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ISSUE: PBI Desktop Live Connection to SSAS Tabular Cubes via MSMDPUMP

We currently use Power BI Embedded to provide access to Power BI Dashboards and Reports that are built off of SSAS Tabular cubes.  The Gateway, Data Source setup and Row Level Security work great.  Internally when we create the initial dashboards and reports we have to do the following for our dashboard designers:

1) Setup them up with VPN accounts

2) Create a Run AS script to Launch Power BI Desktop with their user account on the server.

3) Provide the connection information -

 

Although not ideal this is workable for internal users. 

 

For External users - we purchase and assign a Power BI Pro license to the designated person at the our client.    They use that account to create and manage reports and dashboards with the Power BI Service.  However we often get requests from users to use Power BI Desktop to design reports.  Ideally the MSMDPUMP.dll which is used to connect to the SSAS Tabular cubes via Excel and Tableau would also work for Power BI Desktop.  We have not been able to get this to work.  Attempting to LIVE CONNECT to SSAS Tabular cubes results in the following error:  

PBIDesktopTabularConnection.PNG

 

So three questions:

1) Is this supported?  If not why are we can Tableau users able to connect via MSMDPUMP but not PBI Desktop users to SSAS Tabular cubes.

 

2) If this is supported what am I doing wrong?  (the specific MSMDPUMP.dll URL works in Excel.  The PBI Desktop application is being launch via a RUN AS USER command with the same credentials that are used to connect in EXCEL / Tableau.

 

3) Is there another way to accomplish what I am trying to do which is allow external users connect to SSAS tabular cubes via MSMDPUMP instead of setting them up with VPN accounts?

Status: New
Comments
v-chuncz-msft
Community Support

@kevinfranck 

 

You may check this post and create a support ticket for assistance if necessary.

kevinfranck
Frequent Visitor

Thanks.  I did see that post before posting this question.  That post was orginally created 3 years ago with the last response being 2 years ago.  That posting from 3 years ago states that this is by design, it is hard to understand why that design decision was made and why it is still in place after three years.

 

So by design:

-- Tableau ALLOWS me to connect to SSAS Tabular cubes using MSMDPUMP.

-- Excel ALLOWS me to connect to SSAS Tabular cubes using MSMDPUMP.

-- PBI Desktop PREVENTS me from connecting to SSAS Tabular cubes using MSMDPUMP.

 

This design decision by Power BI puts companies like mine in a tough spot.  We are building solutions for Power BI, selling licenses and when our clients ask if they can use PBI Desktop to connect to the Tabular SSAS model, we have to tell them NO by design Power BI prevents you from connecting to SSAS Tabular cubes via MSMDPUMP.  However you can use the Power BI Service to create additional Dashboards and Reports (which currently does not have all of the features of the Desktop application).

 

Is there a course of action one should take, to have this added to the feature request list for Power BI Desktop? 

 

Regards