I recently created an external tool to PowerBI desktop that connects your Power BI desktop model to Excel (https://eriksvensen.wordpress.com/2020/07/27/powerbi-external-tool-to-connect-excel-to-the-current-pbix-file/) and then I thought – could we also have a need for an external tool that could open the desktop model in Tableau desktop.

So, I downloaded a trial version of the Tableau Desktop to see what is possible.

And sure, enough Tableau can connect to Microsoft Analysis Services and therefor also the localhost port that Power BI Desktop uses.

We can also save a data source as a local data source file in Tableau

Which gives us a file with a tds extension (Tableau Data Source)

When opening the file in Notepad we can see the connection string and some extra data about metadata-records.

It turns out that the tds file does not need all the meta data record information – so I cleaned the tds file to contain

Opening this file from the explorer will open a new Tableau Desktop file with the connection to the specified model/database/server.

The external tool

Knowing this I could create an external tool the same way as my Excel connector.

First create a PowerShell

OBS – in order to run a powershell script on your pc you need to have to set the execution policy – https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=135170

The PowerShell script

Function ET-TableauDesktopODCConnection
{  

	[CmdletBinding()]
    param
    (
        [Parameter(Mandatory = $  false)]        
		[string]
        $  port,
        [Parameter(Mandatory = $  false)]        
		[string]
        $  database,
        [Parameter(Mandatory = $  false)]        
		[string]
        $  path	
    )
    
        $  tdsXml = "<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8' ?>
<datasource formatted-name='LocalPowerBIDesktopFile' inline='true' source-platform='win' version='18.1' xmlns:user='http://www.tableausoftware.com/xml/user'>
  <document-format-change-manifest>
    <_.fcp.SchemaViewerObjectModel.true...SchemaViewerObjectModel />
  </document-format-change-manifest>
  <connection authentication='sspi' class='msolap' convert-to-extract-prompted='no' dbname='$  database' filename='' server='$  port' tablename='Model'>
</connection>
</datasource>"   
                
        #the location of the odc file to be opened
        $  tdsFile = "$  path\tableauconnector.tds"

        $  tdsXml | Out-File $  tdsFile -Force	

        Invoke-Item $  tdsFile

}

ET-TableauDesktopODCConnection -port $  args[0] -database $  args[1] -path "C:\temp"

The script simply creates a tableauconnectort.tds file and stores it in C:\temp – and the xml content in the file is dynamically referenced as arg(0) and arg(1) when the external tool is called from Power BI Desktop.

Save the script in C:\temp and call it ConnectToTableau.ps1.

The OpenInTableau.pbitool.json file

Next step was to create a pbitool.json file and store it in C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Power BI Desktop\External Tools

{
  "version": "1.0",
  "name": "Open In Tableau",
  "description": "Open connection to desktop model in Tableau ",
  "path": "C:/Windows/System32/WindowsPowerShell/v1.0/powershell.exe",
  "arguments": "C:/temp/ConnectToTableau.ps1 \"%server%\" \"%database%\"",
  "iconData": "data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAJAAAACQCAYAAADnRuK4AAAABmJLR0QA/wD/AP+gvaeTAAADRklEQVR4nO3dv27TUBiH4WPEitSRS+iCurO0GzdRiS5sXRhAXZhYEAxd2LoUiZtgaxb2iqWXwFiJCzgsqPRPrMb5Jc1x/TxbqgSi5O2xE3+uSwGAUeo2/QRac3R8cla6bvfqB7XOPr19s7e5Z9S2J5t+AoybgIgIiIiAiAiIiICICIiIgIgIiIiAiEziUMbR8cnZovetXbfTlbJ1dbuUy67W80UfP7XDHk83/QQexPVjW/fd9e7trSGPnxqbMCICItLEJqyeljrv593BivbRap0tfNdwH2hVDj58mfuanH5819R+axMBrduQHdvb80BdredT2zEewiaMiICICIiIgIgIiIiAiAiIiICICIiIgIhM4lDGEA5bDGMFIiIgIgIiIiAiAiISTbf1TRK2ZmWTjQvomyRszaomG61ARAREREBEBEREQESaOMdo7eeFjdBYzguzAhEREBHjHP/8fv/i3i8An3/+1dTmowVWICICIiIgIgIiIiAiAiIiICICIiIgIgIiIiAiSx8Lc3Xjcdk/nJ2VWv+/X103+/51dy/9d61ARAREpIlxjilPHvZpbfKwjxWIiICICIiIgIgIiEgTn8KGWmQAfiz/79gH9a1ARG7UP5arG29qBVqHZAXaP5ydDbj7Tqn16v0qXXdZSln4/eo77HFzE+bqxuNy/djW8MdulVLi98smjIiAiNzchI3w6saT1nULv18l3AfqfQrLPnCT80B2ooczD0STRvlF4jp+a/11juVYgYgIiIiAiAiIiICINPEp7Of29txPQC8vLib7qefZq29zX5M/P1439ZpYgYgIiMjSmzCnMY/LKg5bzGMFIiIgIgIiIiAiAiIiICICIiIgIgIiIiAiAiLSxDhHCwzML8cKRERARKJlu2+SsDUPOdnYN0nYmlVNNlqBiAiIiICICIiIgIg08eWZ88Lucl4YkyAgIgIiIiAiAiJinOOWdf0108fKCkREQEQERERARAREREBEBEREQEQERERARCZxKGPw1Y1v3R7y+Kkd9mgioLVPHjZwdeOhWps87GMTRkRARJrYhK1dA1c3fqxGsZ19SOaBhrEJIyIgIgIiIiAiAiIiICICIiIgIgIiIiAAAAAYjb8VJdQbiRXyOAAAAABJRU5ErkJggg=="
}

Test it

Now restart your Power BI desktop and the external tool should be visible in the ribbon

Then open a pbix file with a model and hit the button.

A PowerShell screen will shortly be visible and then Tableau opens the tds file and now we have a new tableau book with a connection to active power bi desktop datamodel.

And we can start to do visualizations that are not yet supported in Power BI –

How can you try it

You can download the files needed from my github repository – link

Feedback

Let me know what you think and if possible share some of the viz that you make.

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Erik Svensen – Blog about Power BI, Power Apps, Power Query

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