Connection from Power BI Desktop to SQL Analysis Services - is there any way to provide credentials?

[pejohnson]

Hello,

     I'm starting to work with Power BI Desktop and have a situation where I'd like to host a model on a Analysis Services development server that is not joined to a domain.  I did a bit of research and the documentation seems to indicate that Power BI Desktop will always connect to an Analysis Services database using the Windows credentials of the currently logged in user.   Is there any way to instead provide credentials when an end user connects and/or configure impersonation of a local machine account when connecting from Power BI Desktop to Azure Analysis Services?  Thanks in advance. 

[v-yinliw-msft]

Hi @pejohnson ,

Sorry about that.

As far as I know, for security reason, you should use Windows credentials to connect to AAS, it is by design.

Hope this helps you.

Best Regards,

Community Support Team _Yinliw

If this post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly.

[pejohnson · Accepted solution]

If it helps anyone, I was able to set up the Analysis Server with an HTTP endpoint as described at Configure HTTP Access to Analysis Services on IIS 8.0 | Microsoft Learn, and then created Windows credentials on each user's local machine with the HTTP endpoint and credentials of a Windows login on the server that was part of the Analysis Service's database Reader role

[v-yinliw-msft]

Hi @pejohnson ,

If you solve your question, please accept your answer as a solution to help other people know it easily.

Best Regards,

Community Support Team _Yinliw

[pejohnson]

Thanks for your reply.  I understand that it requires a Windows login, but I was hoping that you could specify the credentials of the user logging in.  For example, I have an Excel workbook with a PowerPivot that connects to my SQL Analysis Services instance, in the workbook connection properties I can specify credentials for a local Windows user that has the Reader role.  I was hoping that Power BI Desktop would also allow you to configure credentials in the connection properties.