Forum Discussion
CoWorker Can't Use Existing Connection when Editing Dataflow
I have an existing dataflow with several tables in it. One of my co-workers needs to add a table to the dataflow. He took ownership of the dataflow, and I gave him admin access both to the connection used by the dataflow as well as the gateway. When he tries to add a new table, he is prompted to specify the connection. After typing in the details, he gets a "The specified connection name already exists" error. This makes sense, since the connection does already exist. However he doesn't seem to be able to use it. When I try to add a new table (after re-taking ownership of the dataflow) I can specify the server and database name and the UI automatically selects the existing connection for me to use. How can I enable him to use the existing connection?
Thank you
12 Replies
HI mattsmac ,
I am not positive that I understand the situation exactly but it sounds like you added this person to the gateway but not to the datasource in "data connections and gateway"? Having gateway access does not necesarily mean that person can use a specific data source. In fact, most folks do not need gateway access, they only need to be added to the data source as a user.
Hi mattsmac ,
I’d like to acknowledge the valuable input provided by collinq . Their initial ideas were instrumental in guiding my approach. However, I noticed that further details were needed to fully understand the issue.
In Power BI, gateway administrators have full control over the gateway, including adding additional administrators, creating data sources, managing data source users, and deleting gateways.
After adding a data source to a gateway, you can grant access to users and security groups to specific data sources (not the entire gateway).
Keep in mind that you need to add users to each data source to which you want to grant access. Each data source has a separate list of users. Add users to each data source separately.
More detailed information can be found in the documentation:
View and manage on-premises data gateways - Power Platform | Microsoft Learn
Add or remove a gateway data source - Power BI | Microsoft Learn
If your Current Period does not refer to this, please clarify in a follow-up reply.
Best Regards,
Clara Gong
If there is any post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly.
Thank you collinq and Anonymous. I believe I have done all of this configuration already, but allow me to clarify. When you refer to the "DataSource" are you referring to the connection (Manage Connections and Gateways...Connections tab)? If so, I've already given my coworker (Ryan) owner access to the connection that is used by the rest of the dataflow. While I agree that I shouldn't need to also add access to the gateway, I did that anyway, just to try to reduce the number of variables.
Thank you for helping me look into this.
Matt MacDonald
Hey mattsmac ,
Yes, the connection that you mention is what Anonymous and I were referring to. I understand about adding the user to the gateway as well as a variable elimination....
Kind of a side thought to this - the "Ryab" that ou shared with is the EXACT SAME userid that Ryan is actually using? I have seen this where Ryan has a "user" and an "admin" and what you shared to and what he is using are not the same user.
In doing some more research I found that somebody had to do this: "I ended up connecting with Microsoft support and going to settings-manage gateways and finding the duplicate data flow there. " My thinking is that the system might be thinking this is a NEW one and not the EXISTING one? And/or, you have an old, maybe deleted, dataflow with that name and the system is routing Ryan to that one???? Can you confirm that there is not indeed a second one with the same name?
Also as an aside test - can Ryan create a dtaflow with a differnt name? Just to confirm that it is not something specific and unexpected about Ryan's userid.
Also, just to confirm, Ryan has rebooted the browser(s) in play to confirm that no caching is affecting him?
