Sharepoint Folder Connection Refresh

[finsmaniac1551]

Hi everyone,

I am having this issue within PowerBI Desktop with some of my team members. I am building out these reports for other members of my team, the data connections are a mix of SQL and Sharepoint Folder connections. With the SQL connections, there are no issues. But with the Sharepoint Folder connections my team members are unable to refresh the report properly. They have access to the folders on my sharepoint, but when trying to refresh on PowerBI it prompts them with a sign in. I did the same sign in but was able to hit "organizational" and log myself in. When they attemp this "organizational" is not an option, but we try "Microsoft Account", it signs them in, then when they hit "Connect" it says "Unable to validate credentials". I have searched google left and right for this but have been unable to come up with a solution.

Does anyone have any suggestions or advice on how to fix this? I am almost at the point where I am just going to set up the connections all on their individual sharepoints but I have not given up just yet.

Thanks.

[v-zhengdxu-msft · Accepted solution]

Hi @finsmaniac1551 

If your organization uses Multi-Factor Authentication, it's possible that this could be causing the "Unable to validate credentials" error. Ensure that all team members have completed any required MFA prompts.

Here is the link for your reference:
Enable per-user multifactor authentication - Microsoft Entra ID | Microsoft Learn

Please try to verify SharePoint Access Permissions, double-check that all team members have the necessary permissions not just to access the SharePoint folders but also to view and refresh the data within Power BI. Sometimes, permissions set at the SharePoint level might not propagate correctly to Power BI.

If the issue persists, advise your team members to clear their internet browser cache and then sign in to Power BI with the URL to force an update of their credentials. This step ensures that any cached credentials that might have expired are refreshed.

Best Regards

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

[danextian]

Hi @finsmaniac1551 

Have you tried isolating it by just doing a sharepoint folder connection - no other data sources? Also, did you use the root folder of your own sharepoint when connecting  to it? It should be something like https://company.sharepoint.com/sites/sharepointsite/ and from there you navigate to the desired folder by filtering the folder path.

[finsmaniac1551]

Hi danextian,

I have not tried doing only the SharepointFolder connection, this is because we are trying to fully automate using SQL connections, but in some cases we still need the SharepointFolder connection. But I have narrowed it down to that connection being the issue, as we refresh one connection at a time via the Data Pane. 

I watched many videos to get the SharepointFolder connection to work, so I beleive I am using the right path. It is https://company-my.sharepoint.com/personal/user_name ..... I am thinking I may be doing something wrong with the "personal" section of the path though. This works in PowerQuery and from there I navigate to the proper folder that my team members all have access to. Yet they still cannot refresh.