Request Workbook Upload

Creates a short-lived staged upload URL for a Tableau TWB or TWBX workbook. Upload the workbook bytes to the returned URL, then call Publish Workbook with the returned workbookUploadId.

This tool exists for hosted MCP clients that cannot pass a local file path on the MCP server's filesystem — the client uploads workbook bytes directly to S3 using the presigned URL, and hands Tableau MCP only the resulting workbookUploadId. Local MCP servers that can read a file path directly can skip this tool and pass workbookFilePath to Publish Workbook instead.

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.

Requires S3 configuration

This tool requires MCP_S3_BUCKET (and related S3 settings) to be configured. It returns an error if staged uploads are not configured, and it is not available when the caller is authenticated via Passthrough auth.

Related tools: Publish Workbook

Required permissions

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

Required arguments

fileName

The name of the Tableau workbook file to upload. Must end in .twb or .twbx.

Example: Superstore.twbx

Response behavior

The tool returns a presigned S3 PUT URL and an opaque workbookUploadId. Upload the raw workbook bytes to uploadUrl with the given requiredHeaders before expiresAt, then pass workbookUploadId to Publish Workbook. The upload is not visible to Tableau until publish-workbook is called — this tool only stages the bytes.

Example result

{
  "workbookUploadId": "123e4567-e89b-42d3-a456-426614174000",
  "uploadUrl": "https://s3.example.com/signed-put",
  "expiresAt": "2026-08-12T18:05:00.000Z",
  "maxSizeBytes": 5000000000,
  "requiredHeaders": {
    "Content-Type": "application/octet-stream"
  }
}