Repeated Data Source Credential Prompts When Loading SAP BW Connected View

Issue

After you publish a workbook connected to SAP BW, attempting to open views in the workbook might result in repeated data source credential prompts (authentication loop), and the views will not load.

Environment

Tableau Server
SAP BW

Resolution

Option 1

Ensure that Tableau Server is configured to use a Run As User account. For more information, see Run As User in Tableau Help.
Sign in to Windows on the computer that is running Tableau Server as the Run As User.
Run SAP Logon and create the SAP BW server connection.

Option 2

Use this option if the Run As User account is set up as a service account and does not have Windows sign-in permissions.

Sign in to Windows on the computer that is running Tableau Server as an administrator.
Create an SAPLOGON_INI_FILE system environment variable and set its value to the file path (file name included) of a valid saplogon.ini file (for example, C:\SAP\saplogon.ini).
Run tabadmin restart to restart Tableau Server. For more information, see tabadmin.

Option 3

In order to only have to click the Connect button once, add a system environment variable on the machine running Tableau called SAPLOGON_INI_FILE. This environment variable must point to the location of the saplogon.ini file, which is typically found at:

C:\Users\\AppData\Roaming\SAP\Common\saplogon.ini.

Cause

The Tableau Server Run As User is not able to access or find a valid saplogon.ini file that is required to connect to an SAP BW server.

Additional Information

SAP GUI Logon Configuration
The SAP BW connection logic looks for an saplogon.ini file in the following order:

File path specified by an SAPLOGON_INI_FILE environment variable.
Path of Local Configuration Files shown in the SAP Logon Configuration Files dialog.
XML Configuration File on Server shown in the SAP Logon Configuration Files dialog.
SAP GUI installation directory.
Windows directory (C:\Windows).

In some cases, the saplogon.ini can be found at C:\Users\<UserNameHere>\AppData\Roaming\SAP\Common and can override the paths listed above, even when the environment variable has been correctly set.

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