Cannot connect from Power BI Desktop to Analysis Services on-prem datasource

Question

A customer has an on-prem analysis server cubes available by the use of Power BI gateways. I have configured the Power BI gateway on the same server as the analysis server which hosts the cubes. I was able to create a dataset connecting to this analysis cube (by using live connection) and upload the set in the Power BI service. I configured the gateway in the service to correctly map the sources. Which allowed me to make reports on this dataset in the service and see the data. So far so good.

But at this point i expected to be able to connect to this dataset from my local device by using Power BI Desktop. But everytime i try to connect to the dataset it returns the error:

"Unable to connect

We encountered an error while trying to connect. Details: "Power BI service live connection is invalid. Please try again. Details: We could not connect to the analysis Services server because the connection timed out or the server name is incorrect.""

I double checked the documentation. And confirmed the following:

• The Gateway in the PBI service is configured with Server Admin account on the analysis service server.
• The Gateway is using EffectiveUserName
• If i install power bi on the same server as the Gateway and the Analysis Server i can use this Dataset to load data into the Power BI Desktop.

Yet my local device with Power BI Desktop returns the error above if i try to use the Dataset in the service (i repeated the process on other devices as well which led to the same results). The only thing i can think off (but could not find any confirmation for) is that my local device is not in the same domain as the server with the gateway and the analysis server.

Can anyone help me with finding the issue?

Answer 1

Since you are using Live Connection to your SSAS cube, the semantic model is the cube and not the dataset that was published with the report.

The dataset in PBI Service is just a shell, so when you connect to it in PBI Desktop, you're actually connecting to the SSAS cube and hence the error you are getting. Your customer will either have to author reports in PBI Service, or, they will need to connect to the cube directly (like via VPN etc...).

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Authoring reports via PBI Service (online)

You could publish a blank report from PBI Desktop that is connected to you SSAS. Then in PBI Service, configure the connection to use the Gateway. (You've done this bit already.)

1. Via PBI Service, go to the Workspace where the blank report is at.
2. Click on the ... next to the report, and select Save a copy.
3. Open the new saved copy of the report, and in the toolbar, click Edit.
   

You are in authoring mode, and you'll have almost the same features as PBI Desktop for authoring reports.