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URL: https://www.cdata.com/kb/tech/airtable-cloud-tableau-online.rst

⇱ Build Airtable Visualizations in Tableau Cloud

Build Airtable Visualizations in Tableau Cloud

👁 Jerod Johnson
Jerod Johnson
Director, Technology Evangelism
Use CData Connect AI to connect to live Airtable data and build visualizations in Tableau Cloud.

Tableau Cloud is an analytics platform fully hosted in the cloud. When paired with CData Connect AI, you get instant, cloud-to-cloud access to Airtable data for visualizations, dashboards, and more. This article shows how to connect to Airtable and build visualizations from Airtable data in Tableau Cloud.

CData Connect AI provides a pure cloud-to-cloud interface for Airtable, allowing you to easily build visualizations from live Airtable data in Tableau Cloud without installing connectors or publishing worksheets and data sources from Tableau Desktop. As you build visualizations, Tableau Cloud generates SQL queries to gather data. Using optimized data processing out of the box, CData Connect AI pushes all supported SQL operations (filters, JOINs, etc) directly to Airtable, leveraging server-side processing to quickly return Airtable data.

Configure Airtable Connectivity for Tableau Cloud

To work with Airtable data from Tableau Cloud, we need to connect to Airtable from Connect AI, provide user access to the connection, and create a Workspace for the Airtable data.

Connect to Airtable from Connect AI

CData Connect AI uses a straightforward, point-and-click interface to connect to data sources.

  1. Log into Connect AI, click Sources, and then click Add Connection
    2. 👁 Adding a Connection
  2. Select "Airtable" from the Add Connection panel
    3. 👁 Selecting a data source
  3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Airtable.

    APIKey, BaseId and TableNames parameters are required to connect to Airtable. ViewNames is an optional parameter where views of the tables may be specified.

    • APIKey : API Key of your account. To obtain this value, after logging in go to Account. In API section click Generate API key.
    • BaseId : Id of your base. To obtain this value, it is in the same section as the APIKey. Click on Airtable API, or navigate to https://airtable.com/api and select a base. In the introduction section you can find "The ID of this base is appxxN2ftedc0nEG7."
    • TableNames : A comma separated list of table names for the selected base. These are the same names of tables as found in the UI.
    • ViewNames : A comma separated list of views in the format of (table.view) names. These are the same names of the views as found in the UI.
    👁 Configuring a connection (Salesforce is shown)
  4. Click Save & Test
  5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Airtable Connection page and update the User-based permissions. 👁 Updating permissions

Add a Personal Access Token

When connecting to Connect AI through the REST API, the OData API, or the Virtual SQL Server, a Personal Access Token (PAT) is used to authenticate the connection to Connect AI. It is best practice to create a separate PAT for each service to maintain granularity of access.

  1. Click on the Gear icon () at the top right of the Connect AI app to open the settings page.
  2. On the Settings page, go to the Access Tokens section and click Create PAT.
  3. Give the PAT a name and click Create. 👁 Creating a new PAT
  4. The personal access token is only visible at creation, so be sure to copy it and store it securely for future use.

Configure Airtable Endpoints for Tableau Cloud

After connecting to Airtable, create a workspace for your desired table(s).

  1. Navigate to the Workspaces page and click Add to create a new Workspace (or select an existing workspace). 👁 The Workspaces page.
    👁 Adding a new Workspace.
  2. Click Add to add new assets to the Workspace.
  3. Select the Airtable connection (e.g. Airtable1) and click Next. 👁 Selecting an Asset (Salesforce is shown).
  4. Select the table(s) you wish to work with and click Confirm. 👁 Selecting Tables (Salesforce is shown).
  5. Make note of the OData Service URL for your workspace, e.g. https://cloud.cdata.com/api/odata/{workspace_name}

With the connection, PAT, and Workspace configured, you are ready to connect to Airtable data from Tableau Cloud.

Visualize Live Airtable Data in Tableau Cloud

The steps below outline creating a new data source in Tableau Cloud based on the virtual Airtable database in Connect AI and building a simple visualization from the data.

  1. Log into Tableau Cloud, select a account, and create a new workbook.
  2. In the new workbook, choose the OData Connector from the data wizard and fill in the values for your Connect AI instance. 👁 Selecting OData connector in Tableau Cloud
    • Set Server to the OData URL for your Workspace, e.g. https://cloud.cdata.com/api/odata/{workspace_name}
    • Set Authentication to Username and Password
    • Set Username to your Connect AI username (e.g. [email protected])
    • Set Password to a PAT for the above user
    👁 Connect to Connect AI from Tableau Cloud
  3. Select your newly created database and the table(s) you wish to visualize (defining relationships for JOINad tables as needed).
    4. 👁 Choosing a Database and Tables
  4. Select Dimensions and Measures and configure your visualization.
    5. 👁 Visualizing Airtable data in Tableau Cloud

Real-Time Access to Airtable Data from Cloud Applications

At this point, you have a direct, cloud-to-cloud connection to live Airtable data from your Tableau Cloud workbook. You can create new visualizations, build dashboards, and more, with no need to publish data sources and workbooks from Tableau Desktop. For more information on gaining live access to data from more than 100 SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources from cloud applications like Tableau Cloud, refer to our Connect AI page.