I'm coming from an environment that used SSRS (from SQL Server 2016) to publish reports to a web portal where the the user could interact with them (select parameters) and then run the report. Once run, the user had the option to Export the entire report (typically a paginated report) to Excel. Upon doing so, each "page" would show up on a different tab in the Excel file. The tabs would show not only the underlying data but all the visuals associated with them as well (just as they saw on the screen on the web). So one tab could have a mixture of data tables, pie charts, bar graphs, etc.). Additionally, when I would set up Subscriptions in SSRS to automatically e-mail the reports out to user groups every morning, I could choose the format for the attachment to be sent (Excel in this case) and the report - with all its elements laid out exacttly as the user would see them on screen - would be sent as an attachment with each page on a seperate tab.
Now, coming to a company using PowerBI, I have users that are requesting this very thing. I can make lots of pretty dashboards but the users want them e-mailed to them. NOT as PDFs or PowerPoint presentations where everything is a static image, but as Excel files. Still with all the pretty graphs but ALSO with all the numbers that feed the visuals. They may want to manipulate the data, combine it with other data they use or simply copy and paste it into another report. But all very specifically from an Excel file.
Can this be accomplished? From a report published on the PowerBI service, it seems I can export DATA - and ONLY as a CSV - but NOT a fully self-contained Excel file. I can also grab specific visuals but, again, as static pictures that the user cannot further manipulate in Excel. Seems like PowerBI and Excel would be very tightly integrated and easy to move back and forth between one and the other. What am I missing?
Back in the day before PowerBI we just had PowerPivot. Then when PBI hit the scene, it was super simple to just Import your entire PP DataModel from Excel into PBI (to this day, I tend to CREATE my models in Excel and then bring them into PBI to make pretty visuals). But going from PBI back to Excel seems challenging if not impossible. I thought maybe the process would be seemless using PowerBI Desktop but when I go to File|Export from there, my only choices are Power BI Template and Export to PDF. I really hope I'm just missing something. Anyone offer any suggestions? Let me know if there is anything I can do to make my scenario more clear. Thanks.
