Skip to main content

Publish Workbook

Publishes a TWB or TWBX workbook from a local file path or staged upload id to the specified Tableau project. Use List Projects to discover project IDs.

TWB workbooks are validated up front and uploaded only when validation succeeds, with any blocking errors returned instead of publishing. TWBX workbooks are uploaded directly and validated by Tableau as part of publishing, since Tableau cannot pre-validate extracts packaged inside a TWBX.

Disabled by Default

This tool is gated behind the authoring-tools feature flag, which defaults to false in features.json. It is unavailable unless an administrator enables authoring-tools. See Feature Flags.

Minimum REST API version

Requires Tableau REST API version 3.29 or later (Tableau Server 2026.2+). Calling this tool against an older server returns an error instead of publishing.

Related tools: Request Workbook Upload, List Projects

Required permissions​

  • Site Role: Requires Explorer (Can Publish) role or higher

APIs called​

Required arguments​

name​

The name to give the published workbook.

Example: Q3 Sales Overview

projectId​

The Tableau project LUID to publish the workbook into. Use List Projects to discover available project IDs.

If this MCP server is configured with a bounded project context, publishing to a project outside that context returns an error instead of publishing.

Example: cbec32db-a4a2-4308-b5f0-4fc67322f359

One of workbookUploadId or workbookFilePath​

Exactly one of these must be provided — providing both, or neither, returns an error.

workbookUploadId​

The staged workbook upload id returned by Request Workbook Upload. Use this for hosted clients that cannot pass a local path. Requires MCP_S3_BUCKET to be configured.

Example: 123e4567-e89b-42d3-a456-426614174000

workbookFilePath​

Path to a local TWB or TWBX workbook file on the MCP server's filesystem. Only supported when staged S3 uploads are not configured (i.e. MCP_S3_BUCKET is unset).

Example: /path/to/Superstore.twbx

Optional arguments​

overwrite​

Whether to overwrite an existing workbook with the same name in the target project.

Default: false

Response behavior​

The tool returns one of two result shapes:

  • status: "published": the workbook was validated (TWB) or uploaded (TWBX) and published successfully. Includes the published workbook's data, its url, and any non-blocking warnings from validation.
  • status: "invalid": validation found blocking errors (TWB only). Nothing was published. warnings are still included alongside errors.

Example result (published)​

{
  "status": "published",
  "data": {
    "id": "222ea993-9391-4910-a167-56b3d19b4e3b",
    "name": "Q3 Sales Overview",
    "webpageUrl": "https://10ax.online.tableau.com/#/site/mcp-test/workbooks/1412200",
    "contentUrl": "Q3SalesOverview",
    "project": {
      "id": "cbec32db-a4a2-4308-b5f0-4fc67322f359",
      "name": "Marketing Analytics"
    }
  },
  "url": "https://10ax.online.tableau.com/#/site/mcp-test/views/Q3SalesOverview/Overview",
  "warnings": [
    {
      "severity": "WARNING",
      "message": "Unknown map source is used",
      "line": 245,
      "column": 18,
      "elementName": "map"
    }
  ]
}

Example result (invalid)​

{
  "status": "invalid",
  "errors": [
    {
      "severity": "ERROR",
      "message": "Unable to connect to the data source",
      "line": 12,
      "column": 4,
      "elementName": "preferences"
    }
  ],
  "warnings": []
}