Automatically Hide Your Vizzes When Publishing to Tableau Public

Automatically Hide Your Vizzes When Publishing to Tableau Public

When publishing a visualization to Tableau Public, it is key that you understand how information about that viz is shared with your followers.  Publishing a viz then immediately hiding it does not do the trick, there is much more to it. 

When you publish a viz to Tableau Public, the default setting is to publish as a “viewable” visualization.  As soon as you publish a viz, it shows up in the Activity Feed for all your followers to see (the activity feed is at the top / right of your Tableau Public page).

Even if you publish your viz then go and immediately hide it, that viz will remain in the activity feed for all your followers to see, open, interact, and even favorite.  Once a viz has been published as a viewable viz, the only way to remove it from the activity feed is to delete the viz from your page. 

Correcting this problem is very simple, yet many people are not aware of how to do it.   Click on your account icon at the top / right next to the activity feed and choose Settings.

This will bring up a new window.  The second option that shows (under Defaults) is “When Saving…set my vizzes to hidden”.  Check that box and save your changes.

Now when you publish a visualization to Tableau Public, it will be published automatically as a hidden viz.  This means it will NOT show up in the activity feed and nobody can see it.  When you are ready, then you can go to the actual visualization and unhide it by clicking the eye icon in the top / right corner.  At this point, your visualization will be unhidden and will show in the activity feed.

Okay, that was just a quick blog post to help you avoid accidentally publishing an unfinished work.  I hope it helps!

Kevin Flerlage, July 16, 2019 | Twitter | LinkedIn | Tableau Public