How to Subscribe to Tableau Dashboard
Getting your key metrics automatically delivered to your inbox is a game-changer. Instead of manually logging in to check your dashboards, you can have Tableau send you a snapshot of your most important data on a schedule you control. We'll walk you through exactly how to set up subscriptions for any Tableau dashboard, cover some pro tips, and troubleshoot common issues you might run into.
Why Bother Subscribing? (Spoiler: It Saves You Time)
In a world of constant notifications, signing up for one more email might seem counterintuitive. But Tableau subscriptions are different. They aren't just another notification, they're your data, packaged and delivered for you. This simple feature helps you work smarter, not harder.
Here’s why it's worth taking a couple of minutes to set one up:
Stay Consistently Informed: Ever forget to check a key report for a few days, only to find a problem has been brewing? Subscriptions push key performance indicators (KPIs) to you, ensuring you're always up to date without having to rely on your own memory to pull the data.
Save Time and Mental Energy: Logging in, navigating to the right dashboard, and waiting for it to load takes time. Multiply that by several dashboards a day, and the minutes add up. Subscriptions eliminate this routine friction, freeing you up to focus on analyzing the insights, not just accessing them.
Create Team Alignment: You can subscribe other users to a dashboard (if you have the permissions). This is incredibly useful for ensuring your entire team is looking at the same numbers at the same time. Imagine your whole sales team receiving the weekly pipeline report every Monday at 8 AM. Everyone starts the week on the same page, armed with the same data.
Keep Data Top-of-Mind: Seeing a visual snapshot of your business performance in your inbox every morning serves as a powerful, regular reminder of your goals. It keeps the data at the forefront of your decision-making, rather than being an afterthought.
Getting Started: What You'll Need
Before you can start receiving automated reports, there are a few prerequisites. If you hit a roadblock, don't worry - it's usually a simple permission issue that just requires a quick chat with your Tableau administrator.
1. Access to Tableau Server or Tableau Cloud
This is the most important piece. The subscription feature is only available on Tableau's server-based products: Tableau Server (the version your company hosts on its own servers) or Tableau Cloud (formerly known as Tableau Online, which is hosted by Tableau). You cannot set up subscriptions from a workbook saved locally on your computer with Tableau Desktop.
2. The Right Permissions
Just because you can see a dashboard doesn't automatically mean you can subscribe to it. To set up a subscription, your Tableau account needs two specific permissions for that particular dashboard or view:
View: This is the basic permission that lets you see the dashboard in the first place.
Subscribe: This permission explicitly grants you the ability to create, edit, and receive subscriptions.
If you click on a dashboard and don't see the "Subscribe" icon, it’s almost certainly because you're missing the subscribe permission. Reach out to the dashboard owner or your IT/data team and ask them to grant you this access.
3. An Email Address in Your Tableau Profile
Tableau needs to know where to send the report. Make sure your Tableau Server or Cloud account has your correct email address listed in your profile settings. You can usually find this by clicking your user icon in the top right corner and going to "My Account Settings."
4. A Properly Configured Server (For Admins)
This is a behind-the-scenes requirement. For subscriptions to work at all, the Tableau Server administrator must have configured the email settings (specifically, the SMTP server). If no one in your organization can seem to get subscriptions working, this is likely the reason. Give your admin a heads-up so they can configure it on the back end.
How to Subscribe to a Tableau Dashboard: A Step-by-Step Guide
Once you’ve got the prerequisites squared away, the process of setting up a subscription is incredibly straightforward. It generally takes less than a minute.
Step 1: Navigate to the Dashboard or View
Log in to your Tableau Server or Tableau Cloud environment. Open the workbook and navigate to the specific dashboard or individual view (worksheet) you want to subscribe to.
Step 2: Find and Click the 'Subscribe' Icon
In the toolbar at the top of the dashboard, look for an icon that looks like an envelope. This is the Subscribe button. When you click it, a dialog box will pop up with all the configuration options.
Step 3: Configure Your Subscription Options
This is where you tell Tableau exactly what you want, how you want it, and when. Let's break down the options in the pop-up window:
Add Yourself (and Others)
By default, your name will already be in the "Deliver to" field. If your permissions allow, you can click into this field and start typing to add other registered Tableau users from your organization. This is perfect for sending a report to your direct reports or a project team.
Choose the Content Format
You can choose what Tableau sends you. Your options are:
This View: Delivers just the specific tab or sheet you are currently looking at.
Entire Workbook: Delivers all the tabs in the workbook as separate images or a consolidated PDF.
Select The Format: PNG Image, PDF, or Both
You can choose the file type for your subscription email. Each has its uses:
PNG Image: This embeds a high-quality image of your dashboard directly into the body of the email. It's great for a quick, at-a-glance view without needing to open any attachments. The email also includes a link to click back to the live dashboard.
