Yesterday we announcedexciting news for Power BI– a cloud-based business analytics service (software-as-a-service) for non-technical business users. The preview introduces a number of new Power BI capabilities including dashboards, new visualizations, support for popular software-as-a-service applications, a native iPad app and live “hybrid” connectivity to on-premises SQL Server Analysis Services tabular models. With just a browser – any browser – or a Power BI mobile app, customers can keep a pulse on their business via live operational dashboards. They can explore their business data, through interactive visual reports, and enrich it with additional data sources.
How does it work with SQL Server?
To interact with SQL Server data in Power BI, connect to SSAS server via the ‘Get Data’ menu. From there, you can connect to a model and run queries for visualizations based on that model. Before your users can connect to an SSAS model, an administrator must configure a Power BI Analysis Services connector.
To learn more about the Power BI preview, watch as Michael Tejedor gives Jeremy Chapman from Office Mechanics a first look at what’s new.