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Get a clear overview of your business with the Tableau analytics platform on the big screen
As the world’s leading analytics platform, Tableau is a big player in the problem-solving industry. Providing key insights through their visual analytics platform, they can empower you and your business to make critical changes and use your data intelligently.
With such a detailed and easy-to-use dashboard to help you see and analyze your data, it only makes sense to play to Tableau’s strengths and present the insights it gives you on the big screen, in front of the key players that can make decisions based on those insights.
This is where your digital signage comes into play, allowing you to set up screens in front of the teams that need to make use of the data, rescuing it from behind pesky logins and creating a more collaborative and effective environment for your business.
Tableau & Fugo TV Dashboards
Fugo’s new TV Dashboards feature allows for smart, easy, and - most importantly - secure integration with your Tableau dashboards. It allows for you to make full use of your Tableau dashboards and display them on workplace screens without having to risk your privacy by creating a publicly accessible URL, or by storing your login credentials on an insecure player that can be taken out of the office or remotely accessed, revealing your details.
Fugo handles all of your encryption and access on a private and secure Cloud server, which means you can rest easy in the knowledge that your data is safe and sound, and won’t be intercepted by people sniffing around your network. This makes Fugo one of the most secure digital signage platforms available for integration with third-party dashboards.
Let's dive in!
Best practices for using Tableau with Fugo
Before we start the walkthrough for connecting your Tableau account and displaying your dashboards on your digital signage screens, let’s go over a few best practices for connecting a third-party service with Fugo CMS:
1. Create a service account:
To ensure the utmost security for your sensitive data, we recommend setting up a 'least privileged' service account in your Tableau account. This typically means using an account with read-only permissions for the dashboards you want to display.
Using a service account not only enhances security but also prevents potential interruptions in your account like unexpected logouts or excessive security notifications. Additionally, full-access user accounts often come with associated phone numbers, which gets in the way of Fugo's authorization process.
You can read more about how to set up a service account with Google here.
2. Have your dashboard URL(s) handy
Because Fugo is going to record & repeat the steps you take to access your dashboard, we want to eliminate any unnecessary steps in the process that will slow Fugo down when accessing your dashboard, such as starting from the homepage of your platform and navigating to your chosen dashboard.
You'll need the URL of your specific dashboard that you want to display on screen ready when you start the process of capturing it with Fugo. Copy that URL and have it ready to paste into Fugo's dashboards step recorder.
TV Dashboard setup instructions
Get your secret key from your SSO or MFA login provider
For Fugo to access your Tableau dashboard in a secure, stable way, you'll require a Secret Key from your login service provider to input during your dashboard configuration.
This Secret Key is an alphanumeric code that essentially allows Fugo to act as a trusted user to access your dashboard.
The Secret Key that you generate from following the appropriate 2FA instructions from the options below will be used later in the dashboard setup process (for the sake of this guide, step 14).
How you'll get your secret key depends on how you log into Tableau:
I log in with SSO
If you use SSO to log into Tableau, you'll get your secret key from your provider.
Below are the currently supported providers with links to our instructions for getting the Secret Key from them:
I don't log in with SSO
If you don't use an SSO service like Google or Microsoft to log into Tableau, or if your Tableau account uses Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA), then you'll get your Secret Key by setting up a Time-based One Time Password (TOTP) authenticator app for your Tableau service account.
For setting up MFA with Tableau, check out our handy video 👇 and instructions below.
1. In Tableau, navigate to Users.
2. Select the service account user you created, and then select Authentication from the dropdown under Actions.
3. Choose Tableau with MFA as your authentication method.
4. Now sign back into your Tableau account.
5. When registering a verification method, choose One-Time Password Generator.
6. Now, you'll need to get the secret key from an authenticator app. When prompted to connect an authenticator app, choose I Can't Scan the QR Code.
7. Copy the secret key and paste it somewhere where you can easily access it - you'll need it again later.
8. Now, you'll need to get a verification code from an authenticator app. We're using Step Two on our desktop here, but any app (such as Google authenticator on your phone) can be used as well.
In your authenticator app, enter the secret key you generated in the previous step and the email address of your service account.
Doing this will generate a verification code.
9. Enter the verification code back into Tableau.
🔑 Paste the secret key in Fugo later
Now that you have the Secret Key from your Tableau account, you'll be prompted to enter it later as shown in step 14 of the next section so that Fugo can securely authenticate with your Tableau account.
Configure your Tableau dashboard in Fugo
With your secret key saved, you're ready to connect your dashboard in Fugo!
💡 Note: If you want to see your dashboard on screen at the end of configuration, make sure it's connected to Fugo CMS. If you haven’t connected your screen(s) yet, you can find the instructions for your preferred device in our hardware collection.
1. Click Dashboards in the top navigation bar to go to your Dashboard library. If you have not created any dashboards yet, this page will be empty.
Click Create Dashboard to get started.
2. This will launch the New Dashboard window.
3. First, you’ll need to enter the URL of your Tableau dashboard in the URL field and click Open Dashboard
4. If you're creating a TV Dashboard for the first time, you'll be prompted to configure your Chrome browser to allow our recorder extension to run in incognito mode.
