Technical lineage for Tableau

When you ingest Tableau metadata in Data Catalog, a technical lineage for Tableau Data Attribute assets is automatically created.

Permissions

If you have a Data Catalog global role with the Catalog and Technical lineage global permissions, you can see the technical lineage of Tableau assets by clicking on the Technical lineage tab on the asset page of any of the following asset types:

  • Table
  • Column
  • Tableau Data Attribute
  • Tableau Worksheet

Technical lineage graph

The technical lineage graph shows relations of the type "Data Element sources / targets Data Element" between Tableau assets and other data objects in the data flow, for example between a Column asset and a Tableau Data Attribute asset. These relations are created during the Tableau ingestion process as a result of automatic stitching.

Note If you use a Tableau <source ID> configuration file and don’t specify a value for the relevant collibraSystemName property, the designation “UNDEFINED” will be shown in the technical lineage.

Example

The following technical lineage shows how data flows from a PostgreSQL data source to Tableau. It shows relations of the type "Data Element sources / targets Data Element" between the Column assets of the database and Tableau Data Attribute assets in Tableau. For example, Column asset DEPARTMENT_NAME has a relation of the type "Data Element sources / targets Data Element" to the Tableau Data Attribute asset department_name.

UUIDs in the Tableau technical lineage

Collibra Data Lineage uses unique full names to create a technical lineage and stitch objects within the technical lineage. Full names in Collibra are constructed in accordance with the hierarchy of data objects in Tableau, for example:

  • Server > Site > Project > Workbook > Worksheet > Field
  • Server > Site > Project > Workbook > Data Model > Column

In Collibra, every node in this hierarchy must have a unique name. However, in Tableau, the names of data objects do not have to be unique. As such, if Tableau data objects in a technical lineage hierarchy have the same full name, Collibra Data Lineage adds the UUIDs of the corresponding assets to the names in the technical lineage, to maintain uniqueness.

In the following example image, the names of the assets Priority, Opened and Active in the technical lineage have been appended with their UUIDs.

Note 
  • UUIDs are not added to the names of the assets themselves; they are only added to the names of the data objects in the technical lineage.
  • The UUID is always part of the full name of an asset, regardless of whether or not it is a duplicate.

How to resolve UUIDs in names in a technical lineage

To keep Collibra Data Lineage from adding UUIDs to the names of the data objects in a technical lineage, ensure that the names of all fields and columns in Tableau are unique.

Generally, Tableau doesn't allow you to create two fields or columns with the same name. However, hierarchy fields and non-hierarchy fields can have the same name. Duplication of names can also happen if:

  • A Tableau worksheet is using two different data sources that have columns with the same name.
  • You create a virtual connection that contains multiple data sources that have columns with the same name.
  • There are multiple data sources in Tableau with the same name.

Sources tab page

The Sources tab page shows, for each Tableau data source and Tableau Worksheet, the transformation and calculation rules that the Collibra Data Lineage service analyzed and processed, and the results of the analysis. It also shows the TECHLIN VIEW query definitions, based on custom SQL queries.

The success rate of the analysis indicates how complete the technical lineage is. There are a few limitations that prevent the Collibra Data Lineage service from processing all Tableau metadata.

Important The Collibra Data Lineage service might not be able to process all complex Tableau metadata. This means that the success rate of a Tableau ingestion might not be 100%.

Error codes

The Errors summary represents a summary of all errors per Tableau site. Currently, processing stops after the first error is identified during the processing of the site. In a future version of Collibra, processing will continue after the first error.

Warning codes

Warning codes indicate:

  • Issues that might affect the technical lineage, but do not stop the processing.
  • Issues that you can resolve.

Element Description
ID The warning ID number.
Name

The name of the warning. Possible values are:

  • Empty name
  • Field relation not found
  • Parent project not found
  • Parent workbook not found
  • Parent database not found
  • Datasource not found
  • Worksheet not found
  • REST datasource not found
  • Not found in remote fields
  • Multiple datasources
  • Query parsing error
  • Invalid Collibra system names
  • Invalid hostname mapping
Status code

The status label. The value is always WARNING.
Status description

Identifies a grouping of warnings. Warnings of the same type (meaning they have the same group name and name) are grouped together in "parts" of up to 100 warnings.

Example 

In this example, there are 250 Configuration > Invalid Collibra system names warnings, grouped into parts 1, 2 and 3:
Group name

The type, or category, of warning. Possible values are:

  • Configuration
  • Mismatched ID
  • Missing content

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