Introducing the Tableau Workbook Explorer tool (Guest Blog Post from Łukasz Holc & Kasia Gąsiewska-Holc)
This guest blog post comes from one of our regular contributors, Kasia Gąsiewska-Holc- Senior BI Analyst at EcoVadis, Tableau Public Ambassador and data viz enthusiast based in Poland. This time, however, she’s teaming up with someone new to the Tableau world and #datafam: her husband, Łukasz Holc, a software architect and the mastermind behind the Tableau Workbook Explorer tool featured in this post. Kasia shared the wishlist, Łukasz brought it to life.
Kasia and Łukasz are both based in Gdynia, where they combine their strengths in data and software development to explore creative solutions for the Tableau community.
Note that the following blog post includes several animated GIFs. Use the browser window to zoom in to see them more closely.
When Tableau Gets Complicated
Tableau offers powerful capabilities for transforming data through complex calculations. This flexibility is great, it allows you to perform many transformations directly in Tableau without modifying the original data sources. The result? Data tailored to your visualization needs.
However, with great power comes great responsibility. Over time, your workbook may accumulate more calculated fields than actual source fields. Calculations can reference other calculations, forming a tangled web of dependencies that becomes difficult to understand or maintain. That’s where the Tableau Workbook Explorer comes in.
What is the Tableau Workbook Explorer?
Tableau Workbook Explorer is a free, web-based tool designed to help you explore and understand the fields within your Tableau project.
How does it work?
Simply upload your .twb file to the site, and it will parse the structure of the workbook locally on your computer. Nothing is uploaded to any server. In fact, once the page is loaded, you can even turn off your internet connection.
Core Functionalities
Browse and Search All Fields
The tool reads almost all fields within the workbook, including source fields, parameters, and most importantly, calculated fields. It then analyzes the content of those calculations and builds a map of their dependencies. You can then explore the list of all fields, search for some specific ones, filter by types.
Inspect Field Details
Click on any field to see its details: the formula, data type, and usage information. This is especially handy for finding unused or hidden fields you may have forgotten about.
Check Field References
Avoid frustrating surprises when deleting a field. Tableau Workbook Explorer shows you where each field is referenced, so you can understand the full impact of your changes before making them.
Visualize Field Dependencies
See how fields are connected through a visual diagram of dependencies. This makes it much easier to grasp complex logic or to get up to speed when working with someone else’s workbook.
Limitations & Known Issues
No software is perfect, and .twb files are notoriously complex. To make this tool work, several assumptions had to be made, and compatibility with all .twb files cannot be guaranteed. Many quirks and edge cases have already been encountered in the wild. If you run into issues, feel free to contact the author (Łukasz Holc) via GitHub and provide a problematic file, he’s open to fixing and improving the tool.
Some known limitations include:
Workbooks with pivoted tables are not yet supported, mainly due to their complexity. However, if there’s enough interest, the author may consider adding support in the future.
Graphical dependency diagrams are one-directional for now. You can see which fields are used by a calculation, but not which calculations use it. That said, the “References” tab can help you track this information manually. Again, with enough community interest, this feature could be expanded.
We hope you find this free tool useful! Thank you for checking it out!
Kasia Gąsiewska-Holc & Łukasz Holc
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