Microsoft has added a new service to its Power BI Premium model. Power BI Report Server lets you manage reports on-premises, interacting with them in the browser or on mobile.
Power BI Report Server Features
The new Power BI report publishing platform will support many, but not all of the regular reporting features, including:
- “Create reports in Power BI Desktop
- Connect to Analysis Services data models (Tabular or Multidimensional)
- Visualize data using built-in or custom visuals
- View and interact with reports in your web browser
- Export report data to CSV
- Print a report page
- View and interact with reports in Power BI Mobile”
According to group program manager Riccardo Muti, you can connect directly to an Analysis Service data model in this first release. That should allow for connections to plenty of other data sources, including SQL Server, Teradata, and Oracle.
There are still a few missing from that list, and Microsoft plans to add more data sources “later this year”.
As well as Power BI capabilities, you can tie in SQL Server Reporting Services. This should be a better solution for more densely formatted reports and is ideal for business settings.
You can download the Power BI Report Server preview today and check out the documentation for more info. Global availability will come with the launch of Power BI premium late in the second quarter of this year.
