Open a Power BI model from another organization in Excel

More and more organizations are collaborating in Power BI. A vendor or partner is then granted guest access to a workspace within the customer’s environment (tenant). Viewing reports in the browser usually works fine. But anyone who wants to analyze the data in Excel often runs into problems.

The problem

With "Analyze" in Excel, you can create a pivot table based on a semantic model from Power BI. To do this, Excel logs in to your own organization. If the model is located in another organization's tenant, Excel will not be able to find it, or you will receive an error message regarding your account.

The solution: an .odc file

An .odc file (Office Data Connection) contains the connection information for Excel. By including the other organization's tenant in the workspace address, Excel knows where to log in. Microsoft describes this procedure for guest users: the address takes the form powerbi://api.powerbi.com/v1.0/[tenant]/[workspace].

Creating a file like this by hand is prone to errors. That's why we've created a free generator that builds the file for you in just a few seconds. The file is created in your browser; no data is sent to Referit.

Open the .odc generator

What do you need?

In the generator, enter four pieces of information:

• A name for the connection (your choice)
• The tenant ID or tenant domain of the other organization, for example, organization.onmicrosoft.com
• The name of the workspace, exactly as it appears in Power BI
• The name of the semantic model in that workspace

Terms and Conditions

The connection will work if these conditions are met:

• The workspace is on a Premium, Premium Per User (PPU), or Fabric capacity plan. Excel connects via the XMLA endpoint, which is only available there.
• Your account has been invited as a guest in the other tenant and has at least Build permissions on the semantic model.

How to Use the File

After downloading, there are three more steps:

1. Double-click the .odc file. Excel opens and establishes a connection.
2. Log in with the account you use as a guest in the other tenant.
3. Excel displays a pivot table based on the semantic model.

Is Excel still using your own account? If so, sign out of Excel by going to File > Account, or remove the account under Windows Settings > Accounts > Work or School. Then try again and, when prompted to sign in, select the account that allows you to sign in as a guest.

Need help?

Referit builds data warehouses and Power BI solutions, including those designed for collaboration between organizations. Are you having trouble figuring something out, or would you like to know how to make your data more accessible? Feel free to contact us.