Tableau Connector Setup and Usage Guide

Tableau’s data visualization capabilities work with Siteimprove insights to create an interactive way to share your data. With custom dashboards and multiple display options, you can now see your website’s results in a whole new light.

This guide explains how to install Siteimprove’s Tableau connector on the Desktop version 2023.2+ of Tableau.

• Compatibility and Prerequisites for Installation
  • Installing the Tableau Connector Using the taco file
    • Placing the connector file inside the connectors folder
  • Setting a flag under Tableau properties
• Loading the connector inside Tableau and fetching data
• Usage of the Connector
  • User Access
  • Common parameters needed to be entered
• Gathering Endpoints for the ‘Advanced’ field
• Building Reports
• FAQs, Tips, and Troubleshooting

Compatibility and Prerequisites for Installation

You must have Siteimprove and Tableau subscriptions to use this connector

This latest version of the connector is only compatible with Tableau Desktop versions 2023.2 and after. It is not compatible with Tableau Public or Cloud. 

Installing the Tableau Connector Using the taco file

This part of the guide explains how to install the Siteimprove Tableau Connector on the Tableau Desktop using the taco file found on the Siteimprove marketing site under the ‘Download’ button or in this article.

Placing the connector file inside the connectors folder

1. Download the file here: Siteimprove-connector-1.0.0.taco
2. Place the .taco file under the path Documents\My Tableau Repository\Connectors on your computer. If the path doesn't exist, you will need to create it by selecting New > Folder and naming the folders accordingly.
   
   
   

Setting a flag under Tableau properties

The steps below will set a flag to disable Tableau connector signature verification. Doing that will lower the security settings and will allow Tableau to load non verified connectors. 

Note: If the .taco package is already signed you can skip this step, otherwise it’s mandatory for the connector to load correctly. 

1. Find the location of the Tableau Desktop Program shortcut.
   
   
   
   
2. Then you right click and select ‘Properties,’ to open Tableau properties panel.
3. Set the following flag at the end of the 'Target' field: “ -DDisableVerifyConnectorPluginSignature=true”
   Note: Copy only the content inside the quotation marks, instead of including them). Attention to the space between the end of the Tableau exe path and the beginning of the flag. The content of the ‘Target’ field in the end will be something like:
   "C:\Program Files\Tableau\Tableau 2023.3\bin\tableau.exe" -DDisableVerifyConnectorPluginSignature=true
   
   

Loading the connector inside Tableau and fetching data

1. Open Tableau Desktop and you will see the Siteimprove Connector listed under: Connect > To a server > More... > Installed Connectors > Siteimprove Connector by Siteimprove.
   
   
   
2. A password prompt will come up to enter your Siteimprove API Credentials. Enter your API credentials created in the Siteimprove Platform. ‘API Username’ in the ‘User name’ field and ‘API key’ in the ‘Password’ field. For how to create API keys visit: How to Connect to the-Siteimprove API.
   
   
   
   
3. Another window will appear with several options to enter to get to the data you want to fetch to be used in Tableau.
   
   Under ‘Choose a site,’ select one of your sites from the dropdown. (Note: When using the 'Advanced' option below it doesn't matter what you chose in the sites dropdown, due to the fact that the id is passed in the endpoint URL in that case.)
   
   
4. Enter the maximum number of records you want to retrieve. The value must be between 1 and 1000. (See https://developer.siteimprove.com/api-guidelines.html for more on usage guidelines which are in line with the API.)
   
5. Below the number of records there are a few different options for choosing the data you want to extract from your chosen site:
   
   
   1. Select up to 20 endpoints from the selected site: allows you to choose up to 20 endpoints to fetch data from that do not require additional parameters to be specified, such as choosing a particular page or time period. The default time period is the last 7 days.
      
      
      
      
   2. Get data from suggested endpoints: fetches data from Siteimprove’s recommended endpoints. This may require that you enter additional parameters for data extraction, such as choosing a specific period or page. You may have to fetch other data points to get to the data required to be entered into the fields under this option. See on “Common parameters that need to be entered” for help with this.
      