If you’ve done this before you can skip to step 11.
5. First, you'll need to install the Fugo Dashboard Recorder Chrome Extension.
6. This will open the Chrome Web Store in a separate tab. Click Add to Chrome to install the extension.
7. Go back to your tab with Fugo CMS. You will see a little blue checkmark on this step once you complete it.
8. Now you'll need to enable the extension to run in Incognito mode. Click Enable Allow In Incognito.
💡 Note that skipping this step will likely cause the TV Dashboards feature to break, so we don't recommend opting to skip it.
If you do have to skip it, make sure to logout from your dashboard before starting the recording process.
9. This will open the Extensions manager. Toggle on the Allow in Incognito option.
10. Back in your tab with Fugo CMS, you'll see both blue checkmarks now completed. Click Continue.
11. A pop-up window with our recorder will appear and prompt you to log into Tableau. Enter your login credentials as you normally would.
12. Enter the verification code generated from your authenticator app.
13. Once you’re signed in to your service, your dashboard will load. It's at this point that you'll instruct Fugo how to take the screenshot of your data. You have three options:
Option 1: Capture Dashboard
Clicking Capture Dashboard will take a full screenshot of everything inside your URL.
Option 2: Element Eraser
Use the Eraser tool to get rid of certain elements on your dashboard that you don't want crowding your screenshot, like a navigation bar or toolbar.
💡 Make sure to hit Finish Erasing when you're done.
Option 3: Element Screenshot
Use the Element Screenshot tool to take a screenshot of isolated elements, such as particular charts or graphs, that you want to display.
💡 You have to be a bit careful when selecting an element of the page with this tool: it might not always be intuitive. We are still working on a better way to implement capturing dashboard elements in the future. If this is a priority for you, please get in touch with us at support@fugo.ai.
If the element capture feature isn't working with your dashboard, don't worry - you can always use the cropping tool in the Design Studio to achieve the same isolation of the element. Check out how here.
14. The recorder will now close & take you back to the Dashboard page.
It's at this point that you'll need to enter the Secret Key (discussed in the previous MFA section) into Fugo.
Depending on your login method, you'll either be prompted to input the secret key into a pop up window:
Or, you'll see the red prompt Enter secret key under the Pass 2-Factor Authorization step in the Recorded Steps panel.
Click this and enter the secret key that you generated from your login provider.
15. You’ll see a “loading” screen while Fugo runs through your steps (logged in the right-hand panel) and captures a preview of your dashboard.
It can take some time depending on how many steps were involved - so don’t sweat it if it takes a minute or two!
Once it appears, ensure that it looks the way you’d expect.
❗Note: If you find that the Recorder can’t log in, ensure that your email and password are correct. If you can see on the Recorder that your password is being entered into the email field, select the 'edit' pencil icon next to the “enter password” step, and then select the cog icon.
Delete everything in the field that appears, other than “#password”.
❗Note: Tableau displays popup notifications when you log in. Because you’re going through incognito mode, it doesn’t remember that you’ve chosen to hide these popups, and the recorder can sometimes have trouble dealing with these.
If you’re finding that the recorder is getting trapped by the popups, please click the pencil icon next to the “click x” step, then select the cog icon.
Delete everything in this field, and enter “.walkme-action-close”.
16. If it all looks good, you can go ahead and publish it, or save it for later using the Publish or Save buttons in the bottom right corner.
You can publish it directly by choosing a screen, screen group, channel, or playlist to publish to.
Check out our collection on Playlists to learn more about how publishing works.
If you're not happy with how the dashboard rendered, read on to discover how you can customize the look of your dashboard with Fugo's design tools or troubleshoot some common issues.
Advanced dashboard settings & troubleshooting
In order to help your dashboards connect & display correctly, you'll find a few helpful settings in your dashboard's Advanced Settings tab:
Pause: Tell Fugo how many seconds to wait before taking the screenshot of your capture. This is helpful if your dashboards is slow to load & you frequently see loaders in your screenshots.
Scroll: Tell Fugo what Pixel length to scroll to on screen. This is helpful if you have particularly long dashboards that get cut off at the bottom of the screen.
Memory: Some memory intensive dashboards will need to be captured on a higher memory server in order to run & display successfully. If you're noticing that the system is failing to capture your dashboard, try setting this option to High.
Re-use cookies: Because some platforms flag multiple authentication requests as suspicious, you may start to notice that your dashboard is not being accessed & captured. To help make sure this doesn't happen, we recommend toggling on the Re-use cookies setting so Fugo can re-use the cookies from the first authentication request.
Help! My dashboard preview is showing a blank screenshot
If you've followed all the steps to capture your dashboard, but the preview is still coming up blank, it's possible that there is a parameter of your dashboard URL preventing Fugo from capturing a screenshot of your dashboard.
Often times, this may be attributed to the parameter ?:embed=yes which can be added to a dashboard URL to remove portions of the Tableau UI (such as the navigation bar or tool bar) from appearing and to isolate only the data visuals in the viewport.
