# The Spotfire® Service for Python

The Spotfire® Service for Python extends access to the Python language from the installed Spotfire client to Spotfire web client users.

The Spotfire® Service for Python provides predictive and computational detail to users who access Spotfire analyses through the Spotfire web client.
Note: In Spotfire 14.5 and later, the Spotfire Service for Python is required if you want web client users to be able to use built-in data functions from the Spotfire Data Science application. Because some of the calculations in the built-in data functions can take some time to finish, you might also need to adjust the engine timeout settings for the service in this case.

The Spotfire Service for Python is provided to Spotfire® Server administrators as a set of Spotfire SPK packages in one SDN distribution file. Spotfire Server administrators can install and configure the Spotfire Service for Python on a node manager that is available to the Spotfire Server.

This document is meant for Spotfire Server administrators who need to install and configure the Spotfire Service for Python, to install Python packages for data functions and analyses that use them, and to review logs and troubleshoot the Spotfire Service for Python.