Excel in the service just can’t talk to a PBI semantic model… only desktop Excel has the MSOLAP conn, so keep the file in OneDrive/SP and open it locally when u need the pivots to refresh.
Excel deployed in apps.powerbi.com not able to talk to semantic model
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Ravishankar Balasundaram
0
Reputation points
Problem Statement: I have a excel file which is designed to fetch data (Pivot tables) from apps.powerbi.com semantic model. When i deploy the excel file to apps.powerbi.com its not able to refresh the data and its throwing above error
Windows development | Internet Information Services
2 answers
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Damien Pham (WICLOUD CORPORATION) 1,755 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator2025-09-04T02:54:44.85+00:00 Hello Ravishankar Balasundaram,
Thank you for reaching out to Microsoft Q&A.
The error you are experiencing occurs because Excel files that rely on PivotTables connected live to a Power BI semantic model are not supported for refresh when uploaded into the Power BI service. The service does not host the MSOLAP provider that Excel desktop uses for XMLA connections, so while the workbook functions correctly on the desktop client, it fails once deployed in apps.powerbi.com.
In practice, the Power BI service only refreshes workbooks that use Power Query connections or embedded data models, not live dataset connections from Excel. To address this, you can either continue refreshing the file through the Excel desktop app or restructure the solution by moving the logic into a Power BI report or modifying the Excel file to use Power Query so that refresh is handled natively in the service. This is a current product limitation rather than a configuration issue.
This question does not fall into my focus which is Internet Information Service, so if you have any further question about this issue, you can post your question with the channel tag Microsoft 365 and Office | Excel | For business | Windows. That way you can ensure your question is approached and handled by the right team.
Best regards.