As with any other resource on a network, your application must have access to the server and share where the external data resides. You must determine if your application needs read-only or read-write permissions on the share, and you should establish the permissions according to your needs.
In addition, you must make sure that your application has proper access to the table or spreadsheet through the host application’s security mechanisms. You can provide password information to the host application as part of the connection string.
For database servers accessed as ODBC data sources, you may need to provide authentication information at additional levels (such as at the table or view level as well as at the database level). You should test remote data on ODBC data sources for accessibility by common users of your application rather than by those with system-level or administrative privileges. Your code should also handle requests for additional information from the remote data source (such as user name and password requests).