Sharepoint list returning numbers instead of names

[Underdog117]

When using a Sharepoint list as a data source, a column that should be user names is instead populated with numbers that seem to correspond to a particular person. It is worth noting that the sharepoint list is using active directory to call to users on the site itself. Any help is appreciated.

[mrvachon]

The id is likely equal to the user id in the site collection. This internal list of "site collection users". If you can import and join that table you should be able to get the user information from it. I know if you connect a list that references a user, access will pull in the referenced tables automatically... Perhaps this is a manual step to get this in powerbi

[ajanson]

Hi,

if you have administrator privileges you could try to get users list from SharePoint. You do this in the same way like for simple SharePoint list, but you must provide appropriate address. I don't have local SharePoint instance to test it, so I'm not sure in 100% that this list will be visible in Power BI Desktop. But i gather this data using other application. If you get these data then you can combine them with your Query using Merge function in PowerQuery and you will get user name.

You can find some details about hidden User lists on SharePoint under following links:
http://zimmergren.net/technical/sharepoints-hidden-user-list-user-information-list

http://sharepointviews.com/hidden-users-list-in-sharepoint/

[Greg_Deckler]

Looks like the column in SharePoint is a Lookup column and it is putting the ID of another list's items, which is correct. Can you post the column definitions that you have in the SharePoint list?