AnalyticDB:Tableau

Prerequisites

Before you begin, gather the following connection details:

• The host (server address or IP) of your AnalyticDB for MySQL cluster

• The database name

• A username and password with access to the database

• Tableau Desktop 2019.4 installed on your machine

Driver required

Tableau requires a MySQL-compatible ODBC driver to connect to AnalyticDB for MySQL. If the driver is not installed, Tableau displays a message in the connection dialog with a link to the Driver Download page where you can find driver links and installation instructions.

The verified test environment:

Connect Tableau Desktop to AnalyticDB for MySQL

1. Open Tableau Desktop. Under Connect, select MySQL. If MySQL is not listed, select More under To a Server to see the full list.

2. Enter the connection details:

   • Server: the host of your AnalyticDB for MySQL cluster

   • Port: the port number

   • Database: the database name

   • Username and Password

3. Click Sign In. If Tableau cannot connect, verify that the host, port, and credentials are correct, and that the MySQL ODBC driver is installed.

4. On the data source page, select a table from the Table list, or search for one by name.

5. Drag the table to the canvas, then click the sheet tab to start building your analysis.

Verified features

The following Tableau features were tested against AnalyticDB for MySQL and confirmed working:

• List all tables

  On the Tableau Desktop data source page, select the target database from the Database drop-down list in the left pane. The Table area then lists every table in that database, such as pyodps_iris, ramtest, result_table1, and sale_detail. Scroll the list or use the search icon to locate a table by name. New Custom SQL and New Union appear below the table list, and the canvas on the right shows the Drag tables here placeholder until you drag a table onto it.

• Query the data of a table

  On the data source page, select a table from the Table list in the left pane — bank_data_pt in this example — and drag it onto the canvas. Set Connection to Live to query the source directly, or to Extract to work on a local copy. Click the metadata grid button above the results area to list the fields of the table. The list shows Field Name, Table, and Remote Field Name for each column; for bank_data_pt the remote field names are age, job, marital, education, housing, loan, contact, month, day_of_week, duration, campaign, and pdays. Numeric fields are marked with # and text fields with Abc.

• Build a highlight table

  On the worksheet, drag a dimension onto Color and Label on the Marks card to encode the marks, and drag a count measure onto Size to size them. In this example, Education is placed on both Color and Label, a record-count measure is placed on Size, and Credit is placed on the Filters shelf. Select the view type from the Show Me panel on the right and the mark type from the Marks drop-down list. The resulting view renders one mark per Education value, sized by record count — including basic.4y, basic.6y, basic.9y, high.school, professional.course, university.degree, and unknown. The status bar reports 8 marks and a SUM of CNT(bank_data_pt1) of 41,188.

• Build a text table

  On the worksheet, drag a date dimension onto the Columns shelf and a category dimension onto the Rows shelf, then drag the measure you want to display onto Text on the Marks card. In this example, YEAR(Order Date) is on Columns, Sub-Category is on Rows, and SUM(Sales) is on Text, with the mark type left as Automatic. The view returns the sales total for each sub-category and year:

  Sub-Category	2011	2012	2013	2014
  Accessories	$25,014	$40,524	$41,896	$59,946
  Appliances	$15,314	$23,241	$26,050	$42,927
  Art	$6,058	$6,237	$5,910	$8,914
  Binders	$43,488	$37,453	$49,485	$72,986
  Bookcases	$20,037	$38,544	$26,275	$30,024
  Chairs	$77,242	$71,735	$83,919	$95,554
  Copiers	$10,850	$26,179	$49,599	$62,899
  Envelopes	$3,856	$4,512	$4,730	$3,379
  Fasteners	$661	$545	$960	$858
  Furnishings	$13,826	$21,090	$27,874	$28,915
  Labels	$2,841	$2,956	$2,827	$3,861
  Machines	$62,023	$27,764	$55,907	$43,545
  Paper	$14,835	$15,288	$20,638	$27,718
  Phones	$77,391	$68,314	$78,660	$105,643
  Storage	$50,329	$45,048	$58,632	$69,834
  Supplies	$14,394	$1,952	$14,278	$16,049
  Tables	$46,088	$39,150	$60,833	$60,894

• Build a line chart

  On the worksheet, drag a date dimension onto the Columns shelf and a measure onto the Rows shelf, then drag a dimension onto Color on the Marks card to plot one line per member. In this example, Year is on Columns, SUM(Expenditure in the country) is on Rows, and Market is on Color, which produces five lines: Africa, Asia Pacific, Europe, LATAM, and USCA. The x-axis covers 1994 to 2016 and the y-axis runs from 0K to 400K. Europe and Asia Pacific show the strongest upward trend, both approaching 370K at the end of the period, while Africa and LATAM stay below 70K throughout. To add a statistical overlay, open the Analytics pane and drag an item onto the view: Constant Line, Average Line, Median with Quartiles, or Box Plot under Summarize; Average with 95% CI, Median with 95% CI, Trend Line, Forecast, or Cluster under Model; and Reference Line, Reference Band, Distribution Band, or Box Plot under Custom.

Troubleshooting

Tableau cannot connect to the database

Check that:

• The host and port are correct and the cluster is running.

• The username and password are valid and the account has access to the target database.

• The MySQL ODBC driver is installed. Open the Tableau connection dialog — if the driver is missing, Tableau shows a link to download it.

• Network access is open between your machine and the cluster (firewall rules, VPC settings).

Tableau shows no tables after connecting

The account you used may not have read permission on the database or its tables. Grant the required permissions and reconnect.