Spice.ai Tableau Connector

The Spice.ai Tableau Connector is a JDBC-based connector that enables Tableau users to easily connect to and visualize data from self-hosted Spice.ai Open Source and Spice Cloud Platform instances.

Features

• Connect Tableau to Spice data sources: Spice Cloud Platform, self-hosted Spice.ai OSS
• API key authentication
• TLS encryption for secure connections
• Advanced SQL query optimizations for enhanced performance, leveraging the Apache Arrow Flight SQL JDBC Driver to provide high-speed data access compared to standard JDBC connector.

Installation

Step 1. Install Arrow Flight SQL JDBC Driver

Windows

Invoke-WebRequest -Uri "https://repo1.maven.org/maven2/org/apache/arrow/flight-sql-jdbc-driver/16.1.0/flight-sql-jdbc-driver-16.1.0.jar" -OutFile "C:\Program Files\Tableau\Drivers\flight-sql-jdbc-driver-16.1.0.jar"

macOS

curl -L https://repo1.maven.org/maven2/org/apache/arrow/flight-sql-jdbc-driver/16.1.0/flight-sql-jdbc-driver-16.1.0.jar -o ~/Library/Tableau/Drivers/flight-sql-jdbc-driver-16.1.0.jar

Linux

curl -L https://repo1.maven.org/maven2/org/apache/arrow/flight-sql-jdbc-driver/16.1.0/flight-sql-jdbc-driver-16.1.0.jar -o /opt/tableau/tableau_driver/jdbc/flight-sql-jdbc-driver-16.1.0.jar

Step 2. Install Spice.ai Tableau Connector

Tableau Server

1. Download the latest spiceai.taco file from Releases

2. Copy to your Tableau connectors directory:

   • Windows: C:\Program Files\Tableau\Connectors

     Invoke-WebRequest -Uri "https://github.com/spicehq/tableau-connector/releases/latest/download/spiceai.taco" -OutFile "C:\Program Files\Tableau\Connectors\spiceai.taco"

   • Linux: /opt/tableau/connectors

     curl -L https://github.com/spicehq/tableau-connector/releases/latest/download/spiceai.taco -o /opt/tableau/connectors/spiceai.taco

3. Restart server: tsm restart

Tableau Desktop

1. Download the latest spice.taco file from the releases page
2. Copy to your Tableau connectors directory:

   • Windows: C:\Users\[USERNAME]\Documents\My Tableau Repository\Connectors

     Invoke-WebRequest -Uri "https://github.com/spicehq/tableau-connector/releases/latest/download/spiceai.taco" -OutFile "C:\Users\[USERNAME]\Documents\My Tableau Repository\Connectors\spiceai.taco"

   • macOS: ~/Documents/My Tableau Repository/Connectors

     curl -L https://github.com/spicehq/tableau-connector/releases/latest/download/spiceai.taco -o ~/Documents/My\ Tableau\ Repository/Connectors/spiceai.taco

   • Linux: /opt/tableau/connectors

     curl -L https://github.com/spicehq/tableau-connector/releases/latest/download/spiceai.taco -o /opt/tableau/connectors/spiceai.taco

Limitations

Multiplication and Division on Intervals Are Not Supported

Multiplying or dividing intervals is not supported and will result in a Cannot coerce arithmetic expression error. For example:

SELECT "orders"."order_date" + "orders"."delivery_days" * INTERVAL '1 DAY'

Error during planning: Cannot coerce arithmetic expression Int64 * Interval(MonthDayNano) to valid types

The limitation is due to limited arithmetic operations support for Interval by DataFusion, tracked as apache/datafusion#13850.

Development

Prerequisites

• make command-line tool
• Python 3.x installed
• Clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/spiceai/tableau-connector.git
cd tableau-connector

Run Connector

# Run Tableau with the connector loaded from source
make run-tableau-with-connector

# Clean build artifacts
make clean

Run Tests

The connector uses TDVT framework.

# Package and install
make install

# Run Spice instance
cd tdvt && spice run

# Run TDVT tests with the installed Spice connector
make test

Package

# Create an unsigned `spice.taco` connector version
make package

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.