Connect to Excel file in SharePoint library using Service Principal

Hi sujaza,

Thank you for reaching out to Microsoft Fabric Community.

Power bi UI does not natively support Service Principal authentication for SharePoint Excel file connections, even though it works in power shell. This could be due to some mismatch in authentication methods or insufficient API permissions.:

• Since you have the necessary permissions to the service principal and able to access both SharePoint and power bi services, ensure that these permissions have been explicitly granted admin consent.
• Reconnect the excel file in the desktop, use SharePoint Folder not Web Connector, for authentication to work properly in the power bi service UI and enter the root SharePoint site URL, not the full file URL.
• Reconfigure the service principal credentials, after publishing the report to the power bi service, go to the dataset settings and update the data source credentials to use the service principal authentication.
• Even if the service principal has access to the site, ensure it has explicit Read access to the document library

Since the power shell refresh works and the service principal is correctly configured, but the issue here is power bi service UI does not support Web Connector authentication with service principals. By using the SharePoint Folder instead of Web Connector ensures a proper authentication.

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Thanks and regards,

Anjan Kumar Chippa