Tableau and R connectivity using Rserve

Rserve is a server that allows applications to access R functionality. It allows you to use a series of functions to pass R expressions to an Rserve server and obtain a result.

If you upload a workbook that contains R functionality to the Tableau server, then the Tableau server must have a connection to an Rserve server. See R Connection, in the Tableau Desktop help, for details.

R is not supported for Tableau Reader or Tableau Online.

In this section, we will install, run, and configure Rserve.

Installing Rserve

To install and run Rserve, follow these steps:

1. Open RStudio and go to the Install Packages tab on the interface.
2. In the Packages textbox, type Rserve and click OK.
3. Rserve will install, and you will see the output messages in the RStudio Console. When it is finished, you will see the chevron again.
4. Now, open Control Panel on the server, and search for environment variable in the search box.
5. Click on the Edit the System Environment Variables option.
6. Add a new variable to the PATH variable path. Add the directory containing R.dll to your path environment variable. For example, C:\Program Files\R\R-3.0.2\bin\x64.
7. You should see the new path in the Edit Environment Variable window. You can see a sample image here:
   
8. Click OK.

Let's check that Rserve is running properly:

In RStudio, let's call Rserve by running the following command in the RStudio Console:

library(Rserve)

Configuring an Rserve Connection

To configure an Rserve connection, follow these steps:

1. On the Help menu in Tableau Desktop, choose Settings and Performance | Manage R Connection to open the Rserve connection dialog box.
2. Enter or select a server name using a domain name or an IP address.
3. Specify a port (Port 6311) is the default port for Rserve servers.
4. If the server requires credentials, specify a username and password.
5. Click Test Connection.
6. Click OK.