Video |

Tableau | Data visualisation | Tool strategy

How to see content shared with you

Sharing and permissions are two separate things in Tableau, and confusing them will trip up a lot of people.

Tim Ngwena •12 August 2020 •1 min read •6 min watch •1.8K

The Share with Me option appears in the left-hand menu of Tableau Online and Server, showing content others have sent you along with who shared it.
Sharing and permissions are separate concepts: sharing a view does not grant access, so a user must already have permission to actually open shared content.
When permissions are removed, the item stays in Share with Me but shows a 'permission required' notice, and the user can request access via an automated email.
When content is deleted from the server, it disappears entirely from the Share with Me section.
Shared messages are captured in the notification email, giving recipients context on who shared and why.

0:00In 2020.3, Tableau have added a new feature

0:05that allows you to see all the content that

0:07's

0:07been shared with you on Tableau Online and

0:10Tableau Server. Let's take a look and see

0:12how this feature works. You can see here it

0:15's on the left-hand side, just this little

0:17new

0:17option here called Share with Me. Now, for

0:20this to work, a user has to share content

0:22with someone on Tableau Server, but it's

0:24important to note that this doesn't mean

0:26that the person

0:27doesn't already have access to this. It

0:30doesn't cut across the permission system in

0:33Tableau

0:33Server. So I'm going to show you that

0:37concept now. Let's just hop into the

0:39Explore tab

0:40here, and I'm going to hop into the 2020.2

0:42release. I'm going to go into metrics, and

0:44you can see here that I have, what is it,

0:47five items, six items, including some role

0:50segments that I published up from the

0:52previous release. Now, I'm going to switch

0:55over to

0:56another user logged into the same Tableau

0:59dev instance. So let's hop on over to this

1:03user. You can see that I'm in incognito, so

1:05I can log in twice. And if I go back to

1:07Explore

1:082020.2 release, I still have the same

1:11amount of content. So the first thing to

1:14note here

1:14is that the second user who's going to be

1:17having content shared with them has to

1:19already

1:19have access to this content. You'll see

1:21what that looks like if they don't have

1:23access.

1:24Okay. Now, let's switch back to the

1:26original user who's going to be sharing

1:28content. The

1:29first thing I need to do is just

1:31essentially go to a particular thing that I

1:33'd like to

1:34share. So let's hit on these three icons

1:36and then hit the share button. And you get

1:39this

1:39nice interface that basically allows you to

1:41basically send a message and define who you

1:44want to share with. So I'm just going to

1:46share this with myself. I've only got one

1:48other

1:48user on this test instance, and I can even

1:50send a message. Now, this message will

1:53actually

1:53get captured in the email. Okay. So let's

1:57hit share. And now that's shared, I'm going

2:00to go back to my other user, and we're now

2:03going to see if that item appears in the

2:05shared

2:06with me section. And if I click on that,

2:08you'll see that it now appears. It also

2:11shows you

2:11who shared the item. So if you're wondering

2:13where content has come from, there's now a

2:16little bit of signaling to help you

2:17understand who's sharing content with you

2:20and maybe why

2:20they might want you to see that content.

2:23You can see examples in an organization

2:25where

2:25you maybe want to know that a manager has

2:27shared something with you. So maybe it's

2:29important

2:29and you should take a look because it's

2:32part of a discussion. Now, the next thing

2:34we're

2:34going to do is we're going to remove the

2:37second user's access via the permissions

2:39interface

2:40to this view. And then we're going to come

2:42back here and see what's happened to this

2:44view. Okay. So let's go back here. And we

2:47actually shared this specific visualization

2:50.

2:50Really metric with a user. Let's go down

2:53this time to permissions. And it's

2:55important to

2:55bear in mind that sharing and permissions

2:58are two separate concepts. So let's go

3:01ahead

3:01and remove access to all users. So the only

3:04person that's going to have access is the

3:07original author, which in this case is the

3:09current user that's logged in, not the user

3:12who this metric has been shared with. So

3:15now let's go back to this view. And I haven

3:18't

3:18refreshed this page yet. You can see that

3:20this user in the previous instance had

3:22access

3:23to this. Now, if I refresh this page, you

3:26'll see that I now get a notification

3:28telling

3:29me that permission is required. If I click

3:33on the view, I actually get the ability to

3:35request access. And that request access is

3:40essentially in the form of an email. So I'd

3:45go ahead, request access, and then that's

3:47sent to the user. And I did this a little

3:49bit earlier on before I started recording

3:51this video. And this is what it looks like.

3:54I've had to sort of blank out my email here

3:56, but it also gives some context as to the

3:57user's

3:58email. So basically it says, "Tim has

4:00requested access to this particular metric

4:03." When you

4:04go to the metric, the user can then share

4:06that metric and make sure they have the

4:08necessary

4:09permissions they need to look at that. And

4:12so this is a really nice feature. It's

4:13giving

4:14users the ability to request access to

4:16stuff rather than just basically waiting to

4:18be given

4:19access to stuff and not see what they're

4:21supposed to be able to see.

4:23Okay, so we've covered what happens when

4:25you share content. We've covered what

4:27happens

4:27when you remove permissions. What happens

4:29when you delete content? Well, let's go

4:32back

4:32to my original user. Let's delete this

4:34particular view so it's no longer a metric

4:36that's available

4:38in the server at all. Then let's go back to

4:41my shared reviews. We can click explore

4:44other

4:44content, go back to shared with me, and now

4:47you see the item's completely disappeared.

4:50So when you delete content, it disappears.

4:52When you remove permission, it still

4:55remains

4:55shared with the user, but they can no

4:57longer access it and they need to request

4:59permission

4:59to see it. And again, it's really important

5:02to emphasize that all of this was already

5:05available to the user because on this

5:08server, every user has access to everything

5:10. There's

5:11only two of us. And so sharing and

5:13permissions are two separate concepts. I

5:16think that's

5:16something that's going to confuse a lot of

5:18people, so it's worth bearing in mind.

5:19Okay, that's it for the video. If you've

5:21enjoyed this video, hit the like button. If

5:23you haven't,

5:24drop us a comment below. Let me know what

5:25kind of content you'd like to see in the

5:27future.

5:28And be sure to check out some of the other

5:29videos in the playlist and make sure you

5:31subscribe

5:31to the channel and check out some other

5:33great Tableau content that we have

5:35available for you.

Tableau release note: Quickly access projects, workbooks and dashboards that others have shared with you on Tableau Server or Tableau Online all in place, via the “Shared with Me” tab on the home menu. Customised views are automatically saved separately so that you can quickly navigate to the personalised view you need.This video is part of a larger playlist on Tableau 2020.3. Be sure to check out other videos in the playlist and subscribe for more content.https://tableautim.com -------Join my Discord Server. https://discord.gg/shBuxXr it’s a little sparse at the moment but hang in there.