3 Replies Latest reply on Nov 3, 2017 8:01 AM by Michael Breen

    About User Permissions

    Michael Breen

      Somehow, someone at my organization got it in his head that we can mirror user permissions from a data source into Tableau.  I looked at him like he had three eyes and said I was pretty certain that doesn't happen.  So let me give more detail.


      We are a school district running Infinite Campus student information system.  We have Tableau to visualize student data.  Somewhere above my pay grade, someone got the idea that the rights from Infinite Campus can be imported into Tableau so that people using Tableau will see what they're supposed to see.  My response was that I don't think that's possible, permissions for visualizations are set from within Tableau and the permissions from Infinite Campus don't apply to visualizations.  Am I wrong?  Am I right?  If I'm wrong (and I could be) how does one make this happen?  If I'm right, I already know how to answer this.  I need confirmation.

        • 1. Re: About User Permissions
          Toby Erkson

          Import rights/permissions?  Not possible OOTB (Out Of The Box).  You are the one who is correct.

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          • 2. Re: About User Permissions
            Glen Robinson

            Hi Michael

            Am not sure I fully understand the question, but here goes;

            There are 2 main type of security in Tableau. They will restrict your access (ie reports you can see, and what you can do with them), or you can restrict the data that people can see (ie 2 people can access the same report, but the data being displayed is dependent on who they are)


            Therefore, to your question, can you mimic the permissions in 'Infinite Campus'? The answer is probably yes.

            By that, I mean, if you have a group in Infinite Campus, you can have the same group name in Tableau (with the same members) and restrict what they can do (accessing reports or accessing data) depending on that group membership.

            You are right though about permissions in Infite Campus not applying to visualizations.


            How, you ensure that the 2 systems are in-sync is the harder part. If you are using AD, and have AD groups in your other tool, you can use the same groups in Tableau.

            However, if you arent then you will need to either manually or through scripting keep the groups in sync


            Hope this answers you question


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            • 3. Re: About User Permissions
              Michael Breen

              Thank you Glen and Toby.  Now that you mentioned it, Glen, I do recall the AD groups thing, but that's different from the groups in Infinite Campus, but then our AD groups are all organizational and not functional so I'm still standing here trying to organize functional groups to be most efficient.