      
      
      
   3. Advanced: allows you to extract data from a specific endpoint using API Request URLs that have specific parameters applied as there may be more parameters available by directly inputting API Request URLs. See the section “Gathering Endpoints for the ‘Advanced’ field” for how to gather endpoints and enter them here. As the site ID is entered into the field with this step as a part of the endpoint URL it doesn't matter what you select for site in the drop down above under step 3.
      
      
6. Select the ‘Get Siteimprove data!’ button.
   
7. Wait for the request to be processed. This might take some time, depending on how much data you want to extract.
   
    
8. On the left, you will find all the tables with the Siteimprove data you opted to extract. One table is displayed per endpoint. Choose one and drag it to the top section. Then either click on ‘Update now’ or ‘Sheet1’ to see the results for that endpoint.
   
   

Usage of the Connector

User Access

The user permissions from the Siteimprove platform are tied to the API credentials entered and are carried over to this integration from the Siteimprove Platform. The connector pulls in Data from the Siteimprove Platform via the API for sites and services you have access to within the Siteimprove Platform. So if you don’t have access to something you may need to check whether you have access to what you are looking for in the Siteimprove platform as well. You can also check to see if you can access the same thing via our Siteimprove API (https://api.siteimprove.com/v2/documentation). Note that not all data in the Siteimprove Platform can be reflected in the API and connectors. 

Common parameters needed to be entered

1. site_id  - this is the Global Site ID of the site. Typically, you don’t need this as you select the site from the drop-down under ‘Choose a site’ but you may need this if you are looking for the this ID under the API. The site_id can be found by fetching the ‘General > Get Sites’ data point. 
2. group_id - the Content or Quality Assurance group_ids can be found by fetching the ‘Quality Assurance: Get quality assurance groups’ data point. Analytics group IDs can be found by fetching the ‘Analytics > Get Analytics groups’ data point.
3. page_id - you can find this by fetching the ‘Quality Assurance: Get pages from inventory’ data point. Also, this is under page reports in the platform in the page report URLs after the parameter ‘?PageId=’ or ‘?pageId=’. In the URL below the page ID is 4700037447:
   https://my2.siteimprove.com/Inspector/1087313/A11Y/Page?PageId=4700037447&impmd=E06AB9C564719B2BE6AAFF1FE0FF63EE&conf=a+aa+aria+si# 
4. filter_id - this can be found by fetching the ‘Analytics > Get available segments’ data point. 
5. period- the default time range is the last 7 days. You can set this to a different time period  under the ‘Get data from suggested endpoints’ area if there is a period field option or under the 'Advanced' area by entering the data point URL with the time period parameter. A time period can be a single date, a date range, or a predefined interval. Only full dates are allowed, not individual hours. It is recommended not to query too long of a time period as you may run into loading issues. Instead, you can query each month and add them up once the data is queried. Dates are in YYYYMMDD format only.
   1. Single date – YYYYMMDD will return data for that day.
   2. Range of dates – YYYYMMDD_YYYYMMDD will retrieve data for the period where the start and end date are both fully included. 
   3. Predefined interval- can be one of the following (case insensitive) - these intervals align with the intervals in the platform. 
      • now
      • today
      • yesterday
      • last_seven_days
      • last_week
      • last_fourteen_days
      • last_month
      • this_month
      • last_thirty_days
      • last_six_months
      • this_quarter
      • last_year
      • this_year
      • last_365_days

Gathering Endpoints for the ‘Advanced’ field

The advantage of using the advanced option is that you can pull in data using API endpoints that allow more options for parameters that can be added to get more specific data or a more specific time period of data. 

To gather the API ‘Request URLs’ you will need to locate them using the API documentation area here: https://api.siteimprove.com/v2/documentation. This requires you to enter your API credentials. Reference How to connect to the Siteimprove API for more on how to access the API and setup API credentials in the Siteimprove Platform.

