Tag: TabPy authentication

TabPy Heroku Deployment with Authentication Enabled

Since Analytics Extensions for Tableau Online were announced (read Analytics Extensions are Available with Tableau Online! on this blog and https://www.tableau.com/about/blog/2021/1/developers-analytics-extensions-tableau-online on Developer Platform news) there were a lot of interest and questions from people who want to try the new feature. And in many cases those who want to investigate using Python or any other analytics extension don’t have it configured and running yet.

Previously TabPy repo on github (https://github.com/tableau/TabPy) provided Deploy to Heroku button which allows to deploy TabPy in just a few clicks. However, deployed new instance won’t have authentication configured. And having both authentication and SSL is a requirement for analytics extensions to be able for using by Tableau Online.

With the latest improvement now you can specify user name and password for the instance:

Now the instance requires credentials which can be configured for a connections as shown in Analytics Extensions are Available with Tableau Online! post.

Another approach described in TabPy + Heroku = Tableau Online post and is useful for when you need to create your own flavor of TabPy – not only you can specify multiple users, but also can configure any other parameters. This approach requires a bit more work but gives a lot of flexibility in configuring TabPy for you needs. And with your own modifications you can deploy your own version of TabPy on Heroku the same way just in a few clicks.

TabPy v2.2.0 Released

TabPy version 2.2.0 is released:

To install or update to the latest version as usual run

pip install --upgrade tabpy

The release includes fixes for authentication:

  • Fixed bug for scripts with tabpy.query(...) calls for when authentication is configured for TabPy.
  • Fixed bug for TabPy reporting 500 error instead of 401 when it runs without the attached console.
  • Improved authentication security (this is breaking change) – now TabPy returns authentication error when credentials are provided, but it is not configured for it.

Additional reads:

TabPy v1.1.0 released

TabPy version 1.1.0 is released: package – https://pypi.org/project/tabpy/, release on GitHub – https://github.com/tableau/TabPy/releases/tag/1.1.0.

You can update your TabPy with the following command (you’ll need to stop all running TabPy instances first):

pip install --upgrade tabpy

New release main improvement is for /info method (https://tableau.github.io/TabPy/docs/server-rest.html#get-info) – now it checks for credentials to be provided if TabPy is configured for authentication. The improvement won’t affect any older Tableau Desktop or Tableau Server versions which already had support for TabPy authentication.

For how to configure authentication for TabPy read How to configure TabPy with authentication and use it in Tableau.

Invoking TabPy API with Postman

TabPy server provides REST API which can be used outside of Tableau (e.g. for debugging purposes), more detail about it can be found here:

At the moment TabPy only supports API v1, but new versions with added or different functionality are possible in the future.

Additionally, read Using Python in Tableau Calculations for how parameters and data are passed to TabPy.

You can call the API from the command line using curl or similar tool, e.g.:

c:\Users\TabPyUser>curl -X POST http://my-tabpy-server:9004/evaluate -d "{\"data\":{\"_arg1\":[1, 2, 3],\"_arg2\":[3, -1, 5]},\"script\":\"return [x + y for x, y in zip(_arg1, _arg2)]\"}"
[4, 1, 8]

But as you can see it is a lot of typing, hard to read and impossible to see if anything is wrong in the address, headers, request body and so on.

Postman is the tool created just for the purpose of invoking REST API. And TabPy has Postman file in the repository with all the supported methods.

Install Postman, download https://github.com/tableau/TabPy/blob/master/misc/TabPy.postman_collection.json file in it and you have UI ready for making TabPy calls:

After loading the file open TabPy collection and click on a method you want to exercise. Replace {{endpoint}} variable with your TabPy server name and port or define the variable to reuse it and click Send button.

Note some methods are GET and some are POST – for POST methods you can specify request body as shown on the screenshot above.

If your TabPy is configured for secure connection simply use https:// instead of http:// in the URL.

In case TabPy is configured with authentication (read how to configure TabPy authentication at https://github.com/tableau/TabPy/blob/master/docs/server-config.md#authentication) use Auth tab for request as shown at screenshot below.

Note TabPy only supports Basic Auth method at the moment as specified on TabPy Authentication page.