Can Tableau Send Email Reports?

The short answer is yes, you can absolutely have Tableau send automated email reports. This feature, called "Subscriptions," is built directly into Tableau to help you deliver key insights to your team’s inboxes on a regular schedule. This article will walk you through exactly how to set up, customize, and manage these automated email reports in Tableau.

What Are Tableau Subscriptions?

Tableau Subscriptions aren't about paying a monthly fee, they're a feature for distributing reports. Think of them as a scheduled delivery service for your dashboards and visualizations. Once you subscribe to a view or workbook, Tableau will automatically email a snapshot of it to you and any other subscribers on a set schedule - be it daily, weekly, or monthly.

This is incredibly useful for keeping stakeholders informed without requiring them to log into Tableau. For example, you could schedule a daily sales dashboard to be sent to the leadership team every morning at 8 AM, or a weekly marketing performance report to be sent to the marketing department every Monday.

It’s important to know that subscriptions are a feature of Tableau Cloud (formerly Tableau Online) and Tableau Server. You cannot create subscriptions directly from Tableau Desktop, because the desktop application is for building reports, not for hosting and distributing them online.

Permissions and Prerequisites

Before you get started, there are a few things that need to be in place. Don’t worry if you don’t have these, this will help you know what to ask your Tableau administrator for.

Access to Tableau Server or Tableau Cloud: You must be a user on your organization's Tableau platform.
Sufficient Permissions: To subscribe yourself to a view, you typically need "Viewer" access. To subscribe other people, you'll need higher-level permissions, like "Publisher" or "Project Leader." Your role will determine what you can and can't do.
Email Configured on the Server: Your Tableau administrator must have the "Subscriptions" feature enabled and configured the SMTP server settings. This is the background magic that allows Tableau to send emails. If the option to subscribe is missing entirely, this is likely the reason.

Assuming these are all set, you're ready to create your first subscription.

How to Set Up an Email Subscription in Tableau: A Step-by-Step Guide

Setting up a subscription is straightforward. Once you find a dashboard or view you want to share regularly, you just need to configure a few options.

Step 1: Navigate to the View or Workbook

Log in to your Tableau Cloud or Tableau Server account. Browse to the specific workbook or individual view (a single chart or dashboard) that you want to have emailed automatically.

Step 2: Click the Subscribe Icon

Once you’re looking at the view, find the Subscribe icon in the toolbar. It looks like an envelope. When you click it, a configuration dialog box will appear. Here, you'll customize how your email report will work.

Step 3: Configure the Subscription Options

This is where you define who gets the report, what it looks like, and when it sends. Here's a breakdown of each option:

Who is this for?

By default, you are subscribed. If you have the correct permissions, you can add other registered Tableau users from your organization to the subscription list. Just start typing their name, and Tableau will search for them. This is perfect for setting up a report delivery for your entire team.

Include:

This View: Sends a snapshot of only the specific dashboard or worksheet you are currently viewing. This is the most common choice, as it's great for focused, specific reports. For example, just the "Sales by Region" dashboard.
Entire Workbook: Sends snapshots of every view in the entire workbook. Each view will be delivered as a separate image or page in a PDF. This is useful for distributing comprehensive, multi-part reports.

Format:

Image: The visualization is embedded directly into the body of the email. It's a PNG image. This is excellent for a quick glance, and it works very well on mobile devices.
PDF: The visualization is attached to the email as a PDF file. This is better for formal reports, printing, or when you need a high-quality static document. You can also configure the paper size and orientation.
Image and PDF: Gives you the best of both worlds - an image in the email for a quick look and a PDF attached for saving or sharing.

Subject line:

The default subject line includes the name of the view and the workbook. It's highly recommended to customize this to be more descriptive. A good subject line makes the email easier to find and provides immediate context. For example, "Weekly Marketing KPI Performance Report - March 24, 2024."

Message:

You can add a custom message that will appear in the body of the email. This is your chance to add context, explain what the data shows, or point out anything specific recipients should pay attention to. If you’re sending an image, the image will appear below this message.

Schedule:

This is the "automated" part of the email report. Your Tableau administrator sets up a list of available schedules (e.g., "Daily - Morning," "Weekly - Monday Mornings"). You can choose one of these server-defined schedules from the dropdown.

If you have the right permissions, you may also be able to set a completely custom schedule (for example, "The first day of every month at 9:05 AM").

Step 4: Click the 'Subscribe' Button

Once you've configured everything to your liking, click the big blue Subscribe button at the bottom. That’s it! Your automated email report is now active. Everyone on the list will receive the next report according to the schedule you selected.

Managing Your Existing Subscriptions

Once you’ve set up a few subscriptions, you may need to go back and change, pause, or delete them.

To manage your subscriptions:

Click your profile icon in the top right corner of the Tableau screen.
Select My Content.
Go to the Subscriptions tab.

Here you'll see a complete list of all the subscriptions you own or are a recipient of. You can select any subscription and from there, you can:

Change the schedule, format, or subject.
Add or remove recipients.
Run the subscription immediately using the "Run Now" option to send a test or an ad-hoc report.
Delete the subscription entirely with the "Unsubscribe" action.

Tips and Best Practices for Better Email Reports

Subscribing is easy, but creating effective automated reports requires a little thought. Here are a few tips to make your Tableau emails more impactful.

1. Subscribe to Custom Views

Let's say a national sales dashboard shows data for all regions, but you only care about the West Coast. You can apply a filter for "West Coast," and then click the "View" button in the toolbar to save it as a new "Custom View." Now, you can subscribe to that view. The emails you receive will always be pre-filtered for your region, making them far more relevant.

2. Explore Data-Driven Alerts

A standard subscription sends on a schedule, no matter what the data says. A Data-Driven Alert is a more advanced option that only sends an email when your data crosses a certain threshold. For example, you can set an alert to notify you only if daily sales drop below $1,000. These are proactive and perfect for monitoring critical business metrics that need immediate attention.

3. Keep Performance in Mind

Very large dashboards that are slow to load in Tableau will also be slow to export for a subscription. If a subscription consistently fails, it might be because the dashboard query is timing out. When designing dashboards for subscriptions, aim for efficiency. Keep them focused on essential KPIs rather than trying to fit every possible metric into one view.

4. Don't Overwhelm Inboxes

Just because you can send a report every hour doesn't mean you should. A flood of automated emails will quickly be ignored. Match your schedule to the speed of your business. Daily reports are great for operational metrics, while weekly or monthly summaries are better for strategic overviews.

Final Thoughts

So, can Tableau send email reports? Yes, and its subscription features make it easy to automate the distribution of key business insights, ensuring everyone on your team stays informed and aligned. By carefully selecting your views, formats, and schedules, you can turn your dashboards into a powerful communication tool that lands right in your stakeholders' inboxes.

Learning how to build dashboards and manage a server can be a big investment for companies who need insights now. That’s why we created Graphed. We connect your marketing and sales data sources in seconds, and our AI lets you ask questions in plain English to instantly build interactive, real-time dashboards and reports. If you want to go from an unfiltered CSV to a live, automated report in minutes, not hours, we are built specifically for you.