Tableau file types and extensions
You can generate quite a few file types when using Tableau. This post looks at all the different file extensions you can save your work in, what they contain, why you would use them and how they are generated
Tableau Workbook (.twb)
This file type is probably the most common that you will see and create when working with Tableau. It is in XML format (try editing it in a text editor) and contains all the information on each sheet and dashboard that is contained within your workbook. Information such as what fields are being used in each view and how measures are being aggregated, the formatting and styles applied and any other setup you’ve made to a sheet or dashboard (e.g. whether a quick filter is shown). It also includes data source connection information and any metadata you have created for that connection (see more on this below under .tds).
To create a .twb file, from Tableau Desktop, select File > Save
Tableau Packaged Workbook (.twbx)
Whilst a Tableau Workbook (.twb) as described above holds all the information Tableau requires to draw your viz, it does not include the data itself. A Packaged Workbook however, combines the information in a workbook and bundles it with any local data – i.e. data that is not on a server. You can think of it as a zip file, and indeed if you rename the .twbx file as a .zip you can open it with windows to see the .twb and the corresponding data files. A .twbx will also include any custom images, as well as any custom geocoding you may have used in your work.
The primary reason you would save your work as a Packaged Workbook is so that you can share it with other Tableau Desktop users, or for others to open using Tableau Reader.
To create a .twbx file, from Tableau Desktop, select File > Save As and then select the .twbx option from the dropdown menu at the bottom of the Save As dialogue box
Tableau Datasource (.tds)
When you connect to your data for the fist time, you may have a little bit of data ‘modelling’ to do – setting the right data types, changing default aggregations, setting default colours, creating some custom calculated fields etc etc. You are giving Tableau information about the data you will be using – you are setting up its ‘metadata’. When you want to connect to this data again, you don’t want to really go through all this data modelling a second time so instead you can save your metadata as a .tds file (again, it is saved in XML format) and connect to your data though this file instead. You could also distribute this file so that your colleagues have access to the nice formatting and custom fields you have worked to set up.
Tableau is clever enough to pick up new columns/fields in the data source if they appear and column ordering does not matter but if column names change or disappear completely, you will need to reconfigure.
To create a .tds file, from Tableau Desktop, right click on your data source connection and select Add to Saved Data Sources. Alternatively you can publish the .tds to Tableau Server by right clicking and selecting Publish to Server instead