I've been using SSRS 2012 for a while now. Keep in mind I'm currently using SSRS 2012 but have set up a 2016 server and will be migrating about 200 reports within the next few months. Just went to PBI training and found out about the new Power BI Server that can sit on top of SSRS. Exciting in that we're in healthcare and cannot use the PBI publishing service for HIPAA reasons. But, I wanted to be sure I understand some things:
In SSRS, you can create a datasource and datasets that are used
regularly for efficiency and to keep down storage sizes. In
PBIRServer, it appears that you create each datasource and the
individual datasets used and store separately for each report. Is
this accurate and doesn't that seem like a step back?
Can I include SSRS reports and BPI reports/dashboards on the same
site?
If we're going to set up a local PBIRServer, can we develop using
PBIpro with about 5-10 pro users but then let the folks that
basically just want to view data use the free version?
If we develop using PBIpro can we still publish to the PBIRServer
with mobile formats? Documentation seems to indicate we need a
different development tool with a much higher cost.
Can you include a hyperlink from PBIRServer reports/dashboards that
to a specific report on the same server? I’m seeing this being used
via PBI for the visuals and then the drill-down-to as the existing
SSRS reports. They’re working great for our current purposes.
Is there a publication that articulates some of these specifics?
Thanks so much!
I think the first thing to keep in mind is that reportserver 2016 and power bi reportserver 2016 are different products. Licensing Power BI reportserver can only be obtained by either buying power bi premium capacity or have an enterprise sql server with Software Assurance
PBI premium: Costprice for this will be 5000$ a month
power bi price calculator
SQL Server Enterprise: $14,256 per corepack , 2 are required + SA
I can't answer all other question, but for question 2:
Yes you can deploy power bi and regular reports to a pbiRS server.
Question 3:
When you develop locally you have to use the power bi desktop for reporting services. To deploy this to a pbi RS you are not required to have a pbi pro license. Since you are using on premise resources, you will follow the licensing model of sql reportserver. The users connecting to the reportserver are no power bi users, just regular ssrs consumers install power bi desktop for report services
If I understand your questions well, you might need to install both, depending on organization size, report creators number and report users number.
SSRS for those people who are OK using standard reports only (with exposed datasources and standard layout design tool) so SSRS yes included with your SQL Server license
Power BI Report Server (SQL Enterprise+Assurance or PBI Premium license) for more sophisticated reports for business people; but to design/publish these reports you need Power BI Pro licence, per report developer
Related
I want to take data from a SQL server ans show it in to the user. I have to update the UI as the user's requirement. what are the advantages and disadvantages of both reporting tool?. Also anyone know about the licensing cost for both?
Alias,
both reporting tools are very similar in terms of features. ActiveReports has royalty free distribution and is licensed per developer. the cost ranges from $799-$1599 per developer.
If you are asking about SSRS server, then it is included as part of the SQL server license, however read the license carefully. You cannot install SSRS on a separate server from SQL Server, it requires IIS, both of these items add pressure on your DB installation, which could be an issue in the future. You would need another SQL server license in order to deploy them separately.
I would suggest that you download and try them and see which one is easier and would fit your needs better and review the licensing based on your requirements.
disclaimer - I work for Grapecity maker of ActiveReports.
1) Can Power BI (online/cloud-based) use our local SSAS cube directly as a data source?
2) If no, and I assume it is no, then can we upload our SSAS cube(s) to be used as a data source, and how do we do that, preferably incrementally (if it is possible to do that incrementally)?
3) If SSAS cubes cannot be used, then I assume that we have to use data built into the SSAS Tabular Model, and use DAX to query it?
4) If this is true, then how do we send data to there? Do we have to define the tabular model locally and ship the stored results (since the tabular model is in memory, I’m not sure that that even makes sense), or do we send constituent tables to the cloud and build the tabular model structures there.
5) If I build this in an SSIS package (which I gather I do), is it an SSIS package that is built and maintained locally (meaning on our existing database, running MSSQL 2012 w/ Analysis Services, the way our existing SSIS packages are), or is it built and maintained in the Power BI Online environment in the cloud?
We're looking at using the PowerBI Preview to deploy dashboards and scorecards based on data that we collect on-premises. I'm assuming that we'd use that OData plugin to make data available in the cloud, for starters...?
edit: thanks for reading!
Regarding 1): Power BI for O365 cannot as yet connect to an SSAS tabular or multidimensional model directly as a source. However, the new Power BI Preview (released December 14) does allow a direct connection to an SSAS tabular model with the new connector. So it is very likely that Microsoft will soon release a similar connector for SSAS multidimensional, as they did for power view on SharePoint, first releasing tabular then multidimensional.
2): There is no direct connection to user-maintained SSAS multidimensional models no matter where they are stored. There is a direct connection to tabular models with Power BI Preview, whether the tabular model is on-prem or in azure.
