Connecting to Google Sheet and Google Drive Data Source

Issue

Unable to connect to Google Sheets or other Google Drive files.

Environment

Tableau Desktop
Tableau Server

Resolution

Google Sheets

To connect to Google Sheets data sources, use the native connector in Tableau Desktop. For more information, see Tableau Desktop Product Help: Google Sheets.

Google Drive

To connect to other Google Drive files, use the Web Data Connector to create a custom connection. For more information, see Web Data Connector.

Cause

The ability to connect directly to Google Drive data sources is not currently built into Tableau Desktop.

Additional Information

For more information about Web Data Connector, see Tableau Community: Web Data Connector in the Community Forums.

A live connection to the Google Sheets will result in a prompt for the Google Sheets username and password when opening the workbook even when the workbook is shared with a recipient to view with Tableau Reader - with the exception of when the user already is signed into the same Google account on the same computer being used to view the workbook.

When a Tableau Desktop workbook is connected to a data extract of the Google Sheets data source, opening the workbook does not require a Google log-in - unless the data extract is refreshed.

To share a workbook with an extract from a Google Sheets data source for the data to be refreshed, publishing the extract to Tableau Server and sharing with Tableau Server account users is an option for Tableau Server users.