Tableau Lesson 59 – Tableau Public | Dataplexa

Section IV — Lesson 59

Tableau Public

Tableau Public is the free, web-based platform where anyone can publish interactive dashboards visible to the world. It is widely used for journalism, portfolio building, and data storytelling. This lesson covers what Tableau Public is, how to publish safely, how to build a strong portfolio, and how to embed dashboards anywhere on the web.

Tableau Public vs Tableau Cloud vs Tableau Server

Before publishing, it is important to understand which platform you are on — the privacy rules are completely different.

Platform	Who Can See It	Cost	Best For
Tableau Public	Everyone on the internet	Free	Portfolios, journalism, public data stories
Tableau Cloud	Invited users only	Paid — per user / per creator	Business dashboards, team reporting
Tableau Server	Invited users / behind firewall	Paid — self-hosted licence	Enterprise, on-premise security requirements

⚠ Critical privacy rule

Everything you publish to Tableau Public — including the underlying data — is publicly accessible. Anyone can download the workbook and see every row of your dataset. Never publish data containing personal information, confidential business figures, client names, or anything your organisation has not approved for public release. Use only public datasets or fully anonymised data on Tableau Public.

Creating a Tableau Public Account

Go to public.tableau.com → Create your free account with an email address. Your profile page becomes your public portfolio page — choose a professional username as it appears in all your published URLs.

Download Tableau Public Desktop — the free version of Tableau Desktop locked to Tableau Public publishing. It has the same core feature set as Tableau Desktop but cannot save locally (workbooks must be saved to Tableau Public) and cannot connect to live databases (file-based sources only).

Complete your profile: add a photo, bio (mention your role, interests, and the types of data you visualise), and links to LinkedIn or GitHub. A complete profile is the single biggest factor in whether viewers follow you or move on.

Publishing a Workbook to Tableau Public

In Tableau Public Desktop: File → Save to Tableau Public. Sign in with your Tableau Public credentials. Give the workbook a clear, descriptive title — this becomes the URL slug and the title shown on your profile page.

After publishing, the workbook opens in your browser on Tableau Public. Click Edit Details to add a description, tags, and a thumbnail image. Good tags make your work discoverable in Tableau Public's search and on the Viz of the Day feed.

Control download permissions: on your Tableau Public profile → Edit Workbook → uncheck Allow others to download if you do not want viewers to be able to download the workbook. Note: this hides the download button but the underlying data remains technically accessible — never rely on this setting alone for data privacy.

To update a published workbook: make changes in Tableau Public Desktop → File → Save to Tableau Public → select the existing workbook name → overwrite. The URL and embed code stay the same — anyone who has already embedded or linked to it sees the updated version automatically.

Tableau Public profile page — annotated layout

Embedding Dashboards on Websites

Every Tableau Public workbook has an embed code. Paste it into any HTML page and the fully interactive dashboard appears inline — viewers can filter, hover, and click without leaving your site.

Tableau Public embed code — standard iframe

<div class='tableauPlaceholder' style='width:800px;height:600px;'>
  <object class='tableauViz' width='800' height='600'>
    <param name='host_url' value='https://public.tableau.com/' />
    <param name='embed_code_version' value='3' />
    <param name='name' value='YourWorkbookName/DashboardSheetName' />
    <param name='tabs' value='no' />
    <param name='toolbar' value='yes' />
  </object>
</div>
<script src='https://public.tableau.com/javascripts/api/viz_v1.js'></script>

Copy this from the Share button on any Tableau Public viz page → Copy Embed Code. Change tabs to 'yes' to show sheet tabs, or 'no' to hide them. Change toolbar to 'no' to hide the Tableau toolbar for a cleaner embed.

Responsive embed — scales to container width

<div class='tableauPlaceholder' style='width:100%;padding-bottom:75%;position:relative;'>
  <object class='tableauViz' style='position:absolute;width:100%;height:100%;'>
    <param name='host_url' value='https://public.tableau.com/' />
    <param name='embed_code_version' value='3' />
    <param name='name' value='YourWorkbookName/DashboardSheetName' />
    <param name='tabs' value='no' />
    <param name='toolbar' value='yes' />
  </object>
</div>
<script src='https://public.tableau.com/javascripts/api/viz_v1.js'></script>

The padding-bottom:75% trick (4:3 aspect ratio) makes the embed scale fluidly. For widescreen dashboards use padding-bottom:56.25% (16:9). Always test the embed on mobile — Tableau dashboards with fixed layouts may need a separate mobile-optimised layout.

