# Understanding Tableau Server Processes and how they work. - Tableau Server & Tableau Cloud

> 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:** 2022-08-10
- **Format:** Video · 9 min watch · transcript available
- **Topics:** Tool strategy, Certification
- **Tools:** Tableau (cloud, server)
- **Canonical:** https://just-tim.com/posts/understanding-tableau-server-processes-and-how-they-work---tableau-server--tableau-cloud
- **Watch:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4AsjgYYEw5g

I continue my Tableau Server series by digging into Tableau Server processes and how they interrelate. Rather than rely on Tableau's own documentation, I walk through a Tableau Public visualisation that lets you step through each process involved in flows like publishing a workbook or accessing a view, which is invaluable for troubleshooting.

## Key takeaways

- Understanding which Tableau Server process does what is essential for troubleshooting where in the flow a problem actually occurs
- Tableau's tabular documentation explains the processes but doesn't show the interplay and interrelationships between them
- A Tableau Public resource (built by technical product marketing, updated to Feb 2020) lets you pick a flow and step through each process with a slider
- Publishing with a live connection takes seven steps via the gateway, application server and repository, while an extract adds steps to split data into the file store
- Some processes are fundamental to nearly every flow, so problems there will affect most of Tableau Server

## Chapters

- 0:00 Why Tableau Server processes matter
- 0:46 Limitations of Tableau's documentation
- 2:52 The Tableau Public process visualisation
- 3:44 Stepping through a publish workbook flow
- 6:10 Live connection vs extract steps
- 6:53 Exploring other flows and caching
- 7:30 Troubleshooting and keeping resources alive

Watch the full video, read the transcript and use chapter deep-links on the page: https://just-tim.com/posts/understanding-tableau-server-processes-and-how-they-work---tableau-server--tableau-cloud

---
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