Configure the Splunk ODBC driver to work with Tableau Desktop

Configure the Splunk ODBC Driver to get Splunk data into Tableau Desktop.

To access Splunk Enterprise data from Tableau, ensure you've installed the version of the Splunk ODBC Driver that corresponds to the architecture version of your Tableau install. That is, install the 32-bit version of the Splunk ODBC Driver if you're running 32-bit Tableau, and install the 64-bit version of the Splunk ODBC Driver if you're running 64-bit Tableau.

Connect Tableau to Splunk Enterprise

1. Open a new workbook in Tableau Desktop.
2. Under To a server in the Connect menu, click Splunk.
3. In the Connect to Data panel, scroll to the bottom and click Splunk.
4. In the Splunk Connection window, enter a server URL and login credentials, and then click Sign In. Be sure to prepend the URL with https://.
   
5. Once Tableau has connected to Splunk, choose a table from the list that appears. (Each table corresponds to a saved search, or report in Splunk Enterprise.)
6. Give the connection a name, and then click OK.
7. Drag the saved searches you want from the list of Saved Search list into the Drag tables here.
8. Click Update Now to fetch the data.

Filter support limitations

Using filters in Tableau is equivalent to creating subsearches in Splunk Enterprise. The more subsearches that you create, the more performance drags are possible. Using Tableau to create Splunk Enterprise searches obscures the actual search commands that the Splunk ODBC Driver translates from SQL.

Creating multiple dimension filters using Tableau might have a performance impact, especially when working with a large set of results. There is a limit to how many results will be returned by subsearch and how long a subsearch can take. See About subsearches for more information.

Splunk recommends that, for better performance, you push as much filtering as you can into the saved search itself within Splunk Enterprise rather than implementing extensive filtering in Tableau.