BusinessObjects Board

Relational connection to an Excel file shared by Azure

Hi guys

I can’t create a relational connection to an Excel file shared from an Azure folder.

The BO I’m using is 4.2 SP05 patch 02 installed on Windows 2012 R2.

So far I have successfully created other relational connections to Excel files shared by file servers. To do this I have always used the Windows 32 bit ODBC driver for Excel (version 14.00.7248.5000) and then selecting “Excel 12.0” as the “database version” in the DSN configuration. Then, in the Information Design Tool, I use the network layer “ODBC” and the “database” MS Excel 2007 and everything is ok.

To configure this shared folder from Azure, I ran a power shell script (provided to me) that maps the share as drive Z. The script basically runs the following two commands:

> cmd.exe /C "cmdkey /add:`"<BLAHBLAHBLAH>.windows.net`" /user:`"<USER>`" /pass:`"<PASSWORD>`""
> New-PSDrive -Name Z -PSProvider FileSystem -Root "\\<BLAHBLAHBLAH>.windows.net\<SUBFOLDER>" -Persist

I can see the unit Z in the VM’s resources and I can navigate through the folders. So I set the ODBC DSN to point to the file on the newly mounted drive but, when testing the relational connection I’m getting the following error:

image

I downloaded the excel file locally to the BO’s machine and had the ODBC DSN point to him and, obviously, everything is ok.

I also tried copying this Excel file to a shared folder from another host on the same network and again, by pointing the DSN-ODBC to it, the relational connection works.

So I’m wondering, maybe there are compatibility issues for BO in accessing shared folders from Azure? Anyone have information?

Let me know, thank you very much.