Which Power BI do I need?

[GQ]

I'm not certain the best place to ask this.  We are looking at Power BI as a replacement for Crystal Reports.  I'm uncertain which level of Power BI will do what we need.

-Most of our Crystal Reports are used to generate results that will be exported to a .csv file for further upload to another site.  Almost all have start and end date parameters entered by the user.  Is this considered a paginated report in Power BI?  

-We have other reports that export to .pdf, also using at a minimum a start and end date user entered parameter.  Is this considered a paginated report in Power BI?  

-Many reports also have additional user input parameters.  Can this be done and how?

-I often need to combine multiple types of input databases (DB2, MySQL, Access). Is this possible in one report?

I appreciate any assistance or direction anyone can provide.  I currently have Desktop installed but realize to do much of any of what I need, I'll need further licensing - but which?

[truptis]

What is considered a paginated report in Power BI? Is it a report that will only be actually printed in its best form? - these are the reports which are used when we wish to take a print of the report or share the report. These reports are well formatted.

We have other reports that export to .pdf, also using at a minimum a start and end date user entered parameter. Is this considered a paginated report in Power BI?- No, but we can export any report in pdf format based upon the parameters selected by the end user.

Many reports also have additional user input parameters - a site location or product. Can this be done and how?- Yes, this is achievable. How-> we can discuss this while you start building the report.

-I often need to combine multiple types of input databases (DB2, MySQL, Access) in one report. Is this possible in one report?-> Yes, we can connect a single report to multiple data sources.

@GQ -> Please hit the thumbs up and mark it as a solution if this helped you. Thanks.

[GQ]

Perhaps I didn't explain my needs well.  Please see my (hopeful) clarifications in bold.

-Most of our Crystal Reports are used to generate results that will be exported to a .csv file for further upload to another site.  We do not need them in Excel - we need to ftp files with a delimiter.

- Almost all have start and end date parameters entered by the user.  Think Access form.

 - What is  considered a paginated report in Power BI? Is it a report that will only be actually printed in its best form? 

-We have other reports that export to .pdf, also using at a minimum a start and end date user entered parameter.  Is this considered a paginated report in Power BI?  

-Many reports also have additional user input parameters - a site location or product.  Can this be done and how?

-I often need to combine multiple types of input databases (DB2, MySQL, Access) in one report. Is this possible in one report?

I appreciate any assistance or direction anyone can provide.  I currently have Desktop installed but realize to do much of any of what I need, I'll need further licensing - but which?  I'm starting to think Power BI is not the tool for us - we do not need a visualization tool, but a way to extract data from 1 to many data sources and produce output in several ways - file for ftp, printed with charts &/or graphs, etc.

[GQ]

Thank you. Is a specific licensing needed to allow the various users to input the parameters each time they run the report? Currently, each user runs his/her own reports as needed.  I realize paginated reports are available in Premium but are the types of reports I mentioned considered paginated in the Power BI world?

[truptis]

@GQ -> for connecting to multiple data sources we don't need paginated reports.

We usually go with the paginated reports when we wish to print or share the report since they are well formatted. They are formatted in such a manner that they fit well on a page, and they display *all* the data in a table, even if the table spans multiple pages.

[truptis]

Hi @GQ,

Yes, you can go ahead with Power BI for reporting.

It is possible to connect to multiple data sources. 

It is possible to export the visuals into Excel.

It is possible to have pdf copy of the report(we can have a normal report and then export it as PDF or share the PDF copies of the reports via email using power bi subscriptions option)

We can also have paginated reports.

@GQ -> if this helps you then please hit the thumbs up button and mark it as a solution. Thanks.