Build Facebook Visualizations in Tableau Desktop

Tableau is a visual analytics platform transforming the way businesses use data to solve problems. When paired with CData Connect Cloud, you get instant, cloud-to-cloud access to Facebook data for visualizations, dashboards, and more. This article shows how to connect to Facebook and build visualizations from Facebook data in Tableau.

CData Connect Cloud provides a pure SQL Server, cloud-to-cloud interface for Facebook, allowing you to easily build visualizations from live Facebook data in Tableau without installing connectors. As you build visualizations, Tableau generates SQL queries to gather data. Using optimized data processing out of the box, CData Connect Cloud pushes all supported SQL operations (filters, JOINs, etc) directly to Facebook, leveraging server-side processing to quickly return Facebook data.

Configure Facebook Connectivity for Tableau

Connectivity to Facebook from Tableau is made possible through CData Connect Cloud. To work with Facebook data from Tableau, we start by creating and configuring a Facebook connection.

1. Log into Connect Cloud, click Connections and click Add Connection
2. Select "Facebook" from the Add Connection panel
3. Facebook uses OAuth to authenticate. Click "Sign in" to authenticate with Facebook.
4. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Facebook Connection page and update the User-based permissions.

Add a Personal Access Token

If you are connecting from a service, application, platform, or framework that does not support OAuth authentication, you can create a Personal Access Token (PAT) to use for authentication. Best practices would dictate that you create a separate PAT for each service, to maintain granularity of access.

1. Click on your username at the top right of the Connect Cloud app and click User Profile.
2. On the User Profile page, scroll down to the Personal Access Tokens section and click Create PAT.
3. Give your PAT a name and click Create.
4. The personal access token is only visible at creation, so be sure to copy it and store it securely for future use.

With the connection configured, you are ready to connect to Facebook data from Tableau.

Visualize Live Facebook Data in Tableau

To establish a connection from Tableau Desktop to the CData Connect Cloud Virtual SQL Server API, follow these steps.

1. In Tableau Desktop, open a new book. Under To a Server, select More, then Microsoft SQL Server.
2. Enter your credentials:
   • Server: enter the Virtual SQL Server endpoint and port separated by a comma: tds.cdata.com,14333
   • Database: enter the Connection Name of the CData Connect Cloud data source you want to connect to (for example, Facebook1).
   • Authentication: select Use a specific username and password.
   • Username: enter your CData Connect Cloud username. This is displayed in the top-right corner of the CData Connect Cloud interface. For example, [email protected].
   • Password: enter the PAT you previously generated.
   • Require SSL: leave this selected.
3. Click Sign In.
4. Select the Database (Connect Cloud connection) you wish to work with and opt for a Live or Extract Connection type.
5. Select the table(s) you wish to visualize. If you select multiple tables, define the relationship between the tables using the appropriate columns.
6. Select the fields to visualize.

Real-Time Access to Facebook Data from Data Applications

At this point, you have a direct, cloud-to-cloud connection to live Facebook data from your Tableau workbook. You can create new visualizations, build dashboards, and more. For more information on gaining live access to data from more than 100 SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources from applications like Tableau, refer to our Connect Cloud page.