A quick proof of concept to allow Tableau 9.1+ to connect to AWS CloudWatch and retrieve statistics for visualization within Tableau.
- Clone repository to a web server directory (devd may be used for local testing)
- From Tableau 9.1+, select Web Data Connector as a data source
- Enter the url to your web server plus
/cloudwatch.html(e.g.http://localhost:8000/cloudwatch.html) - Enter the AWS credentials and select your region
- Enter the details of the desired metric
- Select
Get the Data
To query a metric without a dimension, leave the dimension name and value fields blank.
The use of AWS API credentials is required. While care is taken to use Tableau standard functions for protecting username and passwords, it is possible to use these same functions to store your credentials in the Tableau data connection. This may not be what you want!
Using an IAM account with access restricted to just retrieving CloudWatch
metrics (IAM permission Cloudwatch:GetMetricStatistics is highly
recommended. Certainly never use an account with administrative credentials
for this connector.
- Multiple dimensions are not supported
- Form styling is functional, but very minimal
- Error handling is minimal
- Thanks to @hrbrmstr for pointers to:
- the nifty youmightnotneedjquery.com site.
- the super useful devd cross-platform development web server
- Style elements lifted from the Google Sheets connector by Tableau.