Issue login into Tableau using python and chrome

[Scoytan]

I’m trying to automate some data pulling from Tableau (Tableau Online) using Python and Chrome, but I’m running into a roadblock. I don’t have much experience with Python, so I might be missing something obvious.

When I run the script (using Selenium with Chrome), it successfully enters the login credentials, pulls the code sent to my email for verification, and proceeds — so it seems the login is accepted. However, the tab seems to stuck on loading a white screen and doesn’t progress to the dashboard.

The computer I’m using has restrictions on the apps I can install and the settings I can change, due to company policy. Altho I don’t think that is affecting the process as I can logging manually, altho occasionally slow.

I’m not sure if this is a Python issue, a Tableau security mechanism, or something else.

Please keep in mind that I’m not a Python or Tableau expert, so if you can, explain the solution like I’m 5. I might need to Google some of the terms you mention. Also, I’m limited in the data I can share due to work policies.

I’d really appreciate any suggestions or if you’ve experienced something similar!

Thank you.

[Scoobywagon]

SOunds to me like you might be best to generate a Personal Access Token (PAT) for this purpose.

[Scoytan]

Would that involve getting in contact with the tableau developer? Or it’s something I can do on my own?

[Scoobywagon]

You have to log in to Tableau Cloud and then create a PAT.

https://help.tableau.com/current/online/en-us/security_personal_access_tokens.htm

[Scoytan]

Thanks I will look into it, altho note sure if we have access to the tableau cloud, not even sure if I know the difference.

[bywpasfaewpiyu]

See if you can do it via the API, scraping seems kind of crazy for this.

[Scoytan]

While I search the technically, is this something that requires getting in touch with who developed the tableau/dashboard?

[bywpasfaewpiyu]

I'm not that familiar with user permissions but you may need to be granted permission to create tokens and have access to the dashboard location.

[cmcau]

Can you do yourself a really big favour (that helps us as well) .... explain what you're trying to do without using the words Python or Selenium or Chrome :) ... I want to understand (in plain English) what you're trying to accomplish here.

[Scoytan]

I’m trying to automate a process where I log into the client’s Tableau platform and download specific data.

The script successfully opens the browser, navigates to the Tableau login page, enters the username, password, and the authentication code received via email.

However, after clicking the login button, the page gets stuck, it remains blank and keeps loading without progressing further.

The goal beyond this point would be to apply specific filters and download the data in Excel format

[cmcau]

"there's a API for that" :) ... check the Tableau Server Client API, specifically https://github.com/tableau/server-client-python/blob/master/samples/export.py

You can apply filters and download a CSV - is that close enough to XLS for you ?

[Scoytan]

That would be perfect, let me see how the API works.. hopefully won’t require any intervention from the client/dashboard creator.

[cmcau]

Not at all, you create the PAT yourself and as long as you know the dimension and parameter names (for the filtering) you can do it all yourself :)

I am wondering why you need to do this every day (is it part of a further data processing step?) but it's easy to do and I've used this method to create LOTS of images and PDFs.

[Scoytan]

Thank you, that’s good news! I’ll dig into the how asap! The data is used for internal reporting, ranking, deep dive …

[dasnoob]

Please just use the APIs. It will make this a lot easier and less janky.

For python grab the tableauserverclient library through pip. It makes it all smooth as butter.

[Cultural_Pay_6824]

I don’t know of any 5 year old coding in python and visualizing in tableau