Send an email from a Tableau dashboard using a dashboard Action and Mailto.
Firstly, to be clear, this article is about how to send an email FROM a Tableau dashboard.
To send an email OF a Tableau dashboard use Tableau Server Subscriptions. Subscriptions send an image of the entire dashboard, which also acts as a link to the dashboard. It’s possible to add custom text to Tableau subscription emails, set a time for when to send, and not to send the email if the dashboard is empty.
However, back to the subject of sending from the dashboard…
How to send an email from a Tableau dashboard
There are cases where the dashboard user wants to send an email based on the information available on the dashboard.
For example, you may have a table showing a list of employees with a list of their tasks. Perhaps informing the employee is a manual decision, meaning an automated subscription won’t work.
Instead a better option would be for someone, a supervisor perhaps, to decide when to inform the employee.
If the employee should receive an email, the decision maker can click the name on the dashboard and the email will send.
Use Actions and Mailto to send emails from Tableau
Using a Tableau URL action makes it simple to send an email (assuming you’re using a client such as Outlook) directly from a Tableau workbook or the Tableau server.
Set up the Tableau URL Action to trigger on Menu. This forces the user to make a deliberate decision to send the email.
In the URL field enter:
mailto:[Email Address]?subject=Your Email Subject&body=Your message text
The Email Address, Subject and Body can all come from fields in your Tableau data source. It is possible to add fields from the data source to the URL field, making your email text fully customisable.
Any value in square brackets are data source fields.
Can we also make attachments with this method? Our requirement is to add the current view of the dashboard as an attachment to the mail before sending it.
Using “out of the box” functionality, a subscription is the closest you can get to sending a view of the dashboard. However, this isn’t an attachment. To send an attachment in an email means using a 3rd party software plugged into your Tableau Server or writing some code using the Tableau API or tabcmd.
this Mailto feature is not able to open the mailing application if the character limit is more than 2000, is there a workaround ?
I’ve not heard of this issue before, so not sure of any workarounds. If you find one, please add to these comments!