Migration & Upgrade6% of the exam
Backwards compatibility across Tableau versions
How workbooks, data sources, extracts and Prep flows behave when Tableau Desktop, Tableau Prep Builder and Tableau Server run different versions: publishing and downloading rules, downgrading workbooks, Prep Conductor's incompatible-feature behaviour, and the Prep version-number format before 2022.3.
5.4 Understand backwards compatibility
~7 min read · 6 practice questions
What the exam expects
- Predict whether a workbook or data source can be published, downloaded and opened when Desktop and Server versions differ.
- Downgrade a workbook with Export As Version, a versioned download or publication-time downgrade, and know what downgrading removes.
- Explain what an older Desktop can do with a data source published on a newer Server.
- Predict what happens to a Prep flow whose features the Server does not support.
- Read Prep Builder and Desktop version numbers from before and after the 2022.3 alignment.
Key terms:
- Release upgrade: a new major version such as 2022.1 or 2022.3; compatibility issues usually arise between these, not between maintenance releases.
- Maintenance release: a numbered update inside a release, such as the first fix release after 2022.1.
- Downgrade: saving a workbook for an older Tableau version; features the older version lacks are removed.
- Export As Version: the Desktop File menu command that downgrades a workbook.
- Tableau Prep Conductor: the Data Management capability that schedules and runs flows on Tableau Server.
Key facts
Publish direction
- Detail
- Server same or newer than Desktop
Downloaded workbook version
- Detail
- Version where it was last edited
Web edit and save
- Detail
- Updates the workbook to the Server's version
Older Desktop, newer published source
- Detail
- Usable; fields needing newer features unavailable
Publication-time downgrade
- Detail
- Workbooks only; data sources not downgraded
Earliest downgrade target
- Detail
- Tableau Desktop 10.5
Downgraded calculations
- Detail
- Functions missing in the target must be corrected or removed manually
Incompatible flow on Server
- Detail
- Publishes; cannot run, be scheduled or be added to a task
Prep Conductor minimum
- Detail
- Tableau Server 2019.1, enabled
Version numbering
- Detail
- Prep aligned with Desktop and Server starting 2022.3
- When do compatibility issues usually arise between Tableau products?
- Why do flows authored in Tableau Server's web editor avoid server version conflicts?
- What must be true of a Tableau Server before it can schedule Prep flows?
- Which Prep Builder release first flagged incompatible features with alerts while you build a flow?
The questions are free to read. Answers with their sources and self-grading are included with the pack.
Keep reading with the Tableau Server Administrator pack
- Core concepts
- Exam traps
- Worked scenario
The pack includes:
- All 34 lessons of the Tableau Server Administrator guide, with reading progress
- Interactive decision walks and step-by-step sequence steppers
- Practice exams purchase adds inline bank questions and topic practice (6 questions for this lesson)
- An official source cited for every claim
- An AI tutor that answers from the guide
- Choose guide-only, practice-only, or save $4 with both