Skip to main content
cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

Earn the coveted Fabric Analytics Engineer certification. 100% off your exam for a limited time only!

Reply
krany
Regular Visitor

connect to SAP BW with Windows authentication (Single Sign-On)

Hi Everyone,

 

When I tried to connect to SAP BW with the "SAP Business Warehouse Application Server" connector and windows credentials, I got the following error message:

 

Details: "SAP Business Warehouse: RfcOpenConnection failed(RFC_COMMUNICATION_FAILURE):
LOCATION    CPIC (TCP/IP) with Unicode
ERROR       GSS-API(maj): No credentials were supplied
            Unable to establish the security context
            target="p:CN=XXX@XXX.NET"

 

I've filled in the SNC Parter Name and tried different options of SNC Library but all failed.  However, I'm able to connect to BW with database credentials. 

 

Has anyone tried with Single Sign-On? Any help is appreciated.

 

Thanks.

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Thanks Sheng! The Dev 17 release mentioned Windows Authentication is supported for SAP BW, but looks like it’s not really functioning.

View solution in original post

12 REPLIES 12
Anonymous
Not applicable

hi All,

 

Has anyone able to connect SAP Bw using SSO from Power BI. Please help us with steps.

 

Regards,

Atul

rubensalvador
Advocate I
Advocate I

Hi Krany,

 

we have some issues with SSO, because our SAP BW SSO dll is 32bit and power bi desktop is 64bit.

Do you experience the same problem?

 

best regards

Rúben Salvador

Hi Ruben,

Did the SAP NW SSO for BW worked for you?

 

Could you please share the solution, if possible. We are in middle of implementing the NW SNC SSO for SAP BW.

 

Appreciate your kind response.

 

Thanks.

Nazeer

Hi @nazeer1232Nazeer,

 

I did managed to connect to BW using the new June version of PowerBI desktop 64 bit. Since then I have tested August version and I tested both the connection using SAP Netweaver (also called Implementation 1.0) and the new option to connect via SAP .Net connector 3.0 (in Beta still) (also called Implementation 2.0).

 

The .NET connectivity works better as it is more performant.

 

Both of them work well in relation to the SSO access to SAP BW, in terms of running within PowerBI desktop (using both Direct Query and Import connection types).

 

I tested these below scenarios:

1. SSO with Netweaver connection, using Import

2. SSO with Netweaver connection, using DirectQuery

3. SSO with .Net 3.0, using Import

4. SSO with .Net 3.0, using DirectQuery

 

When I published the 4 scenarios to the online platform I was only able to run scenarios 1 and 2. The .NET only works if you're using PowerBI desktop, and that can be explained by the fact that it's still in a Beta version.

 

I have also installed the new version of the gateway (August).

 

The problem I face is if I want to Share my dashboard/report via the online platform, in scenarios 1 or 2, the BW data that is retrieved is not the user I shared the report with, but instead the user that I have used when I created the Gateway DataSource. This obliges us to do double-maintenance in Roles, both in SAP BW and in PowerBI desktop (Row Level Security). This is our main reason why we haven't yet adopted the SAP BW connector.

 

hope I have helped, 

Just let me know if you need some more insight

Rúben

Hi Ruben,

Thank you for reverting back with a detailed response. I really appreciate your kind explanation and findings.

 

I am proceeding with the below steps for implementation method 1.0 at the moment. Interesting note, what I experienced in past (not using SAP BW, but Sybase IQ) is the fact that the Power BI Desktop connection user should be same as that of DataSource on the Gateway configuration. I used ODBC generic connection to establish rather defining individual users. However, in my current case I require SAP BW end-user with SSO (SNC) enabled to access the Power BI Desktop as power user.

 

How will it work if I have 20 such power users, will I require to maintain 20 power gateway connections 😞

 

Please suggest if you have found any work-around?

Thanks a lot.

 

Cheers !

Nazeer

Hi Nazeer,

 

you can only have 1 gateway connection per DataSource installed in 1 server node. Therefore, that connection can only have 1 user defined. Once you publish your report to the online platform and you select the gateway all users will use that gateway.

 

If you only have power users editting that same report, then you profit on having that report in one unique APP workspace, so all can access and edit that same report. If all of you power users are OK to view all data without any restrictions I would say you won't have an issue, but if you want each of your power users to access different kind of data based on their SAP BW role, then, as I said, this is not possible. Only way is to implement Row Level Security.

 

regards,

Rúben

Anonymous
Not applicable

Hi Nazeer/Ruben,

I have been following your discussion and it seems you have cracked on using SSO while connecting to Power Bi. I have followed the White paper which tals about the connectivity and I am awaiting my organization SAP team to provide me the details SNC Partner name etc so that I can test the same. but I have few doubts and would request your help.

Where do I install SAPSetupSCL.exe in my Power Bi Desktop machine. Under which Folder?

Will it be required for each user who is going to use Single Sign on functionality for SAP BW?
When you talk about option 1 2 3 and 4, Are you talking about connectivity through Application Server(1,2) and Message Server(3,4) if not what is it?
What are the other challenges we may come across?

It will be great if you document the steps and publish it as many organization are looking for this connectivity and no full proof document is available.

Thanks,
Ankku


Hi Ruben,

Did the SAP BW SSO worked with Power BI for you?

 

Please suggest the solution, if you could.

 

Thanks.

Nazeer

v-shex-msft
Community Support
Community Support

Hi @krany,

 

Based on document, current power bi seems only support sue connection string to access to SAP BW datasource.
I haven't found any way to let single sign-on works with default SAP BW connector in power bi.

Use the SAP BW Connector in Power BI Desktop

 

For your requirement, I'd like to suggest you create an odata instance with SAP BW datasource, then you can use power bi odata connector with windows authentication on ti.

Steps to Create an ODATA service for a BW Query

 

Regard,

Xiaoxin Sheng

Community Support Team _ Xiaoxin
If this post helps, please consider accept as solution to help other members find it more quickly.

Thanks Sheng! The Dev 17 release mentioned Windows Authentication is supported for SAP BW, but looks like it’s not really functioning.

Hello, i am trying to setup SSO from Power BI desktop client to SAP BW, but i am getting below when i am connecting to SAP BW

"Could not find a suitable SAP user for the SNC name of the caller", can you please let me know if you have found the solution and implemented

thanks

Hello, have you got any solution for this issue? i am getting similar issue. thanks. 

Helpful resources

Announcements
April AMA free

Microsoft Fabric AMA Livestream

Join us Tuesday, April 09, 9:00 – 10:00 AM PST for a live, expert-led Q&A session on all things Microsoft Fabric!

March Fabric Community Update

Fabric Community Update - March 2024

Find out what's new and trending in the Fabric Community.