Shortly after joining Tableau, one of the Tableau Server performance tips I picked up was to avoid using the Show Sheets as Tabs option when publishing a workbook. I never understood quite why, but the idea seemed logical – using this option somehow made Server process “more stuff”, I guessed.
Yesterday I found out exactly why, and I thought I’d pass this information along in case you, dear reader, were also interested.
Anyhoo, when Show Sheets as Tabs is de-selected, Tableau Server only retrieves and processes a specific worksheet (or worksheets) from the repository when a report is rendered. If you keep this option turned on, Tableau Server must grab the entire workbook from the repository and do it’s magic – more heavy lifting is going on in this scenario, much of it potentially unnecessary.
