OData connection fail, "DataSource.Error", trying to connect to "Projects" table from Project Online

[Camila_IB]

Hello, I have been using an OData flux for the past 6 months to be able to create Excel reports using the data we have in Project Online. It was working great and for some reason now it just stopped working.

I keep getting an error message (see screenshots in the next session) when trying to retrieve the "Projects" table specifically.

It is weird as all the other tables I am still able to retrieve the data from. I made sure to double check the authentication credentials and login with my proper Professional Account and it still gives me the error. I tried connecting to my company VPN and it made no difference. I have tried everything I could and can't find a solution. This is a huge blocking as most of our reporting uses data from Project Online.

Any ideas?

Please find below screenshots of the whole process and the error message:

Trying to retrieve the "Tasks" table works perfectly for example:

But the "Projects" table, which is essential for us, will keep giving me an error:

Any troubleshooting ideas would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you!

[v-jingzhang]

Hi @Camila_IB

Can you try using the same connector in Power BI Desktop to test connecting to the same table from Project Online? 

Project Online: connect to data through Power BI Desktop - Power BI | Microsoft Learn

Sometimes a connector works in Power BI but doesn't work in Excel. If it can be connected in Power BI Desktop, maybe it can tell us that the table is ok so we need to find the cause from other aspects. 

Best Regards,
Community Support Team _ Jing

[Camila_IB]

Hello @v-jingzhang ,

After much googling I was finally able to resolve the issue.

At the beginning of this week my team and I did a clean up of the custom project fields that we use in Project Online. Turns out that there are certain specific words that can cause issues with the OData flux, such as "Project", "Category" etc...

Basically you have to be carefully when naming the custom fields, as some words are reserved in some way:

This was the post I found that was helpful: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/project-support-blog/project-online-using-reserved-custom-fie...

I should have realised it was something to do with the fields as the issue appeared a day after we did that clean up in Project Online.

Really appreciate your help with this! Hopefully this can be useful for other people running into the same issue in the future.

Have a great day.

Best,

Camila

[Camila_IB]

Hello @v-jingzhang ,

Thank you for the quick response! Unfortunately, I have tried it with Power BI as well (which is a connection we want to use as well to be able to build dashboards and reports) and I have the exact same issue.

I am not sure what to try next. The authorizations have not changed in our Project Online WEb App website.... I have always been an Admin on the POL website and we have never had this issue before. 

Please let me know if you would have any other troubleshooting suggestions to try.

Thank you!

Best,