If it's the case that your dashboard is failing because of this embed text in your URL, you may encounter this error in Fugo CMS:
Error: Execution context was destroyed, most likely because of a navigation.
☝️ Note: this error may also appear if your dashboard is behind a firewall that Fugo can't access.
To troubleshoot this, we recommend starting fresh with a New Dashboard in Fugo, then pasting the dashboard URL into the URL field with the ?:embed=yes text omitted from the URL.
Help! My dashboard screenshot isn't updating
If your dashboard screenshot doesn't appear to be updating, first double check that it's published to an active screen.
A dashboard screenshot won't be updated unless it's published to a screen that's currently active. In essence, we don't capture dashboards that aren't being viewed - this helps us keep our service efficient.
Here's how to check:
1. Click on the Playlists tab of your dashboard
2. If it's published to a playlist, it will be listed here.
3. Click on the playlist to open it in the playlist builder. Double check that the screen it's published to is listed as Active.
If your dashboard is published to an active screen but still isn't updating, reach out to us at support@fugo.ai or via our chat box.
Customizing your dashboard display in the Design Studio
Cropping your dashboard
Not all dashboards are necessarily screen ready or "screen friendly" as we say at Fugo. Some may be quite long, have several small elements that aren't visible from a distance, or overwhelm the viewer with too much data at once.
You can use the cropping tool in Fugo's Design Studio to crop dashboards into more digestible pieces or otherwise satisfy your requirement for displaying it nicely on screen.
Here's how:
1. Add your dashboard to the canvas on your slide from the Dashboards library in the left hand panel.
2. We suggest zooming out a bit to give you more space to work with when cropping. There is a zoom setting in the top navigation bar, and you can also use the trackpad on your laptop to zoom in & out.
3. Select the crop icon from the top tool bar.
This will reveal two crop box outlines around your dashboard that enable different cropping functions.
The blue crop box can be used to crop out elements of your dashboard & set the frame for the image:
The purple crop box can be used to stretch and shrink your dashboard image and move it around to set its position within the frame:
Cropping is a great way to make your dashboards more digestible on screen without reconfiguring them or saving new dashboard views inside your data platform!
Check out the slideshow we created, showcasing each cropped chart individually 👇
Customizing your dashboard display
You can use any content source or setting available inside the Design Studio to further customize your dashboard display!
Just a few ideas are:
Add your company logo to your dashboard slides:
💡 Hint: You can easily upload your company logo to Fugo from right inside the Design Studio! Just drag and drop it onto your canvas or into Uploads in the left hand settings panel.
Incorporate other apps & integrations into the display, such as the World Clock app or CNN app to grab attention with live updating headlines:
💡 Hint: Each app can be configured in the settings panel that appears when you select the app. In our example above ☝️ we've cropped the World Clock app and given it a transparent background to better fit into the display. We've also added the CNN app at the bottom of the canvas and set its colors to match our brand.
Add QR codes to your display to create calls to action for your colleagues pertaining to your dashboards or workflows:
Add text boxes with important messages, reminders, or requests pertaining to your dashboards or data initiatives:
💡 Hint: You can easily create scrolling ticker texts using the animation settings in the left hand panel. Just make sure set the width of your text box to match the dimensions of the screen you'd like it to crawl (in our example above ☝️ we fit our text box to the width of our screen.)
Tableau dashboard design tips
It’s all very well and good to log in to Tableau and view your dashboards on your laptop or computer screen, but there are a few extra things to bear in mind when you’re displaying a dashboard on a TV or another screen for a group of people.
The people viewing and using this data will usually be sat much further away and probably won’t have direct control over what they’re looking at, which means you’ll have to make some changes to help them make the best of what they’re seeing.
Here are a few tips to help you make the most of your Tableau dashboards displaying on your digital signage:
Keep it simple. While Tableau dashboards can be made to be complicated and very impressive, it’s not always advantageous to make them as in-depth as possible. You’ll want to round your numbers and use a clear and predictable layout.
Decide your key metrics. When you’re looking at something as complex as a business analytics dashboard, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. It’s even easier to get overwhelmed if you’re sat across the room from the screen, and need to be able to use the information available on the screen. To help with this issue, make sure you only show the elements critical to the team that will be viewing your screen.
Be easy on the eyes. Too many bright or clashing colors can make it difficult to focus on the data and the insights that your signage is giving you. Make sure you consider the fonts and colors you’re using, and try to limit yourself to three or four colors if possible. It’s also key to consider the contrast between text and the background; you’ll want to ensure that everything on your dashboard is legible from a distance.
Hierarchy at a glance. You can use fonts, font sizes and colors to convey hierarchy and help to guide your viewers’ eyes easily and naturally around your dashboard, as well as conveying which metrics are the most important to keep an eye on at a glance. Your team will thank you!
Here’s a handy guide from the experts at Tableau on delivering insights with their platform.
Need more help?
Did this guide answer all of your questions? If not, or if you have any feedback for us, feel free to drop our support team an email at support@fugo.ai - we're always happy to help out.
You can also book in a dashboard support call with our engineering team here if you need some help getting this feature set up.
Happy publishing!