Issues connecting to sharepoint - Power BI and Excel

Question

Hi,&nbsp;Hoping to get some help with an issue I am facing. I am trying to connect to a sharepoint site through Power Query in excel as I need a conslidated dataset in Excel format. However, I get a message saying "We couldn't authenticate with the credentials provided. Please try again". This is even after I have entered by credentials when prompted&nbsp;When I try the same link through Power BI desktop, I have no problems at all - everything seems to be working fine. Thinking it could be something to do with access limitations for the sharepoint site, I tested connecting to another site through Excel and didn't have any problems with it&nbsp;What could be the problem here? Hoping to get some input from the community if anyone else has faced similar issues&nbsp;Thank you&nbsp;&nbsp;

anonymous · Answer

When you entered the credentials, did you have the option to pick what level of SharePoint these credentials were being applied to? A common thing i've noticed is something the UI tries to apply the credentials to the base level of SharePoint, rather down at the site level. Naturally you are going to have security access to your site, but unlikely to have the correct access for the full SharePoint.

The box i'm talking about will be at the bottom, as a drop down. When you select it you'll see options like:

Try selecting the right level in here and see if that works

anonymous · Answer

Anonymous&nbsp;I entered the credentials as prompted but it didn't ask for any privacy levels. This is a an organisational sharepoint site and I used my work login. I did check the privacy levels as well&nbsp;And yes, I did check all the possible privacy levels that were listed. My issue is, when I try the same steps from the query editor in Power BI, it work perfectly. I haven't had issues connecting to my company's sharepoint site in the past

anonymous · Answer

So when you signed in, did you do so from "Organisational Account"? Did it look like this screen?

The drop down i'm refrerring to is the one labeled "Select which level to apply these settings to"

anonymous · Answer

Yes, thats what I did. And I tried all the different levels and still nothing. Could it be something to do with access restrictions to the site? If so, it works when I try it in Power BI

anonymous · Answer

I honestly have no idea.&nbsp; The fact it works in Power BI made me think that perhaps the steps followed in both programs had differed slightly and that was causing your problem.&nbsp; SharePoint, in my experience, is tricky to get working and there are many paths you can take to get the data, but not all of them work.&nbsp; I know in the past i've connected to SharePoint and had something working, only to later do it again for another project and have it fail.&nbsp; I could have sworn I followed the same steps but when i looked at the generated Power Query code, it looked completely different.&nbsp;I've not used Excel Power Query as much as I have Power BI, so it is entirelly possible its a quirk with that particular program that I'm simply not experienced enough with to have tripped over and had to solve.&nbsp; Perhaps the Power Query code comparision might hint at some differences to check.&nbsp; Perhaps Excel is using a different API number or something minor that is enough for SharePoint to block one but accept the other.

Forum Discussion

Issues connecting to sharepoint - Power BI and Excel

10 Replies

Related content

OData Error When Connecting to SharePoint Online

Sharepoint Connection

Connecting to sharepoint

Connecting Sharepoint Folder to PowerBI

Sharepoint Folder Connection – Access Required