What is the best method to manipulate a large dataset on Tableau Desktop and present on Tableau Server?

Question

What I have?

I have loaded roughly 20GBs of  CSV file into Tableau Desktop to create some worksheets for future internal views. 

What I want?

I am confused on what should I choose Extract or Live data source. The data itself will not change, only the reports or worksheets generated based on the data. The computations within the worksheets on Tableau Desktop take forever to complete.

On to the publishing to Tableau Server. I am under the assumption that I must upload my locally stored file to the server for future use. Would it be better to find a network drive to have the Tableau Server data source point to?

Additionally, I also want to know what Regex methodology does Tableau follow?

Answer 1

While publishing a workbook with a file-based data source, you can choose the Include external files option in the publishing to server dialog box. Doing this will eliminate the need to have the file in a networked location accessible by the server.

This approach only works if the data doesn't change and remains static and embedded in the workbook. Under this option, if the data changes and you want your viz to reflect changes, you would need to update the data in Desktop and republish.

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