Steps or how to access and navigate data under the API documentation area are below. 

1. Enter https://api.siteimprove.com/v2/documentation in your browser URL bar.
   
   
   
2. Select the ‘Authorize’ button, enter your API credentials which can be setup following this guide: How to Connect to the-Siteimprove API or found under Settings > Integrations > API > API Keys, then select the ‘Authorize’ button, then select the ‘close’ button to close out of the window.
    
   
   
3. There should be areas listed that correspond to the different areas of the platform. Locate the area you want to gather data from and select the arrow button next to the area to expand out the options below it.
   
   
   
   
4. Locate the data point you want to gather data from. It is sometimes easiest to search for the data point using the key command for ‘Find’ which is Ctrl + F (Windows) or Command + F (Mac). Unfortunately, this version of Swagger UI used for this doesn’t have a search option.
   
   
   
   
5. Select the arrow next to the data point to expand out the options under it. Note that ‘GET’ data points are for fetching data and ‘POST’ endpoints are for posting data. For this you will want to only use ‘GET’ endpoints.
6. Once expanded out you will see the Parameters available to be entered for the data point with descriptions of them. You may need to reference the section above on “Common parameters that need to be entered” to locate some of the parameters needed as you may need to fetch data from other endpoints to get the Ids and other parameters required. The endpoints are named pretty similar to the data points in Tableau. Required data parameters are marked with an asterisk and labeled ‘required.’
   
   
   
   
7. To preview the data from the endpoint or gather the ‘Request URL’ which can be used to enter into the ‘Advanced’ field in Tableau you will need to select the ‘Try it out’ button.
   
   
   
   
8. You can then enter the required parameters and then select the ‘Execute’ button to get response results.
   
   
   
   
9. You can copy what is under the ‘Request URL’ field to enter under the ‘Advanced’ field in Tableau. Like the Request URL below for example:
   https://api.eu.siteimprove.com/v2/sites/28268539130/dci/history?group_id=2951868146&page=1&page_size=10
   
   
   
   
10. Then follow the steps above under “Loading the connector inside Tableau and fetching data” to get to the field where you can enter data in the ‘Advanced’ field and paste what you copied from the 'Request URL' above into the 'Advanced' field.
    
    

Building Reports

We support the connector and data within it from the Siteimprove Platform but cannot advise on how to create reporting in the Tableau Desktop program. For that, we advise you work with someone who has expertise working with Tableau or that you consult with Tableau’s product documentation on how to use their program to create reporting. See https://www.tableau.com/learn/get-started/creator access Tableau’s documentation. 

FAQs, Tips, and Troubleshooting

1. ‘A11YNextGen’ is the Next Gen Accessibility data points and if you can see this area under the connector you are using the new connector. The old connector versions didn’t have the Next Gen accessibility data points. The ‘Accessibility’ area is the old Accessibility data. 
2. The ‘Content’ area is to be used only for Prepublish checks aka Content Checks. This is primarily used for the CMS Plugins that have the Prepublish check feature. 
3. Typically, if you are looking for data that you can see in the platform it will be named something similar in the connector. So it is best to look in the Siteimprove platform and see what the data or widget is that you want to gather data on is called then find the data with a similar name in Tableau. 
4. You can search for data points using the search box.
   
   
   
5. We don’t currently have a full list of available data points but you should be able to look at our API and generally if the data is in the API it should be in the connector. See more on how to connect to the API here: How to Connect to the-Siteimprove API. 
6. Most of the limitations and usage guidelines for data are similar to the API which are listed here: https://developer.siteimprove.com/api-guidelines.html. The limitations are per API key so you can get around the limitations a bit by creating multiple API keys, but please make sure not to make too many requests as the limitations are in place to ensure the stability of the Siteimprove Platform. 
7. It is recommended for Analytics data to gather data in smaller chunks for timeframes and then gather the data together after data is fetched.