Export entire report to pdf in Power BI Report Server (On-Prem)

[danishwahab]

Hi All,

We had developed Power BI Reports in Report Server (On-Prem) and embedded those reports in our application. Problem is that we can not find option to export the entire report in pdf.

E.g. below screenshot shows only print option that too it export only current page. 

Kindly guide use if we are missing any thing here.

Thanks!

[v-jtian-msft · Accepted solution]

Hi,@danishwahab .I am glad to help you.
For the export of report server local server you proposed, divided into the following two cases:

1. Paginated reports exported to PDF
You can view the paginated reports directly through the report server> Export>PDF
The system will automatically export the whole paginated reports to PDF.

2. For pbix files stored in the local report server (reports created via Power BI Desktop RS)
There doesn't seem to be a direct way to export the whole report.
I tried to find out if there are official APIs for exporting report files as pdf, unfortunately they are for pbix files in the power BI service workspace (the APIs point out the concept of workspace). The power bi report server doesn't seem to provide the corresponding functionality.

Here are my suggestions for you to try on report server if possible
1. export the entire pbix report in Power BI Desktop

2. Try to send it to Power BI Service and use the export function in Microsoft cloud report server.
And other users also said that there is no export function for power BI reoprt server, and it is generally recommended to save the report to the cloud server.
Export a report to PDF via APIs on the PowerBI Rep... - Microsoft Fabric Community
 There is no direct function to implement this feature, perhaps you can try to program a script to achieve a similar effect，which requires you to have some experience in code development.
URL:
Solved: Export Reports from Power BI Report Server - Microsoft Fabric Community
Power BI Report Server - Export Power BI Reports (... - Microsoft Fabric Community
Solved: Power BI Report Server PDF/PPT Download - Microsoft Fabric Community
 

I would suggest that you try using the export feature in Power BI Desktop, which enables exporting the entire pbix report.
Thanks for your understanding.

I hope my suggestions give you good ideas, if you have any more questions, please clarify in a follow-up reply.
Best Regards,
Carson Jian,
If this post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly.

[danishwahab]

Thanks @v-jtian-msft for the details response. Much appreciated.

Power BI Server seems to have many limitations as compared to the Cloud based service. We had migrated to Report Server just to keep using Power BI and at the same time not to depend on Azure.

Here are few limitations we are observing which are not listed in the documentation:

1. No straight way to implement incremental refresh other than using SSAS Cube which will require complete redesigning.

2. No option to export full report similar to the one in Power BI Service.

3. No option to allow Self Service BI functionality similar to the one in Power BI Service. In Power BI Server, it gives complete control of the report including changing data sources, data model of the report.

4. Unable to reuse datasets across multiple reports. 

5. Non availability of dataflows.

Thanks!

[v-jtian-msft]

Hi,@danishwahab .Thank you for your reply.

Your summary is very good.
As a matter of fact, the limited functionality of the report server and the corresponding RS version of Desktop is partly due to the design, some teams with high data security requirements will prefer the report server to Power BI Service, they need strong data protection; relatively speaking, for teams with not so high data security requirements and want to use more functions, Power BI Service is obviously a better choice: it is a Microsoft-managed cloud report server, and does not require users to do settings  their own reporting, so it is a better choice. Relatively speaking, for teams that do not have such a high demand for data security and want to use more functionality, Power BI Service is obviously a better choice: it is a cloud-based reporting server managed by Microsoft, which does not require users to maintain themselves and allows them to enjoy a variety of services in the cloud.

Report Server and Power BI Service are more like complementary twins with different audiences.

Your team has listed some of the limitations that are not currently supported by Report Server, which is very helpful for other users to quickly find and understand some of the current limitations on Report Server. And many features of the report server are still in preview. Let's look forward to its better development and thank you for your support.

I hope my suggestions give you good ideas, if you have any more questions, please clarify in a follow-up reply.
Best Regards,
Carson Jian