Administration - 20%

Question 1

How do you maintain data connections?

Answer 1

On the Data Sources tab, select the data source(s) and go to Actions > Edit Connection. You can change the Server name, Server port, username, and password. You can also refresh them, change the owner, edit permissions, and look at/roll back revision history.

Question 2

How do you create schedules?

Answer 2

Schedules tab > New Schedule. Create name, select task type (extract refresh/subscription) set priority, decide how many background processes to use (parallel/serial), and set the frequency.

Question 3

How do you edit and delete Subscriptions?

Answer 3

Select them from the schedule list > Actions > Edit Settings, or Delete

Question 4

How do you perform Server analysis?

Answer 4

server status page: admin views, process status, logs.

To monitor the physical performance of the machine where Server is installed, use Windows Performance Monitor.

Question 5

What are the steps to complete a backup and restore?

Answer 5

tabadmin backup tabserv.tsbak (can also put full file path)
tabadmin backup tabserv.tsbak -d -t

copy the backup file to another location as well

Restore:
1. tabadmin stop
Tabadmin restore (filename)
tabadmin start

Question 6

What are the steps to perform a cleanup?

Answer 6

To perform a cleanup while Server is running:
tabadmin cleanup
(removes old log files and HTTP requests older than 7 days)

tabadmin cleanup –restart
(stops the server for you, runs cleanup, then restarts - removes all tabsvc logs and temp files)

Optional: to preserve the logs, before doing cleanup, run:
tabadmin ziplogs -l -n -f

Question 7

How do you add, remove, or deactivate users?

Answer 7

Either from Server or Site tab.
On Site tab: remove user.
On Server: Delete user.

To deactivate, change their site role to Unlicensed

Question 8

How do you update licenses?

Answer 8

Stop server and “Manage Product Keys”. Restart.

Question 9

What are the steps to start, stop, or restart?

Answer 9

1. Open a cmd.exe prompt as an administrator
2. navigate to TS’s bin directory:
   cd “C:\Program Files\Tableau\Tableau Server\9.3\bin”
3. tabadmin start
   tabadmin stop
   tabadmin restart

Question 10

What are the differences between Tabadmin and Tabcmd, and what are use case scenarios for each?

Answer 10

tabadmin:

1. administrative configuration tasks (changing settings, customizing Tableau Server)
2. must be run from primary Tableau Server computer

tabcmd

1. bulk operations of Server GUI tasks (removing users, forcing refreshes, pulling reports)
2. run from primary TS computer, or install remotely and run from another computer

Question 11

How to do you work with log files? (4 steps)

Answer 11

1. Change the logging level if needed (info is default, debug and trace go more in-depth)
2. Archive logs (either generate snapshot in GUI or tabadmin ziplogs)
3. You can further investigate unique request IDs from the Apache logs in the \wgserver and \vizqlserver folders of the log archive.
4. Problem indications: error messages, long-running queries

Question 12

What are the steps to embedding [a view]?

Answer 12

1. Publish it to Server or Online
2. Click on “Share”, then copy Embed code
3. Paste it into an iframe.

Question 13

Name 3 ways to view the server status.

Answer 13

1. Server Status URL (http://localmachine/admin/systeminfo/xml)
2. Status screen in GUI
3. tabadmin status (can add -v for verbose)

Question 14

How do you view email alerts?

Answer 14

Configure email alerts, and then check the inbox of the email address you specified the system should alert.

Question 15

Name the 12 admin views, and what can be found in each. (ie, what type of data you’d get from them).

Hint: Traffic x2, Actions x3, Background x2, Stats x2, License x2, and one more…

Answer 15

1. Traffic to Views (Total View Count by day, total view count by time, what views are accessed the most? Who accesses views most often?)
2. Traffic to Data Sources (Total Data Source Usage by day, what data sources are used most, who uses data sources most often)
3. Actions by All Users (What actions are users taking? login, access view, publish, download)
4. Actions by Specific User (What actions is this user taking, and what items are used?)
5. Actions by Recent Users (Who was most recently active? What actions were performed?)
6. Background Tasks for Extracts (What extracts ran? How much time did they take? How many succeeded/failed by day?)
7. Background Tasks for Non Extracts (How many tasks succeed/failed? What background tasks ran?)
8. Stats for Load Times (Avg load times for views by hour, what are exact load times for view?)
9. Stats for Space Usage (what users/projects/workbooks/data sources use the most space?)
10. Server Disk Space (most recent disk space usage? How has free disk space trended in the last month?)
11. Desktop License Usage (who’s used TD in last X days? What licenses haven’t been used for over X days? where X >= 30)
12. Desktop License Expirations (What trial and term licenses have expired in last X days? What perpetual licenses have expired maintenance? What’s the maintenance schedule for my perpetual licenses? X

Question 16

What are the steps to create custom admin views?

Answer 16

1. tabadmin dbpass
   enable external access for either tableau user or readonly user, create password
   then restart
2. in Desktop, Connect to PostgreSQL. Type in your server name, Port 8060, Database=workgroup. Select tables.

Question 17

What are the steps to create a performance recording?

Answer 17

1. Enable performance recording for a Site on the Settings tab.
2. Open the view you want to record
3. type :record_performance=yes& at the end of the URL
4. Load the view
5. Click the performance button on the view. Continue taking additional snapshots as you interact with view on Server; perf data is cumulative.
6. To end, close the view or remove what you typed in step 3 from the URL

Question 18

How do you work with Sites and Site Admin options?

Answer 18

On Server side: go to Sites tab. Click one and Edit Settings.
On Site tab, go to Settings. Can edit there.

Question 19

How do end users publish views and data sources?

Answer 19

From Desktop.

Question 20

How do end users interact with a view via the web? (not web authoring)

Answer 20

Clicking, filtering, creating custom view, add comment…

Question 21

How do users share views they created in web authoring?

Answer 21

They can Save the workbook, or Save As if they’re making edits to someone else’s published workbook.

Question 22

Describe web authoring and editing capabilities.

Answer 22

You can put fields on shelves and cards. You can filter. You can write Calculated fields (in line only). You can interact with dashboards but cannot create new ones, or create stories.