Data Source Authentication best practice

[RBFintech]

Hi,

We have a basic setup with Azure SQL Server, office 365 sharepoint etc.  Nothing on Prem.

When I connect to the data sources in Power BI Desktop, I am using my Azure Login to authenticate.

When I publish the report, I am assuming the data refresh is still using my login for authentication.  This seems a bad practice...

I now have a scenario where I need to connect to an Excel spreadsheet stored on the organisation office 365 sharepoint site.

I don't necessarily want or need permissions to the Excel spreadsheet, by the Power BI Service would need to be able to refresh the data.

What should we be doing here?  there seems to be very little on the internet about authentication.  Everything seems to assume you are using your own login.  Surely this is bad, because if I leave, the refreshes will fail?

Should we be changing the Data Source credentials using a generic login.

Please advise a best practice

[aj1973 · Accepted solution]

Hi @RBFintech 

A service account with a license is needed. Only service account is allowed to connect to the source to refresh the semantic models or Dataflows