3), 4) & 5): If the purpose is to "deploy dashboards and scorecards based on data that we collect on-premises" then take a close look at Power Query and Power Pivot and at the Power BI Designer. Also take a look at the developer tools that are available here: https://msdn.microsoft.com/powerbi/
This is an old question, and things have changed between then and now. In today's context using Power BI Gateway and Power BI desktop you can connect your on-premise SSAS cubes to power BI cloud and schedule your cubes to refreshed automatically. Earlier it used to support only tabular model, but as of now it supports both tabular and multidimensional SSAS cubes. The only thing which is not yet available is you cannot live connect a multidimensional cube but you can schedule it to be auto refreshed. However with SSAS tabular you can live connect to Power BI.
We do this for a number of customers... you first need to consider the volume of data in your models as this will dictate your requirement for using Analysis Services (Tabular, as quite righty pointed out Multidimensional is not an option as the in memory model of SSAS Tabular is suited to PBI).
Then you need to think about how the dashboard will be updated and how automated this process can be made using Power Query + Power Pivot - using your OneDrive for Business could be an option to make life simpler should you not be able to use SSAS Connector in the preview.
Finally, depending on your source OData and a few other connections can be automatically refreshed on a schedule (CRM for example)...
Hope that helps.
I am currently working on TFS 2013 and would like to know how to generate custom reports.
Tried google to find out a tutorial but couldn't find anything great. If someone has then please let me know.
Whether SQL Server 2008 R2 Enterprise Reporting Service will be ok for TFS 2013 to generate reports?
TFS has a few mechanisms for doing reporting:
Work Item Queries (WIQ) - Work Item Queries can be created and saved for reuse. Work Item Queries are easy to create, and can answer the majority of questions that users have.
Excel Reporting - Work Item Queries can be exported to Excel to provide more advanced capabilities around analyzing the data resulting from the Query. Various different views of the data along with charts/graphs can be created using standard Excel functionality. Creating Excel Reports requires some expertise in Excel, but the resulting file can be saved and the data can be automatically refreshed from TFS.
SSRS (SQL Server Reporting Services) - This is the most advanced Reporting option. SSRS reports require a developer to create, but it provides the flexibility to report and analyze any data stored in TFS in almost any way imaginable.
TFS Web Access (TWA) - TFS Web Access provides some basic charts/graphs that can be viewed in the browser (Burndown, Cumulative Flow, Velocity Chart, etc). In addition, web-based Charts/Graphs can be generated based on the results of Work Item Queries. This is less flexible than the Excel option, but also more user-friendly and usable by any TFS user.
The advanced option - SSRS Reports - are just your run-of-the-mill SSRS reports that use the TFS Data Warehouse and/or the TFS Cube as a data source. You can read a guide about developing custom SSRS reports for TFS here: http://vsarreportguide.codeplex.com/
I'm in a position of evaluating products / approaches to build Business Intelligence Dashboards on top of Sharepoint WSS (no MOSS at this stage). Does anyone have any suggestions where would be a good place to start?
The BI platform is currently built on SQL Server 2005 / SSIS / SSRS and we're currently investigating adding SSAS to the mix so we're very Microsoft centric at the moment.
Thanks,
Steve
Perhaps this article on how to build dashboards with SSRS/Sharepoint: Building a Dashboard in SQL Server Reporting Services.
In my experience building a dashoard with SSRS/SharePoint is mostly a function of the quality of the talent involved, not the tools. SSRS and Sharepoint are both quircky, but they can get the job done out-of-the-box.
We succesfully built a WSS based BI tool for our product. The biggest challenge for us was to get delegation of security to pass through from the browser to WSS to SSAS to utilise SSAS role security to make sure the one client could'nt possibly see another's.
I'd agree with the previous comment about quirckyness; we have had to develop a fair amount of technique / supporting code for things like casading parameters behaviour's in the report viewer etc.
Best of luck - it does work if you stick with it; our customers love the portal and it will get better with the advances in Sharepoint foundation 2010.
There is a company in Chicago ( DMC - www.dmcinfo.com/sharepoint ) who has SharePoint Dashboard solution that integrates with a variety of data sources (e.g. Dynamics, CRM, Goldmine, QuickBooks, SharePoint Lists, etc.). It works with both WSS (free SharePoint) and MOSS (premium SharePoint). You may want to try asking them.
In Short
I am thoroughly confused by the array of SQL Server services available, and am having a hard time finding a brief primer.
The Scoop
I am a long time ASP.Net developer who has happily been churning out ASP.Net applications for years. These have usually been based on SQL server and a range of custom tables and views.
Just recently I have had the need to do some reporting that goes a little beyond the straight forward, and so I have started to look into SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS). In doing so I feel like i have opened up Pandora's Box.
There is reporting services, integration services, Analysis services, Business intelligence, etc etc. This has got me wondering what they all do, and if I could (or should have been) leveraging these tools to do some of the heavy lifting for .net applications.
My immediate research efforts on Microsoft have stifled me with impenetrable marketing and business speak. My Google searched have turned up no comprehensive overview of what these tools are, or they fit together, or even which tool should be used when. One of the biggest problems i am having comprehending the options is that they all seem kind of the same to me!