PDF: This attaches the dashboard as a PDF file. It's ideal for archiving, printing, or sharing with people who may not have Tableau access. You can also customize the paper size and orientation, which is helpful for very wide or tall dashboards. A great and popular option is the 'Entire Workbook' in PDF format so you get all your sheets at once for offline reading.
Customize the Subject and Message
Tableau auto-populates a subject line, but you should customize it to be more descriptive. Something like "Weekly Marketing Campaign KPI Report" is much more useful than the default "Subscription for - Sales Dashboard." You can also add a short message in the body to provide context, especially if you're sending the subscription to other people.
Set the Schedule
This is the core of the feature. You can define the delivery frequency. The options available depend on how your server administrator has configured them, but they typically include:
On Data Refresh: The subscription runs automatically every time the data source for the dashboard is updated. This is fantastic for getting the most timely information possible.
Frequency: You can select a recurring schedule, such as Hourly, Daily, Weekly, or Monthly. Once you choose one, you can specify the days (e.g., every weekday, or just on Mondays) and the exact time of day.
Pro Tip: Stagger your subscriptions. If your report isn't urgent, schedule it for an off-peak time (like 5:00 AM) to help reduce the load on the server during busy work hours.
Include or Exclude Empty Views
Leave "Don't send if view is empty" selected. There is no reason to receive an email about a blank visualization. For example, an email alert containing a sheet of all the high-risk clients you have contacted this month. If it's blank, it hopefully shows you have no one that fits that criteria. But if it's there, you need to take action right away.
Step 4: Click 'Subscribe'
Once you’re happy with all your settings, just click the blue "Subscribe" button at the bottom. That's it! Your subscription is now active.
(Optional) Step 5: Manage Your Subscriptions
Need to change a schedule or delete a subscription you no longer need? You can manage everything from one place. Click on your user icon in the top right, go to My Content, and then select the Subscriptions tab. Here, you'll see a list of everything you're subscribed to, and you can edit or delete them as needed.
Troubleshooting and Pro Tips for Tableau Subscriptions
Sometimes, things don't work as expected. Before you file a support ticket, here are a few common issues and powerful tips to get the most out of your subscriptions.
Issue: "My subscription never arrived!"
Check Spam/Junk: It’s the oldest trick in the book for a reason. Check your junk email folder first and add your Tableau Server's email address to your safe senders list.
Is the Server Running? Your Tableau admin may have planned downtime or the subscription engine on the server may have been turned off. Sometimes, turning it off and on again can resolve the issue with this particular service.
Ask the Admin: Sometimes a scheduled background task can fail. Your Tableau Admin should be able to check the background task admin views in Tableau to find if the job that generates the subscriptions is encountering errors.
Issue: "The data in my subscription email is old or stale."
This is a very common point of confusion. A subscription simply takes a snapshot of the dashboard at the moment the subscription runs. If the underlying data extract for that dashboard hasn't been refreshed yet, the subscription will show old data.
The Fix: Ensure your data source's refresh schedule runs before your subscription schedule. For example, if your data extract updates at 7:00 AM, set your subscription to run at 7:30 AM to guarantee you're getting the freshest possible data.
Pro Tip: Subscribe to Custom Views
The real power of subscriptions comes from custom views. Let's say you have a national sales dashboard, but you only care about the West region. You can apply a filter for "West," then save this as a "Custom View" (click the 'View' icon in the toolbar). Now, when you create a subscription, you can subscribe to your custom view instead of the default. This allows you to get hyper-personalized reports delivered automatically, without having to re-apply your filters every single time.
Pro Tip: Send Conditionally with a 'Blank Sheet'
You can hack the subscriptions to conditionally send only on a given set of conditions. For example, you have a dashboard about new customers to be onboarded. You don't want to receive this email daily because some days you don't sign up customers. You can untick 'include empty views' so an email only goes out when the 'new customers' visualization is not blank. This technique can be applied in countless ways and turns your subscriptions into actionable alerts!
Final Thoughts
Setting up subscriptions in Tableau is a simple way to automate your reporting and ensure key data is always at your fingertips. By scheduling automated snapshots of your most important views, you save time, keep your team aligned, and free yourself up to focus on the insights that drive your business forward.
Automating report delivery is a huge step up from manual checking. At Graphed, we believe in taking that efficiency even further. While Tableau subscriptions deliver the reports, we help you create them without the learning curve. You can connect your marketing and sales data sources - like Google Analytics, Shopify, or Salesforce - and then just ask in plain English for what you need. Instead of navigating a complex tool, a prompt like "create a dashboard showing my top ad campaigns by ROI for this quarter" instantly gets you the real-time dashboard. If you're looking for an easier, faster way to get from data to decision, we invite you to check out Graphed.