HOW TO: Connect to SSAS in Excel via VPN

I recently had trouble connecting to Analysis Services in Excel via our companies Cisco VPN on my personal non-domain PC from home.

Making a shortcut with the following target fixed it for me:

%windir%\system32\runas.exe /net /user:YOUR_DOMAIN\YOUR_USERNAME "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12\EXCEL.EXE"

HOW TO: Query SSAS 2008 Cube via Excel 2003

I searched high and low for this information and could not find it anywhere. I finally by chance figured it out in reading a few different forum posts on unrelated issues. I figured someone should post it somewhere.

To connect with an Analysis Services 2008 cube in Excel 2003, you will need the Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Analysis Services 10.0 OLE DB Provider:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=C6C3E9EF-BA29-4A43-8D69-A2BED18FE73C&displaylang=en#Instructions

The standard connector that comes with Excel 2003 will not work with SSAS 2008. Though I would highly recommend an upgrade to Excel 2007 if you will be doing a lot of work with SSAS.