I repeatedly get tasked to create architecture diagrams for the workflow and flow of data when publishing reports from Power BI Desktop to PowerBI.com. I often have to create diagrams showing how Power BI Embedded works and the architecture mirroring work spaces. I have been resorting to zooming in on PowerBI.com to take screen shots for icons like Workspaces, Apps, Reports, Datasets, Dataflows, Dashboards, Row-Level Security, etc... Wondering if anyone has a library of these icons I could use? A library of icons for Power Apps and Power Automate would be helpful as well. Thanks!
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I'v been assigned the task to research Power BI Service platform to see if it is useful for the company I'm working at. I have a Power BI Pro license and basically my goal is to create several reports and dashboards from disparate data sources such as REST APIs, mongodb, SQL Server, csv and excel files.
I would like to create the mentioned datasets directly from the Power BI service website but I see that I only can create datasets from csv or excel files. And if I select SQL Server, it asks me to download Power BI Desktop client. The other type of data sources that I need are not even mentioned.
My question is if Power BI Desktop is required to develop and configure datasets for the Power BI service, because to begin with it is a windows only application.
Yes you are. The desktop version provides the full power of the software. You can learn a TON of things from this guy on YouTube and also from these guys in a cube. I'm willing to bet you can search the questions you have & can find specific example videos that'll help you determine if this software is right your company. In my opinion, when it comes to data visualization software, it's tough to beat Power BI. That's especially true if your company is on Office 365.
As a tip, it's important to note what kind of data sources you need to communicate with. And are those sources in a cloud or on premise. That's important depending on how "live" you want your data to be.
The main use of Power BI Desktop (Windows only application) is to get the data from the sources into data model, then load it to the service. The data connections and the ability to create reports is limited compared to the service. The main goal of the service is to share the reports and collaboration.
For example there is no realtionship designer in the service to connect the imported entities. You can create a report in the desktop and load it to the service, and then create other reports from its dataset in the service.
You can create dataflows in the service to get data from flat files, and databases, but you then use Desktop to connect to them and link them together there.
I see that it is very complicated to get an embedded view for a dashboard in Power BI.
For reports, they generate a link for an embed view. So simple. There's no option for that within Power BI for dashboards.
Is there a way that a dashboard can be embedded? I am not familiar with packages or visual studio. If anyone can please guide me through the process step by step, if possible. I have checked documentations from Microsoft and it seems a bit complex. I have downloaded visual studio already. Now I am just stuck from there. I have a Power BI account already.
My main goal is to obtain/generate a link so that my dashboard can be embedded. Please help if possible. I greatly appreciate it!
You can only embedded reports, not dashboards into, for example, SharePoint and Teams.
If you wish to embed dashboards or reports or components from them you will need Power BI Embedded or Premium, to allocate the workspace to a capacity, and have to create your own web portal to display them.
What's the rendering software piece that Power BI uses to draw the visuals?
It's has been developed or bought by Microsoft?
I had read that visuals are built with JavaScript, could it be an browser rendering engine like Chromium's Blink and libraries like D3.js?
It appears to be mostly JavaScript/TypeScript.
You can check out this GitHub Repository for documentation regarding creating Power BI visuals or search all of the repositories related to Power BI visuals.
They do explicitly mention d3 in their Adding External Libraries section.
I have read a little bit about Power BI and it looks like a great tool. I need to provide reports/dashboard in the way that client would see my branding, is it possible? It looks like it works for webpages as you can use the embedded power bi functionality, but what with mobile bi experience. Let's say with the power bi app, is there a way to creat a clone of this application with your own branding and different name (rather than power bi app)? If it doesn't work can i somehow use PowerApps? Can I create my own let's say iphone app using PowerApps which shows reports/dashboards? How does it work with regards to security, can I have 2 factor authentication?
The more complicated scenerio which I really would like to achieve is to a webpage which has 2 pages, one with embedded Power BI and another one with SSRS reports. What is the best way to achieve that? It would be great if a user needs to login to the page only once?
I would appreciate your indications what is possible and what not and how current companies deal with such issues.
Regards,
Rafal
Your best bet is Power BI Embedded. As you say, it allows you to embed Power BI reports into externally facing mobile apps or websites. More information: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/power-bi-embedded-what-is-power-bi-embedded/
To complete your more complicated scenario, you can use the Report Viewer control to embed SSRS reports into a website: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa337090.aspx. In terms of logging in, both Power BI Embedded & Report Viewer allow your application to authenticate behind the scenes against their respective services. End user security is left to your app/website to handle.
Re-branding the existing Power BI mobile app is a no-go. It comes as-is.
Power Apps can be used to collect data that is then loaded into Power BI, but I've never heard of Power BI tiles/reports being embedded into a Power App.
All these technologies are rapidly evolving, though. What's true today could easily change as features are added & feedback is received.
I am using Power BI Embedded. I have created a .pbix file containing a few tabs worth of visualizations. Each tab contains a TimeLine visualization so I can select timer periods along with several charts and maps.
This arrangement looks good in Power BI Desktop. When I publish the .pbix file to the Power BI website, each tab can be pinned to a dashboard. Pinning a dozen visualizations does not seem to make much sense and seems to suggest that the real idea behind it is to not have many visualizations on each tab and allow the user to pin the visuals they are really interested in. The Power BI presentations I've seen also seems to do this.
My report would end up with dozens of tabs which could get very unwieldy in Power BI Desktop. Is there a right way to go about this? Is there some guidance from Microsoft or a few examples I can look at? How does this affect Power BI Embedded?
Also posted to the Power BI Forums.
Honestly, I don't find multiple tabs to be that unwieldy. Of course, it boils down to personal preference/the preference of your audience. It sounds like you have things arranged nicely.
The Power BI Showcase has some good examples of aesthetically pleasing reports here.
About embedding: from my personal experience, tabs do not show up when embedding a PowerBI dashboard/report in a web application.