newest feature has what you’ve been craving.

Multiple Tableau Server Connections

If you haven’t already, take a second to smash those Like and Subscribe buttons, and don’t forget to ring that bell if you’d like to be alerted to all of my other videos!

Okay, now getting back to it.

You’ll notice that the Tableau Server connection details no longer live under Tableau Server Settings > Connectivity tab. Instead, these details have been relocated in the left navigation to Integrations > Connections. Furthermore, if you were already using Curator’s Power BI integration, you’ll notice that those settings have also been relocated to Integrations > Connections. This is the first step on our roadmap to make Curator a single hub for all of your analytics and data platforms. In the near future, you’ll see new platforms and many other improvements to the rest of the settings appearing under Tableau Server Settings.

If you have an Enterprise Curator license, you’ll notice you now have the ability to connect to multiple Tableau Servers. One of them will be designated as your primary Tableau connection, which will still handle authentication and group membership for your portal. However, you will be able to effortlessly publish dashboards and inherit access from other Tableau Servers:

If you’ve enjoyed this video or have suggestions for how you might use this new feature, please leave your ideas down below in the comments.

… What’s that you say? This is a blog post and not a YouTube channel!? That can’t be true. Well, anyway, don’t forget to like and subscribe, and we’ll see you again next week for another exciting video on making organic homemade fidget poppers. Enjoy those multiple Tableau Server connections in the meantime.