Tableau (JDBC)

Connect Tableau Desktop to Interact Advanced Analytics using the AWS Athena JDBC driver and an athena.properties file.

Before you start

To connect Tableau to Interact Advanced Analytics, you need:

Tableau Desktop, with a valid subscription or trial
The AWS Athena JDBC driver
An athena.properties configuration file
Your Interact Advanced Analytics credentials and configuration details

Interact Advanced Analytics uses AWS Data Lake technologies for data querying, analysis and retrieval.

Step 1: Install Tableau Desktop

Install a version of Tableau Desktop with a valid subscription or trial. Download it from the Tableau releases page.

Step 2: Install the AWS Athena JDBC driver

Download the latest JDBC driver from the AWS Athena JDBC driver page.

If you need an older version, see the previous JDBC driver versions.

Once downloaded, place the driver in the following location:

macOS: ~/Library/Tableau/Drivers
Windows: C:\Program Files\Tableau\Drivers

The complete Tableau configuration guide is on the Tableau drivers page, under the AWS Athena section.

Step 3: Create the athena.properties file

Interact Advanced Analytics provides a separate Workgroup for each customer. You must specify the Workgroup when connecting to Interact Advanced Analytics.

For AWS Athena JDBC with Tableau, set this with a key-value pair in the athena.properties file.

Create a file called athena.properties at:

~/My Tableau Repository/Datasources

If the workgroup name provided to you was Inc_Ltd, the file contents should be:

workgroup=Inc_Ltd

Full documentation on the AWS Athena JDBC configuration is in the Simba Athena JDBC driver install and configuration guide. The workgroup setting is on page 104.

Step 4: Gather your Advanced Analytics configuration

Your Interact Advanced Analytics configuration details are provided during technical onboarding and include:

Server: for example, athena.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com (can be retrieved from the AWS Athena endpoints page, and can change over time)
S3 Staging Directory: s3://{{my_bucket}}-results/ (where the query results are saved)
Access Key ID: equivalent to the username
Secret Access Key: equivalent to the password
Workgroup: cannot be set in the Tableau UI. Set it by creating the file at ~/My Tableau Repository/Datasources/athena.properties with the contents workgroup=Inc_Ltd (using the workgroup name provided to you).
Database: the Athena database where your analytics data is located
Table Name: the Athena table where your analytics data is located

Step 5: Connect via Tableau

Once you have completed the above steps, you can connect to Interact Advanced Analytics through the Tableau interface.

Select the Amazon Athena data source.

Select the Amazon Athena data source in Tableau

You are asked for credentials. The text box names map exactly onto the Interact Advanced Analytics configuration field names.

Enter Amazon Athena credentials in Tableau

Once logged in, select the database and the appropriate table on the left, based on the database and table name provided by Interact.

Note: No other databases or tables are visible. Tableau may display an empty default database, which is a Tableau bug.

Select the database and table in Tableau

You are now ready to analyse the Interact Advanced Analytics data in Tableau.

Ports

Port 443 is used to communicate with the Data Lake, and port 444 is used to stream query results back from the Data Lake to the BI tool. Both ports must be open. See the Athena JDBC driver documentation.

Section: Analytics & data