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How to fix the Microsoft "Need admin approval" error

If your Microsoft account is managed by an admin, you might see an error reading Need admin approval or Approval required when you're logging in to the Supermetrics Hub or opening the Supermetrics add-in for Excel.


This error means that your Microsoft administrator hasn't given your account permission to use third-party apps like Supermetrics. 


Instructions

As a first step, contact your administrator and ask if they can enable the "Users can request admin consent to apps they are unable to consent to" setting in Azure Active Directory. They can find this setting under “User settings” in the “Enterprise applications” section in Active Directory.


If your administrator can't let users request admin consent or implement Microsoft's Centralized Deployment feature, follow the steps below to solve the Need admin approval error when:


Logging in to the Supermetrics Hub

When you sign into the Hub using your Microsoft account, you connect to the Supermetrics Identity app. This app requests these Graph API permissions:

  • email
  • openid
  • profile
  • user.read


If your organization is using strict security settings, it might be the case that only your administrator can grant these permissions.


In this case, the easiest solution is for your administrator to sign in for you using their account. They should use a private browsing mode if multiple accounts are active on the same device.


After they sign in once, the Supermetrics app will appear in the list of Enterprise apps in your organization's Azure Active Directory with the right permissions granted.


You should be able to log in and use Supermetrics after your administrator has logged out.

Launching the Excel add-in

The first time you launch the Supermetrics add-in for Excel, you'll log in via single sign-on (SSO) with the same account you're logged into Excel with. When you do this, the Supermetrics SSO app will ask for permission to identify the account logging in.


If you log out and then back into the add-in with a different account — meaning you'll be logged into Excel with one account, and into the Supermetrics add-in with another — you'll grant the Supermetrics Identity app the same permissions you gave to the Supermetrics SSO app when you first logged in to the add-in.


If this happens, your admin should either allow users to request admin consent in Azure Active Directory, or approve Supermetrics SSO or Supermetrics Identity for your organization.


Centralized Deployment

Administrators can also use Microsoft's Centralized Deployment feature to install the add-in for the selected group of users in the organization.


Opening the Schedule tab in the Excel add-in

The first time you open the Schedule tab in the Supermetrics sidebar in Excel, Supermetrics will request the permissions it needs to update your files following the rules you establish in your triggers.


When the permission request appears in the Schedule tab, please ask your administrator to give the permissions listed below to the Supermetrics app. Once they’ve been granted, sign into the sidebar with your account — not the admin’s.


To run scheduled refreshes, Supermetrics needs these permissions:

  • Files.ReadWrite.All for reading and writing to your spreadsheet with MS Graph via REST API from scheduled tasks run from Supermetrics servers
  • offline_access for sustained access to MS Graph


If your organization's admin can't give users the ability to ask for consent to use apps, they should instead enable the permissions listed above for the Supermetrics app in Azure Active Directory.


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