Power Query Error

[mopetkewi]

I teach a large undergraduate class and I am allowing my student to use Power Query on their MACs.  Many of them have this type of error when they try to connect to their data source.  I have checked that their excel file is in fact where the path is pointing but the error remains.

Most of the students have been able to connect to an excel file at one point but then later run into this issue.   Any suggestions?

Access to the path '/Users/xxxxxxxxxx/Downloads/DataForPractice Activity.xlsx' is denied. 

[foodd]

Hello @mopetkewi ,  It seems you haven't received any feedback or updates regarding your question or a status update. If you've already resolved your issue, could you please share the solution with the forum so that others may benefit? Also, if possible, please mark that post as a solution. Thank you!

Issues

If you have found a true bug or issue, you can make a post to the forum to let others know (and that would be very nice of you to do so). But if you want to get it fixed, you should post it in the Issues/Ideas (it varies) area of the community. Specifically, you should post it here:

Power BI - https://community.powerbi.com/t5/Issues/idb-p/Issues
PowerAutomate - https://powerusers.microsoft.com/t5/I-Found-A-Bug/bd-p/BugFound
PowerApps - https://ideas.powerapps.com


Ideas

If you have a new idea for functionality or how something should work, you can certainly start a thread on the community to solicit feedback on your idea, but you should also post the idea in the ideas section of the website and solicit others to vote on your idea. The development teams use the Ideas area of the communities to build their development pipeline and a significant amount of weight is placed on Ideas that have lots of votes versus those that do not. The ideas areas of the communities are here:

Power BI - https://ideas.powerbi.com
PowerAutomate - https://powerusers.microsoft.com/t5/Flow-Ideas/idb-p/FlowIdeas
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If your requirement is solved, please make THIS ANSWER a SOLUTION ✔️ and help other users find the solution quickly. Please hit the LIKE 👍 button if this comment helps you.

[foodd]

Is this Power Query for Excel for the MAC, or does your Instructional Lab offer Power BI

Desktop for Windows, and by which means?  Also, which Microsoft 365 Channel are you using?

You mentioned "Many of them have this type of error when they try to connect to their data source", however, does this also mean that other students are not having an issue?  Are you also saying that you also verified the Source Step within the query as matching that Data Source to that specific path?  Are you able to save the file to another local user path, and then browse the file mentioned as a data source (local file)?  Are you running any sort of management software that would cause this?   Adding Screenshots to the post would be helpful.

What have you tried, and where are you stuck? 

=-=-=-=-

If this is an issue beyond correcting the source path to the file, suggest opening a new Issue, and if this is more

Urgent:

Urgent Issues

First and foremost, the community is a "best effort" kind of support forum. There are no true guarantees or service level agreements (SLAs) regarding when you might get an answer. You may not get an answer. Don't get me wrong, the community is an incredibly robust and amazing resource but if you are having an urgent issue that needs to be addressed immediately, you need to get actual Microsoft support involved. To do this, open a support ticket here:

Power BI - https://support.powerbi.com
PowerAutomate - https://flow.microsoft.com/support
Power Apps - https://support.powerapps.com

[mopetkewi]

You mentioned "Many of them have this type of error when they try to connect to their data source", however, does this also mean that other students are not having an issue?    Some students are on Windows so they do not have the issue.  Some students with MACs have the issue and others don't.  

Are you also saying that you also verified the Source Step within the query as matching that Data Source to that specific path?   Yes.

Are you able to save the file to another local user path, and then browse the file mentioned as a data source (local file)?  We tried this - it did not work. 

Are you running any sort of management software that would cause this?   These are the students' personal laptops - potentially they have something?   Adding Screenshots to the post would be helpful.

What have you tried, and where are you stuck?   I have asked them to move their file to another location and try again but it did not work.

=-=-=-=-

If this is an issue beyond correcting the source path to the file, suggest opening a new Issue, and if this is more

I can try opening an issue . . .

[foodd]

This is an unfortunate situation, though should be treated as a valuable lesson when planning future courses offerings.   Are you aware that Microsoft has a strong commitment to the educator community, in terms of tools, training, and support in the form of Microsoft 365 Education? It is quite good.

Educator Center Overview - Microsoft Learn Educator Center | Microsoft Learn

In the meantime, check out Microsoft Learn for the PowerBI Power BI Learning Overview | Microsoft Power BI  where the courses and any lab exercises are provided in hosted virtual machines containing the client tools you need, along with the exercise instructions.  Not every course listed includes a lab module, though the module Design a data model in Power BI - Training | Microsoft Learn contains the following lab: Lab - Model data in Power BI Desktop, Part 1 - Training | Microsoft Learn  .

There is much value here.  Best of luck.

[foodd]

If you have not already, check with your technical folks to see how your institution may participate in one or more Microsoft Academic Alliance Programs.   This would provide a lead to you on who is the Point of Contact at your Institution, and they would be able to help you with

a point of contact at Microsoft for more direct assistance. 

[foodd]

These are upcoming events:  Microsoft Education Events Calendar | Microsoft Education

[foodd]

These are Learning Tools and Accelerators: Digital Learning Tools | Microsoft Education

[foodd]

The Microsoft Education Product Team offers monthly live and recorded "What's New in Microsoft EDU" webinars via MS Teams, and on YouTube! These 30-minute webinars are put on by the Microsoft Education Product Management group and happen once per month, at both 8:00 a.m. Pacific Time and 4:00 p.m. Pacific Time to cover as many global time zones as possible around the world.  And don’t worry – we’ll be recording these and posting them on our Microsoft Education YouTube channel in the new “What’s New in Microsoft EDU” playlist, so you’ll always to able to watch later or share with others!  

Lookup and follow/connect with Mike Tholfsen on LinkedIn who is the Microsoft EDU Program Director.

[mopetkewi]

And yes - they are using Power Query with Exel on a MAC.