Hi, i just joined a new company and see we have a BI app that is quite unique. It has many tabs but this question is specific to the sales tab.
The app is probably (i'll check) too proprietary to share image wise here but basically it has 30 check boxes for mostly (there are a couple of filters and format choices) what columns to include in a generated query whose results are saved to a downloaded spreadsheet. And you can save the choices you made to a named template for reuse. I think its cool and very safe. Next to about 19 of the checkboxes are 2 choices, what "group by priority" to use for this column in the query and a drop down of filter choices that shows on a smaller pop up window. There is no subtotaling. There is one YOY formatting choice. You can copy the query that was generated too.
i'm asked if this can be done in pbi. I dont even know if the capability of dragging wanted columns to the report is something that can be done even in a published report like one can do in the desktop. I havent seen this.
Forget for the moment the spreadsheet part and please think about 2 things: 1) the geography so many inclusion rules would take up on an app like pbi service where space i think is at a premium, 2) how the usual pbi parameter choices come with some potential risks involving user expertise when it comes to matrix/hierarchy/subtotal like behavior and selecting columns.
I suppose i can limit my thinking to grids but i am still concerned about this or any pbi published report whose format is "roll your own". I have no problem with power desktop users rolling their own but i think this is different.
does the community have any thoughts? My gut told me initially to stick to excel with a data source and pivot or possibly power pivot when it comes to rolling your own report. I suspect pbi embedded can do things like this but have felt generally that using embedded kind of defeats the purpose of self service bi.
