Powerpivot on SharePoint Online - how to handle external data refresh

**JeffreyWeir** · 2012-07-20, 05:08 AM

Howdy. I've just started playing around with PowerPivot, and wondered if it was a vehicle for delivering secure interactive reports to external clients via SharePoint Online. So I signed up for a test sharepoint online account, whipped up my first PowerPivot dashboard with some sliders in it (using some .txt files as data sources) and uploaded it to my test SharePoint Online site.

But of course, when I try to use the sliders, the pivot tries to refresh, and then I get an error message "the data connection uses windows authentication and user credentials could not be delegated."

So I'm wondering whether powerpivot via sharepoint allows you to link in to external data sources, or whether all the data be within the powerpivot file itself as linked tables.

Anyone played around with Sharepoint and PowerPivot together yet?

**Bob Phillips** · 2012-07-20, 10:12 AM

Jeffrey,

I have not used PP with SharePoint, no-one uses SharePoint that I know.

I would suggest that you ask this on MrExcel, they have a PP forum and Rob Collie lurks there, his whole business is built around using PP on SP, he even thinks SharePoint is good

. He might be better placed to help.

Where did you sign-up?

**JeffreyWeir** · 2012-07-20, 12:08 PM

Hi Bob. Signed up at http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/offic...are-plans.aspx (click the free trial link). Will try MrExcel.

I recently signed up to Rob's excellent PowerPivot blog, and see that he offers a powerpivot cloud service. But it was kinda pricey for a little startup like me, at $500 per month. Which is why I was looking at SharePoint, which was $20 Per user/month.