Thumbnail appears as "User Specific View"

Issue

When using Impersonate via Tableau Server "run as user" account or "viewer credentials", the thumbnail "User Specific View" displays instead of an actual thumbnail for views.

Environment

Tableau Server

Resolution

Option 1: Select one user to generate the thumbnail as, rather than a group

Note: For manually created user filter sets, the user selected in the Generate Thumbnails As User menu must also be explicitly included in the user filter set.

Option 2: Publish the data source separately

Follow these steps:

Create the user filter calculations.
Publish the data source.
Replace the connection in the workbook to the published data source.
Publish the workbook.

Note: The thumbnail will always be generated with the data of the user, who was signed into Tableau Server at the time the workbook was published.

Cause

By design, Tableau Desktop displays the generic "User Specific View" thumbnail when there is any ambiguity to prevent potential security leaks.

Additional Information

All users will always see the same thumbnail.

After publishing the data source, calculated fields that contain user functions, such as USERNAME(), will be converted into non-calculated fields. This is to prevent users from being able to edit the user filters. This also means that the Generate thumbnail as user option will not affect the result of published calculations containing user functions.

For more information see, Impersonate with a Run As User Account.