Best practice - service account for accessing OfB / Sharepoint?

[Anonymous]

Hi all,

I've created a few reports / dashboards now from Excel / Pbix files stored on OfB / Sharepoint Online (trying to stay clear of Gateways and requiring Pro licenses for every single dashboard viewer for now). They were working well for a week but then I had to reset my password, and then afterwards go in and re-authenticate all of the OAuth links for my reports. This means that whoever views these reports is then dependant on my keeping these links updated.

I'm thinking that the best way to solve this would be to create a service account which is then given the correct O365 license(s), giving that service account access to the Sharepoint Online document librariess and OfB files and replacing my credentials in all of the reports, but was wondering if anyone else had gone down this route or if there were any better suggestions / guidelines? Thanks!

[Anonymous]

Hi,

How to connect using service account? What changes we must do to the report?

Thanks!

[v-yuezhe-msft · Accepted solution]

Hi @Anonymous,

I agree with you.

It is better to create a separate account with a credential that never needs to be reset or expire, then connect to SharePoint Online document libraries and OfB files using this account. Besides this method, I cannot think out other good methods reducing your workload.

Thanks,
Lydia Zhang