Power BI On Premises Data Gateway and SharePoint On Premises with FBA authentication enabled issue

[ksnehankita]

Hi all,

I have an issue when i try to connect my SharePoint on premises web application with Power BI Pro using On premise gateway (pesonal mode). It gives me the following error

"Failed to update data source credentials: The credentials provided for the SharePoint source are invalid."

My web application is configured with Forms based authentication + Windows authentication, which I suspect is causing the issue. Any other sharepoint on premise application gets readily connected with Power BI through gateway.

Also, I am able to connect to any on premise application using Power BI desktop as it gives me a log in page while connecting to data source.

Does Power BI not support connection to a sharepoint site with mixed authentication?

[Anonymous]

@ksnehankita,

I am afraid that it doesn't support refreshing SharePoint data source with mixed authentication using gateway as you describe. You would need to use Windows authentication.

Regarding to the issue that supports SharePoint mixed authentication in Power BI gateway, you can submit a feature request in Power BI ideas forum.

Regards,

Lydia

[ksnehankita]

Thank you Lydia, this was helpful.

I have extended my existing web application (mixed authentication) and configured the extended one with windows authentication only. I am now able to connect through gateway with the new url.

[Anonymous]

@ksnehankita,

Glad to hear the issue is solved.

Regards,
Lydia

[Anonymous]

Hi @ksnehankita 

I am facing same issue now. I am trying to connect to on premises SharePoint site,which is configured with Forms based authentication + Windows authentication from PowerBI desktop.

Can someone help me on these.

[ksnehankita]

hi @Anonymous ,

Power BI does not support data refresh for Sharepoint sites with mixed authentication. In my case, as I have mentioned before, I extended my existing web application in central admin and configured only windows authentication on it. Through Power BI desktop and gateway, I now connect to this new url that points to the extended web application using windows credentials. This is the only work-around possible.

Regards,

Sneha

[Anonymous]

Hi @ksnehankita  Its actually client's sharepoint site. So I don't have access to change anything on Sharepoint site. Is there any other alternative to pull the data from SharePoint site into PowerBI desktop.

[ksnehankita]

@Anonymous 

Well, I have been using the same approach for two of my applications and I am not aware of any other alternative. As a Sharepoint developer, I can tell you that on-premise site configured with FBA do not work as expected with native applications like power bi desktop, word, excel etc. So for example, you can't even connect to sharepoint list (site configured with FBA) through microsoft excel. I have in past raise this issue with Microsoft support team, and the conclusion after numerous discussions was that the feature is not supported if you have FBA configured.

You can try and search for other alternatives by posting in more forums. And, in the meanwhile you can get in touch with your Client Sharepoint Team and discuss the issue. Extending web application is not a tedious or time cosuming task but it all depends on the protocol your client follows.

Regards,

Sneha

[Anonymous]

Hi @ksnehankita Thanks for your reply.

Sure, will followup with SharePoint team once.