Tableau Public connects to four different data sources, namely Access, Excel, text file (CSV or TXT), and OData; the first two data sources are bundled with Microsoft Office (in most cases), and the second two are freely available to everyone, regardless of the operating system that they are using. Text files are the default source of origin for most of the data that we will discuss, and anyone can create and distribute them.

Tableau Public does not connect to enterprise tools such as Teradata, Oracle, or Hadoop, and it does not connect to SQL Server Management Studio, though it does connect to flat files' output from these tools and other Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) systems. SQL Server Management Studio is free for noncommercial use, and it's common to use it to design basic star schemas and clean noncommercial data. Tableau Public is free because it's assumed that people use it only for their personal endeavors and not projects that generate revenue for their employers. If this is not the case, they should upgrade to the Tableau Desktop Professional edition.