Connecting R with Tableau

For connecting R with Tableau, there are various steps, Please find the steps below.

The main reason the write up is that to note down the steps since we are not so techie guys, most of the times we just want the job done… so I believe I have captured the points at detailed level.

Manage R connection in the tableau helps to connect the R, you can connect the LocalHost in it. But the local host cannot be connect straight forward, you should be having a web server to have local host running…

I don’t want to complicate further, we need to install a web server, now you can install Python which has very easy way to publish the HTTP server.

Once the Python installed, the following command helps to run the Localhost web server but you need to do the following to run the command.

1. Suppose your Python installation path is 'c:\Python27'

Then open windows command line and enter  path = %path%;c:\Python27;

Now we have added the Python installation path to the Path variable so that now we can invoke the python commands easily.

2. As we going to invoke localhost, we need to create a directory which will be published and all the files in the folder will be accessible if we type the 'http://127.0.0.1:8000/' in the browser

Therefore just create a sample directory like C:\sampledirectory

3. In the windows command prompt, go that folder

c:\sampledirectory> python -m Simple HTTPServer

4. Congrats you have started the localhost as a web service, you will get the following message

Serving HTTP on 0.0.0.0 port 8000 …

5. Now all the files in the folder will be accessible if we type the following address in the browser

http://127.0.0.1:8000/

6. Now we would need install following package in the R Studio

install.packages("Rserve")

7. Then you would need to execute the following commands such as

>Library(Rserve)

> Rserve()

Starting Rserve...

 "c:\Users\aa\My Documents\R\win-library\3.1\Rserve\libs\x64\Rserve.exe" 

8. In the tableau, select 'Manage R connection' in the Help -> Settings and Performance

Enter a server name of “Localhost” (or “127.0.0.1”) and a port of “6311” and uncheck the authentication option