One of frequent tasks of managing a Tableau server is watching the failed data extracts and then fixing them. In a recent Tableau webinar, I presented a server admin view that helps monitor the data extract failure.
https://www.tableau.com/learn/webinars/tableau-administrators-virtual-user-group-6

In the server admin views, the admin can view a dashboard of similar functions. However, the publishers have no access to it. In order to provide self-service dashboard monitoring to the publishers, we have created our own monitor and offer it to whoever is concerned.
For a variety of reasons, the data extract refresh may fail to work as scheduled.

I summarized all the failures as 5 types.
- Bad data file path
When the data is in a flat file, such as Excel, Access, CSV etc, the server can't find the data file. One of the most likely cases is the file path is in local format, such as C:\folder\data.csv. The server actually expects an UNC path such as \\machine\folder\data.csv

- DB connect fail
The connection to the database failed. Need to fix the connection settings or the network etc.

- DB query fail
The query worked when being published. However the database tables may have changed. The query can fail in this case. The solution is to revise the query.

- Data engine fail
The service may be down. Need a reboot.

- Suspended
There are too many failures. Need to download the workbook or data source and republish it. The failure will resurface and the error message will tell you what the failure is.

The extract failure monitor workbook is available in the Tableau community forum. Feel free to download it and play with it. Let me know if there is issue. 

I am very grateful to Mark Wu, the moderator of the webinar who invited me to present, and Matt Coles, whose PostgreSQL query is being used in the monitor workbook.
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Jake and I collaborated on a dashboard. He told me that he learnt a way to create an in-place help page in Tableau. He first saw it at a conference somewhere and couldn't recall who the speaker was. So I am blogging here about it but the credit goes to somebody else. If anyone knows who the original creator is, leave a comment below.

The key idea is to float a semi transparent worksheet on top of the dashboard, where a help text box is strategically placed on top of each chart. This way, we can explain how to view each chart and what data points are important, etc. This worksheet is collapsible by a show/hide button. 

Below I would like to show how this worksheet can be constructed.

1. Sheet with a single data mark.

  • Double click the empty space in Marks panel and add two single quotes. Make the null pill a text label. This creates a single null mark.
  • Set the view as "Entire View"

2. Create an show/hide button

  • Go to the target dashboard
  • Drag a floating vertical container to the dashboard, making it cover all the area of interest.
  • Drag the Single Null Mark sheet and drop it into the above container. Hide the sheet title.
  • Create an open/close button for the container and place the button at the top-right corner.

3. Add annotations

  • Format the sheet background opacity as 70% in the layout manager             
  • Select area annotations and place them anywhere of interest. 
  • Write help text and format it to highlight important messages.  
  • The text can serve as functional guide and/or insight guide.

Here is an example. Feel free to download the workbook and explore. Click the "i" button at the top-right corner to view the in-place help. 

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