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Setting up and running Tableau MCP with Claude

Tableau MCP (Model Context Protocol) lets you integrate large language models directly into Tableau. I am looking to use Claude to assist me as an AI QA engineer to check the work of report builders.

Visit https://github.com/tableau/tableau-mcp

Install GIT on your machine, so you can run bash scripts.

cd C:\<<YOUR_PATH>>
git clone https://github.com/tableau/tableau-mcp.git
cd tableau-mcp

Install and build your environment

npm install
npm run build

Obtain your Personal Access Token from Tableau

Open a file called “config.stdio.json”. It should look like the following:

Copy this file and save as “config.json”

Obtain your server name, site name, PAT_NAME and PAT_VALUE.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "tableau": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["build/index.js"],
      "env": {
        "TRANSPORT": "stdio",
        "SERVER": "https://yourtableauserver.online.tableau.com",
        "SITE_NAME": "",
        "PAT_NAME": "",
        "PAT_VALUE": "",
        "DATASOURCE_CREDENTIALS": "",
        "DEFAULT_LOG_LEVEL": "debug",
        "INCLUDE_TOOLS": "",
        "EXCLUDE_TOOLS": "",
        "MAX_RESULT_LIMIT": "",
        "DISABLE_QUERY_DATASOURCE_FILTER_VALIDATION": ""
      }
    }
  }
}

Test to confirm a successful connection

npm run inspect

The key data point you need is at the bottom. Take that URL and the port number and paste into your browser

This MCP server has its own inspector framework to test and explore your MCP. This article is for setup and configuration of Claude on Tableau MCP, but we will dig deeper into MCP Inspector in the future.

Open Claude

Open File > Developer

Click “Open Convig”

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "tableau": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["C:\\Users\\RyanGoodman\\code\\tableau-mcp\\build\\index.js"],
      "env": {
        "TRANSPORT": "stdio",
        "SERVER": "your-tableau-server-url",
        "SITE_NAME": "your-site-name",
        "PAT_NAME": "your-pat-name",
        "PAT_VALUE": "your-pat-value",
        "DEFAULT_LOG_LEVEL": "debug"
      }
    }
  }
}

Restart Claude

e File > Settings

Go back to the Developer tab