So, all of this to say, if some kind sole could set me straight and point me in the right direction, I would be very grateful :)
Very high level overview:
Core services for the database engine itself consist of the SQL Server service itself (or MSSQLSERVER) and there's also the SQL Server Agent and the SQL Server Browser. The SQL Server Agent is a job scheduler for SQL Server and handles some other maintenance tasks and so on, while the Browser service helps with accepting logins and so on by creating an easier way for client applications to connect to SQL Server.
All three of these services though are true 'services' in the sense that they're daemons running on your server. But of these three, you ONLY need MSSQLSERVER running to be able to work with the relational database engine. (The other two services are optional.)
Then, in addition to core database engine functionality, there are a bunch of add-ons or supplemental 'products' and tools that Microsoft Offers to help make SQL Server that much better and more compelling as a platform/offering. As you've seen, these are typically marketed as 'services'.
Reporting Services (or SSRS) is a great solution that uses a native SQL Server database to store information about data sources, report delivery schedules, access permissions, and so on... for a powerful reporting engine that makes it very easy to output great reports from pretty much ANY data source. You just define sources for the reports, wire up datasets and parameters, then use a specialized xml markup (Report Definition Language or RDL) to define look, feel, shape, and so on of your reports. And, Microsoft has created a 'tweaked' version of Visual Studio to make creating/developing/editing these reports much easier. That version of visual studio is called SQL Server Business Intelligence Design Studio (or BIDS).
Likewise, Microsoft also uses BIDS to help developers, DBAs, and analysts create data cubes - multidimensionally 'joined' tables using a specialized schema that allows SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS) to churn through pretty much any combination of data relations in order to provide 'analytical data'. So... say you have a company selling widgets: you could define relationships between products, customers, sales regions, dates, and so on - and SSAS will take that data (along with specially defined 'cube' definitions that define those relationships, their granularity, and so on) and pre-calculate the outcome to pretty much any combination of those 'dimensions' or angles of data - so that you could say something like: "Show me all x-brand widgets sold by sales people in the northwest region in January of this year.." and it would give you a sum of those parts sold... and even let you drill-down by sales person, store, and so on - assuming you've defined your cube/relationships as needed.
Of course, this functionality is pretty powerful, but you almost never want these cubes running against your production tables... so companies typically create data warehouses or data marts to store their analytic data in. But to copy data on a regular basis from production into these warehouses/marts.. you need some kind of tool that makes it easy to figure out which changes should be picked up, how they should be handled, and what kinds of tweaks/changes you need to make to them to get them out of a highly-normalized production environment into a highly DEnormalized warehouse/data mart (where you're using snowflake or star schemas)...
And this tool/service is none other than SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) - which has a rich set of connectors, pumps, transforms, monitors, and so on to facilitate data transformations and migrations on a scheduled basis. What's very cool about this tool/service though... is that it doesn't just connect/transform data between SQL Server and SQL Server... but it's able to connect MOST data sources to MOST data sources - so it's a powerful tool for transforming, exporting, importing, modifying, tweaking, and so on all of your data.
And... to define the 'workflows' for your integration/transformation projects, you also use Business Intelligence Design Studio - same as with defining cubes and so on for SQL Server Analysis Services.
Ultimately though, what makes all of these so cool is that you get access to:
SQL Server
SQL Server Reporting Services
SQL Server Integration Services
SQL Server Analysis Services
With SQL Server Standard and Enterprise Editions - so there's no need to buy extra tools/solutions/offerings in order to be able to take advantage of these great features. (The Enterprise Edition of SQL Server which costs about 5x as much as Standard... comes with much better/cooler features in some ways ... but you still get a solid subset of all features using the Standard Edition.)
Here is a basic overview of the services:
Analysis Services: This is Microsoft's data warehousing solution. It allows you to create data cubes and other warehousing features. Provides tools to make it easier to create what-if scenarios. This runs on top of SQL Server. Data warehousing is also referred to as Business Intelligence applications because the warehouses are used to mine and analyze data.
Reporting Services: Allows you to build database reports more easily. It provides a report designer and management functionality. This service is supposed to make it easier and faster to create rich reports. The reporting service also works against non-SQL Server data services.
Integration Services: Provides functionality to build Extract, Transform, Load (ETL) functionality. ETL tools integrate individual data sets and help with extracting, aggregating, cleaning and uploading data. Like the other services, it provides a GUI that is supposed to make these packages easier to create.
You aren't required to use the three services in one bunch but they do provide functionality when used together. For example, you may use Analysis Services to create data cubes, Integration Services to extract the data from an external service and import it into your cube, and the Reporting Services to create reports that contain business metrics from the data contained in the cube.
As to whether you should be/have been using them, as always, it depends. The services provide some great services but don't always fit the project. For example, Reporting Services do make it easier to create reports but, in my experience, it isn't friendly enough for the end-user report authoring as it is advertised. Integration services are great to do some ETL jobs but isn't as flexible as was sometimes required. I used this service in a few projects but it always ended up being more trouble than I would have expected. But definitely, take a look at them.