Premium_ASWL_Error – Workspace Identity authentication blocking semantic model refresh

[wellingtonascim]

Hello everyone,
I’m facing an issue when trying to refresh a semantic model in Power BI / Fabric and would like some guidance.
During the refresh, I get the following error:

Premium_ASWL_Error
We are unable to refresh the semantic model because the model uses a data connection configured for Workspace Identity authentication, but the workspace has no identity, or the model owner does not have permissions to use the workspace identity.

Additional details:

The data source is configured to use Workspace Identity authentication
The workspace seems to not have an identity configured, or the model owner may not have sufficient permissions
Error timestamp: 2026-04-29 18:48 UTC
Cluster: WABI-NORTH-EUROPE-E-PRIMARY

My questions are:

What are the exact steps to properly configure a Workspace Identity for a workspace?
Does the semantic model owner need to be Contributor or Admin, or is Contributor enough?
In which scenarios is it recommended to switch from Workspace Identity to another authentication method?
Are there common pitfalls or prerequisites (tenant settings, licenses, roles) that could cause this error?

Any best practices or official documentation references would be highly appreciated.
Thank you in advance for the support!

[wellingtonascim]

Hello, GilbertQ,
Thank you very much for your detailed explanation. It helped clarify my doubts, and I truly appreciate the support from the Microsoft community.

[GilbertQ · Accepted solution]

Hi @wellingtonascim 

Workspace identities are a mechanism in which you can then have basically an account that is not managed by yourself or is not owned by a user with the workspace identity. What that means is that this can effectively be used to refresh. Semantic models and do connections in a secure manner. 

Only workspace. Admin role users are able to create a workspace identity. Here are more details if you need with regards to workspace identity. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/fabric/security/workspace-identity