Power BI Report Server adds new Power BI reporting options

The Report Server implementation adds support for Power BI reporting to SSRS; it's protected with the company's Power BI Premium subscription plan, which offers clients dedicated processing and storage potential to run Power BI workloads within the cloud, on-premises or in hybrid deployments that combine the 2 approaches.

The maximum current Power BI Report Server update, released in March 2018, gives a variety of recent functions, together with the capability to bookmark one of a kind views of a document and show them one by one as a statistics storytelling technique. Views also can be connected to clickable snapshots and shape to make reports more interactive and app-like, consistent with Microsoft.

What is the Power BI Report Server?

Other additions inside the March replace include stepped forward default placement of information visualizations on file pages, a brief measures characteristic that streamlines the manner of creating calculations with Power BI's Data Analysis Expressions components language, and the capacity for slicers that filter information units for special visualizations to responsively rearrange themselves while resized.

The previous replacement in October 2017 turned into a bigger bounce forward for Power BI Report Server. The full version of a preview launch issued in August, it supplied several latest and progressed capabilities to connect with information resources and work with the Report Server platform, consisting of a new API that enabled external applications to programmatically get right of entry to Power BI reporting components.

Making connections in Power BI Report Server

Initially, the Power BI Report Server could only get right of entry to facts in SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS), Microsoft's analytical statistics engine for SQL Server customers. But the August preview and October release removed that restriction.

Report Server can now connect with a wide range of information sources for Power BI reports -- 46 supported ones as of April 2018, inclusive of SQL Server and its cloud-based Azure SQL cousins, Excel, Facebook, Google Analytics, Oracle Database, Salesforce, and each SAP HANA and SAP Business Warehouse (BW). Microsoft also offers beta support for connections to 30 different facts assets.

For a pick outset of information resources, Power BI Report Server offers access to stay source facts through DirectQuery, a Power BI Desktop alternative that delivers fresh information to a document each time it is rendered. In this way, customers view the most current facts each time they get right of entry to the file.

As of this writing, Report Server supports DirectQuery only in the following statistics assets: SQL Server, Azure SQL Database, Azure SQL Data Warehouse, Oracle, SAP HANA, SAP BW, and Teradata. Power BI reporting customers can also connect to live information in SSAS and Azure Analysis Services, a cloud-based offshoot of the SSAS engine.

However, in the October release, Microsoft also added scheduled facts refresh talents to Power BI Report Server, enabling users to periodically update the information it is embedded in reports while they may be created. Embedded data is disconnected from the source of the statistics, so it often ought to be refreshed to make certain that the reviews remain relevant. The scheduled refresh characteristic may be used with extra than a dozen records sources, and file developers can configure a couple of refresh schedules for person reviews.

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Inside job to refresh Power BI report statistics

The refresh competencies are feasible because SSAS itself is now embedded internally in the Power BI Report Server. Data it's being refreshed is first loaded into a report's facts version in SSAS where it's miles processed for use within the document. One dilemma to be conscious of: Reports with any statistics sources that use DirectQuery or stay SSAS connections are precluded from also the usage of scheduled refreshes.

Hosting SSAS inner Power BI Report Server gives extra than just the potential to crunch records for scheduled refreshes; for example, it allows IT, administrators, to enlarge Report Server's reminiscence footprint by updating SSAS configuration settings like the most reminiscence limit or the size of the disk cache.

Another tremendous addition became the potential to publish Excel workbooks to the Report Server net portal along with Power BI reviews. To use this characteristic, Office Online Server (OOS) must be introduced to the Report Server preview environment. Microsoft customers with Volume Licensing bills can download OOS at no more cost.

REST interface opens new reporting doors

One of the maximum essential new functions in Power BI Report Server is a REST API that allows programs to get admission to items in a file server's catalog, such as statistics sources, folders, reports, and key overall performance indicators. Application builders can also use the API to create, replace and delete these objects.

The REST API is constructed on the OpenAPI specification, which turned into previously called Swagger. It's an extension of an API brought in SQL Server 2017 Reporting Services with brought help for Power BI and Excel files. The Power BI Report Server version of the API also consists of a modified model of an SSRS function for reusing information sets in special reports; connections to the shared statistics units can be constructed into Power BI reviews through the OData protocol.

A replacement for an older Simple Object Access Protocol interface, the REST API might be a game-changer for IT groups and third-celebration software program companies that want to embed reporting into their applications. Using the API, packages may be programmed to navigate folder hierarchies, view folder contents, retrieve document definitions, upload reports and carry out several other tasks.

Although the Power BI Report Server remains a fantastically young product, it's evolving quickly. The software program can simplify the system of deploying hybrid Power BI reporting structures without forcing customers to sacrifice current on-premises or cloud-based setups.

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