User Discovery is an administrator‑run process that builds a per‑site map of your Tableau users (email → Tableau username) which Rapid BI Catalog uses to resolve identities. The discovered usernames also appear in User Management. Sites that use Direct Trust rely on this map to identify users, matched on email.
When is this needed?
User Discovery is required for sites that use Direct Trust. Sites that use OAuth 2.0 Trust derive identity from the user's SSO sign‑in automatically and do not depend on discovery.
Cloud vs Server
- Tableau Cloud — discovery uses the environment's Tableau Cloud Manager (TCM) admin token to list the tenant's users (expanded to per‑site membership). The server must be able to reach
cloudmanager.tableau.com(see the Egress Allowlist). - Tableau Server — discovery uses the environment's server administrator token to enumerate sites and list users per site.
Running discovery
Rapid BI Catalog runs discovery automatically every day (by default around 03:00, server time) so your user map stays current. Administrators can also run it on demand at any time with the Refresh control in User Management — for example, right after adding users in Tableau. Rapid BI Catalog records the status of each run — when it last ran, how many users were found, and how many were skipped for a missing email.
Dependency: run before Direct Trust users process
Run User Discovery before Direct Trust users can process
A user who has not been discovered for a Direct Trust site cannot be identified to Tableau and will see an "identity not discovered" error. Also remember that users must be explicit members of the Tableau site — users with only implicit access are not discovered.
Next Steps
- Understand Direct Trust identity: Tableau Connected Apps
- Configure environments: BI Server Configuration
- View discovered users: User Management