Prompting for account when trying to open Excel with Power BI data

[Zenna121]

Hello everyone, 

I'm kind of new to PowerBI and I don't use it myself a lot.

A colleague of my is working in PowerBI a lot, specifically Excel documents linked to our PowerBI enviorment.

Now since the start of this year, everytime when he tries to open this Excel document, he gets prompted to select the user he wants to sign in with.

We have configured SSO, so he only needs to click his user to sign in and continue.

Does anyone know if Microsoft changed something to the security/ login policies?

Thank you in advance,

Zenna

[davidbaker85]

I also encountered the same problem. The solution that worked for me is the one posted by @pnmateus in this topic:

https://community.fabric.microsoft.com/t5/Service/Frequent-Re-sign-In-Required-with-Analyze-in-Excel...

In the connection properties, go to the definition tab, then in the connection string replace "MSOLAP.8" with "MSOLAP.7". It will probably ask for credentials again one more time. Then save, close the workbook, open it back up, press refresh all, and hey presto! no authentication screen.

I have automations using powershell scripts and VBscripts that open, refresh and save excel workbooks with connections to Power BI datasets. And they're all working again unattended having followed this solution. Life saver!

[057Sophie]

It works for me

[057Sophie]

I am facing the same issue since some weeks, causing all my power automate flows to fail. meaning I need to refresh all files manually every day by opening them. Which can be an issue when I am out of the office.

I have a pro licence too.

I see this topic is marked as solved, what was the solution? I checked all the steps but I can't find any way to solve this on my files

[Zenna121]

Hello @057Sophie, For me it had to do with the SSO settings of our company that were not working anymore. Seems like another colleague of me changed something. So @PowerBITestingG no, I didn't mark it as a solution because it was incorrect, it made me sure to check all the steps again. @057Sophie, affraid I can't help you, since it was really company related and had nothing to do with SSO in general. Hope you get your issue fixed!

[PowerBITestingG]

You got unlucky, theres a few people here that copy paste some random/incorrect answer to every post and after a while mark it themselves as a solution.

@v-yaningy-msft 

[v-yaningy-msft · Accepted solution]

Hi, @Zenna121 

Based on your description, every time a user works with an Excel document in a Power BI environment they will keep being prompted to log in to their account, this could be due to the following reasons:
1. Although you mentioned configuring SSO, changes to back-end security policies or updates to Power BI or Office 365 may sometimes require re-authentication for security reasons.

2. Credentials have changed or expired: If a user's credentials have recently changed or expired, Excel may prompt the selection of an account to refresh the access token.

3. Power BI features require a Power BI Pro license. If the necessary license is not detected, Excel will prompt you to select the account to log in using the account with the appropriate license.

You can try the following options to resolve this problem:
1. Check account permissions to ensure that your colleague's account has the required permissions to access Power BI content linked from Excel.
2. Make sure your colleague has a valid Power BI Pro license.
3. Update both Excel and Power BI to the latest version.

Best Regards,
Yang
Community Support Team

If there is any post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly.
If I misunderstand your needs or you still have problems on it, please feel free to let us know. Thanks a lot!

How to get your questions answered quickly --  How to provide sample data in the Power BI Forum

[ManishaS]

Hi,
I am facing the same pop-up. I have built an automation to refresh all the data connections from the excel but everytime this pop-up comes and I am not able to handle this at run time.
P.S. my bot user has a Power BI Pro license as well as access to the data set, still this pops up evry time.
Is there a way we can disable this once and for all?

[PowerBITestingG]

The actual solution was posted by @davidbaker85 and not @v-yaningy-msft 

In the connection properties, go to the definition tab, then in the connection string replace "MSOLAP.8" with "MSOLAP.7". It will probably ask for credentials again one more time. Then save, close the workbook, open it back up, press refresh all, and hey presto! no authentication screen.

[aj1973]

Hi @Zenna121 

Your colleague need to have a Power BI pro license and edit permission on the dataset linked to the Excel file.

If his license has expired then he will need to renew it.

[Zenna121]

Hi @aj1973 

My colleague has both a PowerBI Pro license and edit permissions to the dataset that is linked to the Excel file.

It is not a big issue, it is more the fact that this didn't happen in 2023, so it seems like Microsoft changed something in their authentication. 

[ECE]

Hi,
I have the same problem also starting from Jan '24.
Previously this was never an issue. Excel would remember the credentials once provided.

This is really annoying, especially if you use VBA to update a lot of different connections.

@v-yaningy-msft I have checkec everything you suggested, but this is no longer working as expected.

[ElenaCHR]

The same problem has disrupted all my automated processes. Please let me know if you manage to resolve it. I have one laptop and one PC. The laptop is functioning well; however, it’s my second PC that’s causing issues. Both devices are owned by the same company and are linked to just one Microsoft account.

I have compared all the Excel settings and the business account, but I’m out of ideas.

I think this issue started when I had to configure Microsoft Authenticator for all my devices