Power BI Desktop “Publish to Pyramid Server” Button

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Many organizations today cannot use public cloud solutions because of security concerns, administrative challenges and functional limitations. However, they still need a centralized platform where end users can conduct self-service analytics in an IT-enabled environment.

Microsoft and Pyramid Analytics have come together to leverage the personal productivity capabilities of Power BI Desktop to enable an integrated, secure, and governed enterprise on-premise or private cloud solution with BI Office.

Users that have a connection to Microsoft Analysis Services (cube or tabular data) can publish a Power BI Desktop visual to BI Office. Once published, that Power BI Desktop visual can be governed and secured. The steps below illustrate how this functionality works.

Step 1 – Creating Power BI Desktop visuals and exporting to BI Office

Power BI Desktop users can Connect Live to a cube or tabular instance (use Recent Sources to open the server after the first time you’ve connected).

Figure 1. Opening an existing data source

Here you can open a specific cube or tabular model and begin creating one or more visuals from your data connection. Once your visualization(s) are created, you will be asked to save the .pbix file to a location (your desktop, for example). From there you can publish that file to Pyramid Analytics’ BI Office by entering the BI Office Server name and a content destination and publishing it to the server.

Figure 2. Publishing to Pyramid BI Office server from Power BI Desktop

Step 2 – Integrate Power BI Desktop visual with BI Office Story Board

The Power BI Desktop file is now available for integration into a BI Office Story Board with other content. The file may contain a single visual, multiple visuals tied to the same data set, or multiple pages. By storing the report to the BI Office server, you can secure the Read capability of the report by different AD or non-AD roles in your organization.

Figure 3. Securing your Power BI file

Embedding Power BI Desktop content is as simple as dragging and dropping your Power BI Desktop visual into a BI Office Story Board. Specific visual components can be brought in together or separately (NOTE: Interactions between multiple visuals in Power BI Desktop can be maintained ONLY if all views are brought into a Story Board together, not individually).

Figure 4. Embedding Power BI Desktop content in a BI Office Story Board

Here the Power BI Desktop content can be dynamically integrated with content from BI Office, such as KPIs and advanced visuals coming from one or more data sets, reporting applications such as Reporting Services, and 3rd party web assets like a corporate intranet. Figure 5 illustrates the interactions from a slice of data driving visuals from a Power BI Desktop visual, a reporting services report, and the KPIs and grid in BI Office. A user would simply select the Slice button and drag and drop interactions.

Figure 5. Interactions from a data slice to multiple data sources

(NOTE: Interactions can also be drawn from columns or rows from a BI Office views to a Power BI Desktop visual.)

Figure 6. Interactions from a column to multiple data sources

Step 3 – Running your dashboard and showing interactivity

Once created and saved, the BI Office Story Board can be shared by users specified by the analyst when published. As the geography is changed from Australia to the United States in Figure 7, note the changes to the Power BI Desktop view, the BI Office KPIs and grid, and the Reporting Services report.

Figure 7. Slicers by country (Australia, United States) affecting multiple data sources

Step 4 – Manage a Story Board the Power BI Desktop visual resides in

This content can then be shared via URL and mobile device. All data remains on the server, which allows users to secure the Story Board, track metadata and versioning, and gain telemetry on how users are consuming the BI Office Story Board.

Figure 8. Editing versions, security, and lineage

With this new integration, Pyramid Analytics allows you to maximize your Microsoft BI investment, eliminate security concerns, improve manageability, and provide a richer analytics experience through BI Office.

John Hormaechea is a Senior Sales Engineer at Pyramid Analytics. John has previously worked at Microsoft as part of the SharePoint product marketing and Business Intelligence team. Before that he worked at ProClarity in various sales, consulting, and training roles. John uses his passion for customer success to maximize their investments. John enjoys the great outdoors of the Pacific Northwest with his spouse and small army of domesticated creatures.

Chris Brock is a Senior Product Marketer at Pyramid Analytics. He is an accomplished marketer, writer, and editor with over 15 years of experience crafting lively, compelling content that helps drive sales, engagement, retention, and leads. In his free time, Chris tries to stay active exploring his home state of Idaho by road, river, or trail.