On premise Power BI report server and desktop programs

[ShaWo]

We are thinking of having an on-prem power bi report server and also using the cloud service in the future. Do we need to think of the future architecture with having two seperate desktop programs for on-prem usage and for cloud usage? Or are they at some point in the future combining the two feature sets together in to one desktop program for designing the reports?

[Anonymous]

we need a tool a bit like SSRS where we design a dashboard and either publish to the cloud or an onprem server

[Phil_Seamark]

Hi @ShaWo

I'm pretty sure you use the same Power BI Desktop application to author reports for both onpremise and web-service reports.

[ShaWo]

Edit: Forgot to say Thank you @Phil_Seamark 🙂

Okay, that sounds good. It just gets pretty confusing when half of the documentation speaks of "Power bi desktop" and half of "Power BI desktop optimized for power bi report server"

Examples of both 

https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/reportserver-quickstart-powerbi-report/

https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/sqlrsteamblog/2017/05/17/a-closer-look-at-power-bi-report-server/

[vanessafvg]

@ShaWo there is a specific power bi desktop for SSRS

https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/reportserver-install-powerbi-desktop/

[ShaWo]

Thank you @vanessafvg, I'm aware of this and this is the source of all the confusion for me, since different sources within microsoft refer to different programs. For example the two documents I linked in my previous message

[vanessafvg]

@ShaWo

i think it has to do with the configuration of publishing, its a different config to publish to ssrs vs to the service.  so i am sure you could develop in both however when you want to publish that might be where you have an issue

[ShaWo]

 @vanessafvg Yup, that was what I was afraid of. Thinking in advance, having two different programs for different publishing venues makes it difficult to understand for the regular user. And not even talking about the file association with pbix files and different desktop programs.

[vanessafvg]

@ShaWo are you using both the service and SSRS?  

[ShaWo]

@vanessafvg not yet, but since the new premium model and the local on-premises server make it possible we have to think about the possibilities. It is tempting to have on premise server for some data and cloud for others but having two desktop programs (if that is the case?) makes it quite a hassle.

And to be clear I don't know if @Phil's comment of having only one program will be the future or not. There are comments from Microsoft in different documents about desktop and desktop for ssrs. Getting a clear roadmap for example about the development of desktop to one single program would be great. I realize that the logical way would be combining the two into one desktop program down the road, but who knows what they are thinking at Microsoft 🙂

[vanessafvg]

@ShaWo  i think a lot of what microsoft are driven to do will depend on the Power BI community, so i agree it makes sense to combine the 2