Architecture, installation, and integration

In order to adequately understand how Tableau and R work together, it's important to grasp the big picture. To facilitate that understanding, we'll cover high-level concepts and information in this section before delving into calculated fields and R scripting details.

Architecture

The basic Tableau-to-R architecture is quite simple. Tableau pushes data to Rserve and then retrieves the results. Naturally, whether you are viewing a workbook on Tableau Desktop or via Tableau Server, if you wish to run R calculations, then Rserve must be accessible:

For a proper understanding of the R architecture, let's also look at the Tableau/R workflow. Terms used in the following diagram with which you may be unfamiliar will be discussed in this chapter:

Installation

Installing R is typically not difficult, but it does involve more than simply double-clicking on an executable. In order to successfully connect Tableau with R, you will need to make...