Troubleshooting Tableau Data Sources (tds tdsx)

Error message when trying to edit or refresh a tds or tdsx:

• Be sure the data warehouse has the schema.table.column = [dbo].SYSTEM_Date._ThisDateKey with a single row of value.

Error message when trying to edit a tds or tdsx: The drivers required to connect to the data source are not installed. Microsoft ODBC Driver Manager Data source name not found and no default driver specified. Solution tips:

• Try to connect Tableau Desktop to the MS SQL data warehouse, if you’re successful, then the problem is NOT with the Tableau driver to connect to SQL. If it fails, check security settings, and you might have to re-install the Tableau driver to connect to MS SQL.

• Do not use a tdsx.

• Be sure the tds does NOT have a hyper file associated: Open it in Tableau Desktop, right-click the data source → Extract → Remove → select Remove the extract and delete the extract file -> Ok → save the tds again and try to republish it.

• Be sure that all the tables and schemas in the tds are already mapped to the data warehouse. Edit the tds with a Notepad editor to find/replace texts as needed.

• If you’re still running into the same error message, create a new tds from scratch connecting to the desired data warehouse. Edit the tds with a Notepad text editor and compare/copy/paste the section <named-connections> etc </named-connections>. The main section to replace is the one related to the drivers and odbc-native-protocol parameters.