Connecting to Files Hosted on SharePoint Online or Office 365

Published: 04 Aug 2016
Last Modified Date: 08 Jul 2022

Question

How to connect to files hosted on SharePoint Online or Office 365.

Environment

Tableau Server
Tableau Desktop
Excel
CSV
SharePoint Online
Office 365

Answer

To connect to a file stored in a SharePoint list, try one of the following workarounds. In both scenarios, you can connect to the file and publish an extract. You will not have the ability to schedule a refresh.

Option 1

Sync the file locally with Microsoft OneDrive and the connect using Tableau Desktop. For more information, see Sync SharePoint files with the new OneDrive sync client at Microsoft support.

Option 2

Use the WWWDav address of the document library to map a network drive. For more information, see How to configure and to troubleshoot mapped network drives that connect to SharePoint Online sites in Office 365 at Microsoft support.

Option 3

A third option, which would allow an extract refresh, is to create a SharePoint list based on your spreadsheet. see Create a list based on a spreadsheet at Microsoft Support.

Additional Information

Tableau has the ability to connect to a SharePoint list using the built-in connector. This will pull in SharePoint Metadata from the list.
For example:

"Calendar" list will have metadata - Subject, Start date, End Date, Attendees, etc.
"Document Library" list will have metadata - File Name, Upload Date, Modified Date, Modified by, etc

For more information on connecting to a SharePoint list, see SharePoint Lists.

However, connecting to a file stored in a Document Library, which is also a SharePoint list, is not currently supported. To voice your support for the inclusion of this feature request in a future product release, add your vote to the following Community Idea: MS Office 365 Connectivity.

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