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Subscriptions and Output

A subscription e-mails Tableau users, groups or addresses when a scheduled run of a task or chain produces output, fails or recovers, with a link to the output, the first rows in the e-mail, or the data as a CSV or Excel attachment.

Subscriptions are for the people who use the data. Owner and operator e-mail is set per task; see Notifications.

How it works

  1. A scheduled or catch-up run of the task or chain ends. Runs started with Run or Run Now do not send subscription e-mail.
  2. The Flow Scheduler classifies the outcome: output produced, output failed, or recovery after a Tableau outage. An "output produced" e-mail is sent only when the run wrote rows or its row count is unknown (setting subscriptions.require.output).
  3. For each active subscription on that task and output step, it resolves the recipients at send time: Tableau groups are expanded to their members (up to subscriptions.group.expansion.max) and each user's e-mail address is read from Tableau.
  4. If the subscription includes data, the MetaMiner Server (MMS) exports the output step's data from Tableau at send time and attaches it, or puts the first rows in the e-mail body.
  5. The e-mail goes through the same store-and-retry delivery as notifications. See Notifications.

Output data is never stored

The data is fetched when the e-mail is sent and is not kept. One export is shared by all subscriptions on the same output of the same run.

Subscriptions do not depend on notifications.enabled: they are sent while task notifications are off.

Before you begin

  • SMTP is configured in MetaMiner Administrator (MMA) under Preferences > Settings > Email.
  • Subscriptions are enabled for the environment (see Environment settings).
  • Attachments and row previews need Tableau Server 2024.2 or later.
  • The flow has a task or chain on a schedule. See Tasks.

Steps

  1. Open the flow and choose the Subscriptions tab.
  2. Click + Add subscription.
  3. In Task / schedule, pick the task or chain whose runs trigger the e-mail. Keep Subscription enabled selected.
  4. On Recipients, open Add recipients, search for users or groups or type an e-mail address, and add each result.
  5. On Subject & Body, optionally enter a subject and a message. An empty subject gives a default subject for the event.
  6. On Output, choose:
    • Chain step (chains only) and Output step.
    • Link: a link to the flow output on Tableau.
    • The row preview option, to show the first rows of the output in the e-mail body.
    • Attachment: the data as Comma-separated values (.csv) or Microsoft Excel file (.xlsx).
  7. Click Create.

Send history

History on a subscription opens "Send history", filtered by All, Output produced, Output failed or Recovery notice. Each entry shows its delivery state:

State Meaning
Resolving audience Recipients are being read from Tableau
Pending Waiting to be sent
Sent · N recipients Delivered
Partial · x/y Some recipients accepted so far
Retrying (attempt N) Temporary failure; it will try again
Failed · N rejected Rejected by the mail server
Suppressed (reason) Not sent, with the reason

Open an entry to see its Delivered, Failed and Not sent recipients, and View message.

Environment settings

Flow Scheduler admins set these in the web interface on Admin > Settings > General, card Flow subscriptions:

Setting Effect
Subscriptions enabled for this environment Clear it to pause all subscription e-mail from this environment
Allow data attachments Clear it to remove attachments and row previews; e-mails then carry the link only
Max attachment size (MB) 1-100, default 25. Larger files are not attached.

Service-wide limits are set in MMA under Tools > FSS Configuration... > Properties: subscriptions.attachment.max.bytes (the smaller of this and the environment value applies) and subscriptions.attachment.review.threshold.bytes (a larger file is not attached; the e-mail carries the link and a note). See Configuration Reference.

Large outputs

On Tableau Server versions before 2026.1, MMS predicts the size of an export from the output's row count and field lengths before it asks Tableau for the data:

  • If the predicted export is larger than the limit set by flowscheduler.output.vds.max.answer.mb (an MMS setting; see Configuration Reference), or the file would be larger than the attachment limit, MMS does not export it. The e-mail is sent without the attachment, and its note gives the predicted size and the limit. A row preview still comes from a sample of rows.
  • If the field lengths cannot be read, a fixed limit on rows times columns applies instead.

Tableau Server 2026.1 and later streams the export, so this prediction is not used.

Columns appear in the order of the output's data source. If the export fails or times out (notifications.mms.output.read-timeout.ms), the e-mail is sent without the data and says why.

Import subscribers from Tableau

When importing tasks, Flow Scheduler admins can import each flow's Tableau subscribers as subscriptions; Sync subscriptions repeats this later. See Import Tasks from Tableau.

Suspension notices

When a task or chain is disabled automatically after repeated failures, its subscribers get an e-mail that it was suspended, with its last failures (subscriptions.suspension.history.count) and a link to resume it.

All subscriptions

Flow Scheduler admins see every subscription of the environment, or of All environments, on Admin > Subscriptions, with Enable..., Disable..., Delete..., Download CSV and Download XLSX.

Verify

  • After the next scheduled run, History shows "Sent · N recipients".
  • The attachment opens and its columns match the output.

Troubleshooting

Subscribers get a link but no attachment

The file was over an attachment or export limit, attachments are off for the environment, the Tableau Server is older than 2024.2, or the export timed out. The note in the e-mail says which.

Nobody received the success e-mail

The run reported zero rows written, or it was started with Run or Run Now. Subscriptions send only for scheduled and catch-up runs, and skip "output produced" e-mail for a run that wrote zero rows.

A group member did not receive the e-mail

Groups are expanded at send time, up to subscriptions.group.expansion.max members. Check the member's e-mail address in Tableau.

Next steps