I'm trying to set up a Power Bi report that will work for multiple users - the usernames are unknown.
The data I want to manipulate will be generated by another program and will consequently end up in the individual user's program files. It is CSV files. There is also an XML file generated somewhere but I don't know where.
All the data connections I try want a user name and password or a file address, which won't work for multiple users.
How can I set up a datasource that can look for the program files without a username or file path?
I tried ODBC, Text/CSV, XML, OLE DB - they all seem to need direct file addresses
You need to specify exactly where that data is stored. "end up in their program files" is not good enough.
Develop a routine that moves the CSV files to a commonly accessible location, for example a SharePoint library, then only the account that refreshes the Power BI report in the Power BI Service needs to be able to access that data source.
If files are being kept in individual users' profiles, that is not suitable for Power BI reporting, unless the report is only refreshed by the individual user whose data is being processed.
Instead of storing the files in the user's profile folders, set up a SharePoint site for storage. You could have different folders or different libraries, or even different sites for the data storage and handle access to these sites via SharePoint permissions, so that each user can only access their own files.
The PowerBI account can be given access to all the SharePoint storage locations and can then combine the data into a report.