Tutorial: Auto-read Filter Values from Tableau for Report Bursting

Use BI Helper’s Automated Filters feature to read filter values from Tableau and generate a PDF report for each value.

End-to-end reporting automation for Tableau Online and Tableau Server.

In this tutorial, we will set up a report automation process to generate PDFs for all the filter values defined in a Tableau view. BI Helper will auto-read the values from the view and generate a PDF for each of the values.

We will illustrate this using the Retail Sales Report in Tableau.

Prerequisites:

1. [Tableau] Create a view in Tableau titled Filters and Contacts with 4 columns having the following headers:
   - “Filter Value” : The filter / slicer value
   - “TO” : TO email addresses
   - “CC” : CC email addresses
   - “BCC”: BCC email addresses

The above 4 columns are mandatory. Multiple addresses in TO, CC, BCC columns can be separated by “;”

Steps:

1. [BI Helper] Register on BI Helper and create a new job by following steps 1–3 of this tutorial.
2. Go to Generate PDF Tab and select the Automated_Filters option.

Select AUTOMATED_FILTERS option

3. Next specify the “Filter or Slicer Name”. Please follow this link for information on the filter or slicer name format. For example, the District Manager Slicer in the Retail Sales Report is to be defined as DM.

4. Next select the Filters and Contacts view.

5. Save the Automated Filters configuration.

Now save the job and run or schedule it. On job execution, BI Helper will download the filter data from the view and generate a PDF for each of the values and email it to the corresponding To, CC and BCC mail recipients.

Note: You can define multiple filter combinations in the first column of the Filters and Contacts view in Tableau.

Please refer to our product documentation for details.

BI Helper

BI Helper bihelper.tech is a simple, secure and cost effective SaaS solution for PDF report distribution in Tableau and Power BI. You only need a single Power BI / Tableau license to generate your PDF reports.

Resource: BI Helper Tutorial | Report Distribution in BI Tools