SharePoint 2010 Insights (PerformancePoint): '401 Unauthorized' error on invoking 'Run Dashboard designer'

Question

Environment: SharePoint 2010 on Windows 2008 R2 Standard + SQL Server 2008 R2

I am trying to setup the BI infrastructure Lab as outlined in this article: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh223276.aspx. As far as I can tell, I've performed all the steps correctly. I even went through them twice. One of the last steps is "Test PerformancePoint Services connectivity". I get the following error in the action: "Run Dashboard Designer"

ERROR SUMMARY
Below is a summary of the errors, details of these errors are listed later in the log.
* Activation of http://<server>/_layouts/ppsma/1033/designer.application?Operation=OpenWebsite&SiteCollection=http://<server>/sites/BICenter/&SiteLocation= resulted in exception. Following failure messages were detected:
+ Downloading http://<server>/_layouts/ppsma/1033/designer.application?Operation=OpenWebsite&SiteCollection=http://<server>/sites/BICenter/&SiteLocation= did not succeed.
+ The remote server returned an error: (401) Unauthorized.

I've tried the following:

• Went through the permissions and everything seems to be ok. I am logged in with an account which has "Full Control".
• Logged in with a Domain account on the SharePoint server itself, which is part of the same domain. The account is also a Domain Admin.
• Googled for the error message and found some links like: http://radekle.wordpress.com/2007/12/27/performancepoint-server-dashboard-designer-run-error-unauthorized-401/

Unfortunately none of the above links helped. Anything else I am missing?

Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

Got the answer on Twitter :)
https://twitter.com/#!/beaucameron_/status/148836805893029888

Kerberos authentication was enabled on the SharePoint server. Not sure if it is the default setup or out IT admin enabled it explicitly! If you want to change the authentication from Kerberos to NTLM refer to this article: http://www.sharepointassist.com/2011/02/21/configuring-sharepoint-2010-with-kerberos-authentication/

Note: the article explains how to enable Kerberos. So you'll have to do the opposite; scroll to the section titled "Enable Kerberos for SharePoint Web Application" and click on the NTLM radio button in the Edit Authentication dialog.

Answer 2

Make sure that the site is in your local intranet mode and your username/password is saved; the click once application needs to be able to authenticate to the back-end SharePoint server during the installation process.

Answer 3

• Dashboard Designer is not joined to the same domain try it from joined machine
• check remember password when login to win\IE of BIC or portal

https://stackoverflow.com/a/17766222/184572

Answer 4

This is what I did to solve this, you should ensure you:

1. add the site to Local Intranet / Trusted Sites on IE and
2. add the credentials you use to access your SharePoint site to Windows Credentials Manager.