# Connect to AWS S3 with Tableau Connector | New in tableau 2023.2

> This is content from just-tim, the data-and-analytics channel by Tim Ngwena (formerly 'Tableau Tim'). Tim has 12+ years of hands-on BI experience and covers Tableau most of all, plus Power BI, Looker, Hex, SQL and data modelling, the analytics industry, and the craft of doing the job — always tool-agnostic and honest about the trade-offs.

- **Author:** Tim Ngwena (just-tim, https://just-tim.com/about)
- **Published:** 2023-06-05
- **Format:** Video · 19 min watch · transcript available
- **Topics:** Data prep, Tool strategy
- **Tools:** Tableau (cloud, connectors, maps, prep)
- **Canonical:** https://just-tim.com/posts/connect-to-aws-s3-with-tableau-connector-new-in-tableau-2023-2
- **Watch:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5zKzpif-wM

I take a look at the new Amazon S3 connector that arrived in beta with Tableau 2023.2, showing how to install the TACO file from the Tableau Exchange and connect in both Tableau Desktop and Tableau Cloud. I walk through connecting to CSV files in an S3 bucket and flag the bugs and quirks I hit along the way.

## Key takeaways

- The S3 connector isn't installed by default, so you download the TACO file from the Tableau Exchange and drop it into the connectors folder of your Tableau Desktop or Prep repository, then restart Tableau.
- As a beta there's no auto-update mechanism, so you have to manually check the version on the Exchange against the one you're running, or have IT push the file in enterprise setups.
- The connector needs four things to authenticate: bucket region, bucket name, access key ID and secret access key; it reads data live from S3 and can pull every CSV in a bucket directory.
- It connects to CSV and Excel files but not hyper files, and metadata detection is weak, so everything comes through as text and geographic fields aren't reliably recognised.
- The Tableau Cloud experience felt faster and smoother than Mac Desktop, but feature parity isn't complete, with some map and null-handling behaviours not working the same way.

## Chapters

- 0:09 Installing the S3 connector
- 2:12 Beta caveats and updating TACO files
- 3:00 Connecting and authenticating in Desktop
- 4:58 Reading CSVs and building a map
- 11:54 Trying the connector in Tableau Cloud
- 17:37 Cloud feature parity and final verdict

Watch the full video, read the transcript and use chapter deep-links on the page: https://just-tim.com/posts/connect-to-aws-s3-with-tableau-connector-new-in-tableau-2023-2

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just-tim — Data and analytics, with a point of view. · https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7HYxRWmaNlJux-X7rNLZyw · https://twitter.com/TableauTim · https://www.linkedin.com/in/timngwena