How to Add Last Database Refresh Date to Dashboard?

Tableau has a built-in refresh date that describes when the view was last refreshed and can be easily added to a dashboard. But this doesn’t help us to find when the source data was last refreshed. For example if we want to know whether any sales data for today been loaded yet? or Is everything in the dashboard up-to-date? What if our data load process got delayed? we cannot answer these type of questions using Tableau refresh date.

To over come these situations we can build our own data refresh data using a custom SQL data connection and source date filed to update when the data has been last loaded.

Step 1 – Create a Custom Connection and “Last Database refresh Date” Field

we need to create a new custom data connection. Open a Tableau workbook and create a new data connection.select to add a ‘New Custom SQL’. Add a SQL statement to get the max date from your table.

Step 2 – Format the Date

Drag the refresh date from your new data connection on the left onto the columns card.Right click on the newly added field in columns and select to make it an attribute.

Step3: Use it in Dashboard

Now you can use the formatted date field in your dashboard.