Building a Strong Portfolio

Tableau Public profiles are reviewed by hiring managers as part of data analyst interviews. A well-curated portfolio of 8–12 vizzes covering different chart types, industries, and techniques is more impressive than 50 rushed ones.

Choose data that tells a story

Pick topics you genuinely find interesting — sport, climate, public health, economics. Curiosity produces better work than obligation. Avoid generic Superstore examples: every data analyst has one. Show original thinking with a dataset nobody else has visualised.

Show a range of techniques

Include at least one map, one time series, one distribution chart (histogram or box plot), one LOD or table calculation, and one dashboard with actions. This signals technical breadth. A portfolio of 12 bar charts — even beautiful ones — does not demonstrate range.

Write a clear description for every viz

Use the description field on Tableau Public to explain what the data is, what you found, and what technique you used. Three to four sentences is enough. Hiring managers read these — a viz with no description looks unfinished.

Use consistent visual style

Pick one or two font families and a consistent colour palette across your portfolio. Viewers should recognise your work immediately. A coherent aesthetic signals design maturity — it shows you think about the viewer, not just the data.

Good Public Data Sources for Portfolios

Source	Type of Data	URL
Our World in Data	Global health, economics, climate — long time series, high quality	ourworldindata.org
Kaggle Datasets	Wide variety — sport, finance, crime, retail, NLP	kaggle.com/datasets
UK Government Open Data	NHS, transport, crime, planning, education — official statistics	data.gov.uk
World Bank Open Data	Country-level economic and development indicators	data.worldbank.org
FiveThirtyEight Data	Sport, politics, polling — clean, well-documented CSVs on GitHub	github.com/fivethirtyeight/data

Tableau Public Limitations

No live database connections

Tableau Public Desktop connects only to file-based sources — CSV, Excel, Google Sheets, PDF, Spatial files. It cannot connect to SQL databases, Snowflake, Salesforce, or any server-based source. For live database work, you need Tableau Desktop (paid) with Tableau Cloud publishing.

10 GB storage limit per account

Each Tableau Public account has a 10 GB storage limit across all published workbooks. This is generous for most portfolios — large data issues typically come from connecting to bloated Excel files. Keep datasets lean by filtering before publishing.

Cannot save locally

Tableau Public Desktop does not have a local save option — File → Save goes directly to Tableau Public. Work-in-progress is always public once saved. Workaround: if you have Tableau Desktop, build the workbook locally and publish only when ready. If you only have Tableau Public Desktop, keep draft vizzes in a private project by setting them to unlisted (not visible on your profile but accessible via direct link).

No row-level security or access control

There is no way to restrict who sees a published viz on Tableau Public beyond hiding it from your profile. If data privacy matters, Tableau Public is the wrong platform — use Tableau Cloud or Server with proper access controls.

📌 Teacher's Note

Tableau Public profiles are one of the most direct ways to get noticed as a data analyst. A profile with 8 well-crafted, clearly described vizzes showing a range of techniques will make a stronger impression than a two-page CV. Start building it before you need it — the community feedback, Viz of the Day nominations, and follower count all take time to grow. Publish something every two to four weeks and your profile becomes a living record of your progress.

Practice Questions

1. A colleague wants to publish a customer sales dashboard to Tableau Public so the team can view it. Why is this a problem and what platform should they use instead?

2. How do you embed a Tableau Public dashboard into a website, and what change makes it scale responsively on different screen sizes?

3. A student asks what makes a Tableau Public portfolio stand out to a hiring manager. What are the key qualities of a strong portfolio?

Next up — Lesson 60: Tableau Capstone Project — bringing together every skill from the course in one end-to-end project: data preparation, advanced calculations, geospatial analysis, and a fully polished multi-dashboard story.

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