Can Tableau connect to arbitrary REST APIs as data sources?

tableau-api
Tim Leong picture Tim Leong · Apr 29, 2015 · Viewed 15.9k times · Source

I would like to use a REST API as a data source for tableau. Is this possible in any way? The API service returns standard JSON, and I would think that would be an ideal scenario for tableau. Rather than connecting to some backend database behind the API.

Thanks

Answer

emh picture emh · Apr 30, 2015

The web data connector does this and is in beta right now as noted by inox. See: https://www.tableau.com/web-data-connector

"The Web Data Connector will allow you to create a connection to almost any data that is accessible over HTTP. This can include internal web services, JSON data, REST APIs, and many other sources. It will not be supported in the initial launch of Tableau 9.0. Beta participants will be able to use a dedicated product key to continue building and testing connectors until the Web Data Connector officially launches."

Also, you can use the Extract API to create Tableau Extracts from an API: https://www.tableau.com/learn/tutorials/on-demand/extract-api-introduction

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