Yes, it is, though you will need admin rights to the Tableau install directory, and you shall need to edit a file.
So you want to edit the Sample Workbooks section of the Start Screen?
Adding your own sample workbooks can be a great time-saver, far faster than saved data sources:
For works requiring Superstore and/or Adventureworks such as forum, tutorial, blog or teaching works, I have a workbook that has a pre-configured data set, just like a saved data source. But unlike a saved data source, this workbook already has my logos, parameters, a blend, some actions, a couple of starter charts, and a dashboard template, all in place and ready to go. By setting the workbook as read-only, not only do I have this workbook at my fingertips from every instance of Tableau I open, but being read-only, the OS will force a Save As, preventing me from accidentally overwriting something else.
Firstly, you need a workbook that you plan to use, and a 480px x 360px png image of one of the dashboards to use as the thumbnail, once you have these, navigate to your Tableau install directory: (Windows default) C:\Program Files\Tableau
If you have more than one version of Tableau installed, select the version you want to modify, or the latest one, assuming v2022.2 is your latest version, open this folder and then navigate to the “help” folder
Currently, you should be at
C:\Program Files\Tableau\Tableau 2022.2\help
And then find the folder that represents the localised version; so for me, this is en_GB
C:\Program Files\Tableau\Tableau 2022.2\help\en_GB
Which should look something like this:
Look familiar?
Move your workbook and thumbnail image into this directory - you will need admin access to the folder to do this, and then open the samples.manifest file into any text editor as this is how you will tell Tableau about the file and the thumbnail location.
The samples.manifest file is set to read only, switch this over in the file properties, and switch back to read only once you have finished editing. If you aren’t able to make the changes with admin rights, copy to an unprotected location such as your desktop, edit and then copy back.
You might still need to open your samples.manifest in administrator mode before you can save
And now add a new line, in my case, I am adding my Periodic Table workbook, and the thumbnail is called sample_periodic_table.
<sample caption="Periodic Table" file="Periodic Table of Elements.twbx" sheet-thumbnail-count="1" sheet-thumbnail-format="" thumbnail="sample_periodic_table.png" tooltip="Periodic Table of the ELements"/>
My directory
Once saved, the next copy of Tableau you open you shall see your newly added sample(s)
Right here.
These are all localised versions of Superstore Sales released with Tableau v2022.1
And as a special treat, I have also added the localised workbooks created by the Tableau teams ready for you to play with
For future reference, once you have installed Tableau Desktop, you can get all the data sources and the workbooks that Tableau provide as samples right from your own pc.
Navigate to your Tableau install directory, on Windows the default is: Program Files\Tableau
Here you will see every version of Tableau you have installed, if you have not uninstalled the previous version(s).
Select a version, or the only version if you have one then into the ‘help' directory. So, if you are heading to v2022.1 then you’d have navigated to:
C:\Program Files\Tableau\Tableau 2022.1\help
And from there, you shall see all localised versions of the workbooks, just hop into the locale of choice.
Whilst the Superstore versions are nearly identical, the other localised versions aren't, so you can broaden your knowledge just by looking at some of the other things the Tableau team have put together.
Finally, about that data source, it's not quite as easy to grab, just a couple more steps:
Copy the workbook to another location, your desktop will be a good place.
Next update the workbook extension to a zip by suffixing ".zip" to the end (you'll need to ensure that you can see extensions)
in Windows this means disabling the "Hide extensions for known file types" option in Folder Options. Your file should now read as Superstore.twbx.zip
Open the folder - Windows Explorer can open zip archives
Navigate to the Data directory
And then to the Superstore directory - this is the Relationship hierarchy. Inside, you'll find all the data sources used in the Superstore relational source including your Superstore.xls file.
Just copy this to your desktop and voila! You've now managed get all the localised Superstore sources
Workbooks and Data Sources
Locale | Workbook | Data source |
|---|---|---|
(BR) Brasil / Brazil | ||
(CN) 中国 / China | ||
(DE) Deutschland / Germany | ||
(ES) España / Spain | ||
(FR) France | ||
(GB) United Kingdom | ||
(IT) Italia / Italy | ||
(JP) 日本 / Japan | ||
(KO) 日本 / Korea | ||
(TW) 台湾 / Taiwan | ||
(US) United States |
* New for v2022.4: Image Roles *
As the heading suggests, Tableau released v2022.4 on the 14th December which includes the new Roles function, which enables uses to assign a URL as link to an image, rather than need to set objects as shapes. However, Tableau did not ship with an updated version of Superstore to support this.
So here, I am providing an updated version of the European Superstore file which links to my European Flags page (images provided with permission from Freepik)
Usage is as simple as:
connecting to the file
Select either the Countries or Orders page (or relate both, there’s no harm in this)
And then alter the Role Country field to apply a url image role
Additionally, you can create new roles in the data linking to to your own image sources:
Just add a new column into the data that can be easily identified in Tableau, add your url(s), save and then use.