Skip to main content

How Tableau popularity works

Atlan extracts popularity metrics for Tableau Cloud assets directly from Tableau's Content Exploration API during the standard crawl. No separate miner package is required.

How Tableau popularity differs from miner-based connectors​

Most Atlan connectors compute popularity by analyzing query history. A separate workflow processes query logs, counts the number of distinct users who have queried each asset over the last 30 days, and applies the following formula:

popularityScore = uniqueViewerCount × log(1 + viewCountLast30Days)

This approach is used for Snowflake, Google BigQuery, Amazon Redshift, Databricks, and Microsoft Power BI.

Tableau Cloud doesn't expose query history or unique viewer counts through its APIs. Instead, the Content Exploration API provides cumulative view counts per asset across overlapping time windows. Atlan reads these during the standard crawl and derives a popularity score without requiring a separate miner. Tableau Server doesn't expose the Content Exploration API, so popularity is only available for Tableau Cloud sites.

How score formula works​

The Content Exploration API returns four overlapping cumulative windows, last 2 weeks, 1 month, 3 months, and 12 months, plus an all-time total. Atlan converts these into non-overlapping incremental periods so that each view is counted once, then applies recency weights so that recent activity contributes more to the score than older activity.

A logarithm is then applied to prevent a small number of extremely popular assets from compressing the scores of everything else on the scale. Multiplying by 10 places typical scores in the 0 to 50 range, consistent with other connectors.

Because unique viewer counts aren't available from the Tableau API, the formula uses total view volume rather than audience breadth. The uniqueViewerCount factor in the standard cross-connector formula is omitted for this reason.

The full formula is in the view-based popularity metrics reference.

JWT bearer authentication doesn't support popularity​

Tableau's Content Exploration API documents the access scope for its usage statistics endpoints as Not available. Per Tableau's Connected Apps scopes specification, a method without a listed scope can't be called by a Connected App JWT. Tokens issued via JWT bearer authentication are therefore rejected with 403 Forbidden when Atlan attempts to fetch view counts, regardless of the scopes requested.

Personal access token and basic authentication don't go through the Connected App JWT path and can call these endpoints successfully, provided the authenticated user has the Site Administrator Explorer role.

To enable popularity, use personal access token or basic authentication.

See also​