How to Share Tableau Dashboard

Creating an insightful Tableau dashboard is only half the battle, its true value is unlocked when you share it with your team, stakeholders, or clients. Getting relevant data into the hands of decision-makers is how you drive action and build a data-driven culture. This guide will walk you through the various ways to share your Tableau dashboards, from live, interactive publishing to creating static, shareable files.

Understanding Your Sharing Options

Before you hit a "share" button, it's worth asking two quick questions:

• Who is my audience? Are you sharing with fellow Tableau users who need to interact with the data, or is it for executives who prefer a simple PDF summary in their inbox?
• What level of access do they need? Should they be able to filter, drill down, and explore the data live, or is a static snapshot of the current view enough?

Your answers will determine the best sharing method. Generally, your options fall into two camps: live/interactive sharing via Tableau's platforms and exporting static files for offline viewing.

Method 1: Interactive Sharing with Tableau Server, Cloud, or Public

Publishing your dashboard to a Tableau platform is the best way to share interactive, up-to-date visualizations. This approach allows users to access the dashboard through their web browser, filter data, and see the latest information without needing Tableau Desktop installed on their machines.

Publishing to Tableau Server or Tableau Cloud

Tableau Server (self-hosted) and Tableau Cloud (SaaS offering) are secure, centralized hubs for your organization's dashboards and data sources. This is the standard method for sharing dashboards within a company.

Step-by-Step Publishing Guide:

1. Sign In: In Tableau Desktop, navigate to the Server menu and click “Sign In.” Enter your Tableau Server or Cloud URL and your credentials.
2. Publish the Workbook: Once signed in, go to Server > Publish Workbook. If you haven't saved your workbook recently, you'll be prompted to do so first.
3. Configure Publishing Options: A dialog box will appear with several important settings:
4. Click Publish: Once you've configured everything, click the “Publish” button. Your dashboard is now live on the server!

Managing Permissions and Access for Secure Sharing

Security is paramount. You don't want your sales team seeing finance data or vice versa. Tableau's permissions model gives you fine-grained control.

• Users and Groups: The best practice is to assign permissions to groups rather than individual users. For example, you can create a "Sales Team" group and give them all view-access to the quarterly sales dashboard at once, which is much more manageable than setting permissions for each person individually.
• Permission Levels: You can define what groups or users can do. Capabilities include View (look but can't touch), Filter (can interact with filters), Save (can create a custom view for themselves), and Edit (can edit the dashboard on the web).
• How to Share the Link: Once your dashboard is published, navigate to it on Tableau Server or Cloud. At the top of the screen, you’ll find a “Share” button. This gives you a direct link that you can send to colleagues via email or Slack. You can also get an embed code to place your live dashboard inside another web page, like a company intranet or Confluence page.

Sharing with Tableau Public

Tableau Public is a completely free platform for sharing data visualizations. It’s an incredible resource for building a portfolio, sharing insights with the world, or embedding vizzes in a blog post (just don't use it for confidential business data).

Warning: As the name implies, anything you publish to Tableau Public is visible to everyone. Never upload sensitive or proprietary company information here. Its purpose is for sharing public data sets and personal projects.

Sharing is simple. Just go to File > Save to Tableau Public As... from Tableau Desktop. After it's saved, you'll have a public link you can share with anyone.

Method 2: Sharing Static Files (Images, PDFs, and Workbooks)

Sometimes your audience doesn't need interactive access. Perhaps they need a snapshot for a presentation, a formal report for a leadership meeting, or the raw data for their own analysis. In these cases, exporting is the way to go.

Export as an Image

An image snapshot is perfect for embedding a chart in a PowerPoint slide, a Google Doc, or an email. It provides a crisp, static picture of your dashboard.

• How to do it: From Tableau Desktop, go to Dashboard > Export Image...
• Options: You can choose the file format (PNG, JPEG, or BMP). PNG is generally the best choice for sharp charts with text.
• Best Use Case: When you need to quickly show a specific chart or view in another document where interactivity isn't needed.

Export as a PDF

Creating a PDF is great for sharing professional, multi-page reports. You can package several dashboards and worksheets into a single, easily shareable file.

• How to do it: From Tableau Desktop, navigate to File > Print to PDF...
• Options: The PDF dialog box offers several options:

This is extremely useful for generating monthly or weekly reports that need to be archived or emailed to stakeholders.

Package Workbook (.twbx) for Other Tableau Users

What if you want to share an interactive dashboard with a colleague who also uses Tableau Desktop, but they don't have access to your database?

This is where Tableau Packaged Workbooks (.twbx files) come in. A normal Tableau Workbook (.twb*) file contains only the instructions and layout for your dashboard, it doesn't include the data itself. A .twbx file, on the other hand, is a self-contained package that bundles the workbook layout along with a copy of the data (like a data extract or a text file).

• How to create a .twbx: Simply go to File > Export Packaged Workbook...
• Best Use Case: Send everything – the dashboard structure, formatting, and data – in a single file to another Tableau Desktop user. They can open it up and immediately interact with the data you've included without needing a connection to the original source.

Exporting the Underlying Data

Occasionally, consumers of your dashboard aren't interested in the visualization — they just want the numbers behind it. Tableau makes this easy.

• How to do it: You can select a chart or table in your dashboard and go to Worksheet > Export > Crosstab to Excel. This will generate an Excel file that mirrors the structure of your visualization.
• View Data Option: For even more detail, you can right-click a chart, choose "View Data," and see the full underlying source rows that make up that mark. From that window, you can export all the data as a CSV.

Final Thoughts

Choosing how to share your Tableau dashboard is all about matching the format to your audience's needs. Live publishing on Tableau Server or Cloud is perfect for internal teams that need ongoing, interactive access to the latest data. For sharing snapshots, creating formal reports, or sending dashboards to fellow Tableau developers, static exports like images, PDFs, and packaged workbooks are excellent and reliable choices.

While powerful tools like Tableau offer deep functionality, we've found that sometimes the greatest friction isn't building the dashboard, but the process of getting answers and reports into the hands of an entire team. At Graphed, we've focused on eliminating that friction by connecting all your platforms in one place and allowing anyone to instantly build dashboards and ask questions using simple, natural language. It empowers your team to get live, data-driven answers without ever needing to become dashboard experts themselves.