Tableau released new backgrounder.timeout.single_subscription_notify  config key as part of v2021.2. It works 10 times better than existing subscriptions.timeout. However Tableau’s documentation is not clear and not accurate. I had to talk with Tableau Dev to get things clarified. Here is how it works.

What is the difference?

Other Configurations Impacting Subscription Timeout

Two more config also impact subscription timeout. Here is how they all work together:

Min(backgrounder.querylimit, subscriptions.timeout) + backgrounder.extra_timeout_in_seconds is the total timeout per view of the subscription job. Never works for pdf subscriptions

or

Min(backgrounder.querylimit, backgrounder.timeout.single_subscription_notify) + backgrounder.extra_timeout_in_seconds is the total timeout per subscription job – no matter how many views (per user). Works for pdf subscriptions as well

Recommended settings

Re-cap:

1. backgrounder.timeout.single_subscription_notify is per subscription (all views of the workbook) timeout while the old config subscriptions.timeout  is per view time out of the workbook subscriptions.
2. backgrounder.timeout.single_subscription_notify works for pdf subscription as well while subscriptions.timeout never works for pdf subscriptions
3. Other two config impacts subscription timeout as well. Please see the above chart for the recommended settings – pls note that backgrounder.extra_timeout_in_seconds is strongly recommended to set as 0.