Forum Discussion
markdevries
10 years agoNew Member
Requirement for BI Desktop versus BI Service
I'm new to Power BI and I'm confused about the functions available only in BI Desktop versus BI Service, and vice versa. I use Office 365 with Power BI. It appears that some BI functions, like i...
- 10 years agoThanks very much! Your response explains the differences very well! Thanks!
ankitpatira
Community Champion
10 years agomarkdevries power bi desktop differs from power bi service as it has more data modelling capabilities than you get in power bi service. so think of it as a designer that you use to build reprots and then publish to service to share it with others. Normal approach would be to use power bi desktop to connect to your data source, build reports and then publish to power bi service. For some data sources you can straight connect to them from power bi service and build reports but you don't get advanced data modelling capabilities that you get through power bi desktop.
Power BI Desktop need to be downloaded and installed on your local machine / server and is not a web based application to be added to O365 apps.
markdevries
10 years agoNew Member
Thanks very much! Your response explains the differences very well! Thanks!