Video |

Tableau | Data visualisation | Tool strategy

Offline map support for in web authoring

If you work somewhere the internet is locked down, Tableau Server's new offline maps still give you a usable map without phoning home for tiles.

Tim Ngwena •15 December 2020 •1 min read •2 min watch •2.2K

Tableau Server now offers an offline map option so you can show maps without connecting to Tableau's public mapping servers for tiles
You find the setting under Map at the top, then Background Maps, where the offline map option now appears
The offline version gives a static image of the tiles with far less control than the online version's map layers (no terrain, coastline toggles, etc.)
This is valuable in heavily internet-restricted environments such as banking where connecting to external mapping servers is a problem
The demo reuses a published data source built with Tableau Prep that blends spatial files to datasets

0:00Hey, it's Tim here and in today's video I'm

0:01here to show you about a new feature in

0:03Tableau Server

0:04enabling offline map support for Tableau

0:07Server. I'm actually on Tableau Online

0:08where the feature

0:09is there, it's not actually an issue on

0:11Tableau Online because inherently Tableau

0:13Online always

0:13has access to the mapping capabilities, but

0:16on Tableau Server you might actually want

0:18to disable

0:19the ability for the Tableau Server to

0:21connect to the Tableau's own mapping

0:23servers and essentially

0:24just enable offline maps so you get some

0:27sort of a map but you don't connect to the

0:29public internet

0:30to go and get the map tiles for that

0:32particular map. If you use that feature, if

0:34you work in,

0:35for example, banking environments where

0:39internet is very heavily restricted, that's

0:42going to be a

0:43problem when you're creating any sort of

0:44mapping attributes. So let me show you how

0:46that works.

0:47If you go here to the map option at the

0:49very top and you go to background maps, you

0:51'll see that

0:52there is now an offline map option, that's

0:54pretty much the feature in a nutshell.

0:56Before I switch to

0:56this, let me go to the map layers option so

0:58you can just see the difference between the

1:01online

1:01version and the offline version. On the

1:03online version I get this drop down showing

1:05me all the

1:06different things that I can switch on,

1:08disable and so on and so forth. I can add a

1:09bit of terrain,

1:10coastline and it actually changes the map

1:12here in the background, you can see that

1:14that refresh there.

1:15If I go over to the offline version, you

1:17actually lose a lot of that so you don't

1:19have as much

1:20control. Essentially it's just a static

1:22image of the tiles but it gives you some

1:24resemblance of a

1:25map if you want to visualize it. If I just

1:27zoom out here, I still get the world map

1:29loading up

1:30in the background and this is actually

1:32quite handy because it means that I can

1:34still visualize what I

1:35need to without worrying too much about

1:36whether users have access to the internet

1:38or not. So

1:39that's a nice feature to have there, it's a

1:41nice sort of quality of life improvement if

1:43you work in

1:43an environment where that was a small issue

1:45. That's pretty much the feature in a

1:47nutshell,

1:47there's not much more to show here. If you

1:49haven't noticed I'm actually using a work

1:51book that I built

1:52in a previous demo showing how you can

1:55actually use Tableau prep to blend spatial

1:58files to data

1:59sets and what I did is I published that

2:02data source over here to Tableau online and

2:04I'm now

2:05using that in this demo. So check out that

2:07video in the pop-up on the screen and also

2:09in the

2:09description below. Otherwise if you've

2:11enjoyed this video you know what to do, if

2:13you haven't

2:13and enjoy this video, hit the dislike

2:15button twice and I'll catch you in the next

2:17video.

Already possible in tableau desktop but now Web authoring supports the capability to have offline maps on tableau server. Tableau Online didn’t have this issue as tableau online is Hosted by Tableau so always has access to map tiles usually delivered over the internet.

Tableau Release Notes

We’re making it easier to access and analyze spatial data on Tableau Server with offline map support. You can now create maps using the offline map style in web authoring, ensuring that maps remain accessible to all users—especially in organizations with strict internet access requirements.