{"id":15754,"date":"2020-03-25T20:27:00","date_gmt":"2020-03-26T03:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/devwww.3cloudsolutions.com\/post\/three-reasons-to-consider-power-bi-premium-3\/"},"modified":"2023-07-28T11:52:18","modified_gmt":"2023-07-28T18:52:18","slug":"three-reasons-to-consider-power-bi-premium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/3cloudsolutions.com\/resources\/three-reasons-to-consider-power-bi-premium\/","title":{"rendered":"Three Reasons to Consider Power BI Premium"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Inspired by a conversation we recently had with our COO, my colleague (and Microsoft MVP), <a href=\"\/blog\/author\/david-eldersveld\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">David Eldersveld<\/a>, tweeted a question. \u201cWhat is the TOP reason you use Power BI Premium today\u201d? The variety of responses David received were fantastic. Below is a summarized list of <i>some<\/i> of the responses he received.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>It\u2019s more <a href=\"https:\/\/powerbi.microsoft.com\/en-us\/pricing\/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">cost effective<\/a> when you hit a certain number of read-only users (i.e. 500+)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/docs.microsoft.com\/en-us\/power-bi\/service-premium-what-is#large-datasets\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Larger datasets<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Greater refresh frequency<\/li>\n<li>Embedded reports<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/docs.microsoft.com\/en-us\/power-bi\/service-dataflows-linked-entities\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Linked<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/docs.microsoft.com\/en-us\/power-bi\/service-dataflows-computed-entities-premium\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Computed<\/a> entities in Dataflows<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The features above certainly aren\u2019t an exhaustive list of all the benefits of purchasing Power BI Premium. In the sections below, we\u2019ll discuss three other features of Power BI Premium that you should consider if your organization is implementing, or already using, Power BI service.<\/p>\n<h2><!--more--><\/h2>\n<h2 style=\"font-weight: normal;\">Honorable Mention \u2013 XMLA Endpoints<\/h2>\n<p>Okay, I lied. We\u2019re going to talk about four features, because I simply couldn\u2019t disregard the ability to <a href=\"https:\/\/docs.microsoft.com\/en-us\/power-bi\/service-premium-connect-tools\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">connect third party applications to Power BI datasets<\/a> via XMLA endpoints.\u00a0<\/p>\n<h3>What is the XMLA endpoint?<\/h3>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/3cloudsolutions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/XMLA-Endpoint-1.png\" alt=\"XMLA Endpoint 1\" width=\"275\" style=\"width: 275px; float: left; margin: 0px 15px 10px 0px;\"><\/p>\n<p>Power BI datasets leverage the same Vertipaq engine that Analysis Services tabular models are based on. While Analysis Services\u2019 purpose has always been to serve as the enterprise semantic layer for different reporting tools (i.e. Excel, SSRS, Power BI), Power BI datasets could only be leveraged by Power BI reports and Excel. That is, until Power BI Premium introduced the <a href=\"https:\/\/docs.microsoft.com\/en-us\/bi-reference\/xmla\/xml-for-analysis-xmla-reference\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">XMLA protocol<\/a> for workspaces and datasets that reside in dedicated capacity.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"background-color: transparent;\">These XMLA endpoints allow client tools to establish a <\/span><strong style=\"background-color: transparent;\"><i>read-only <\/i><\/strong><span style=\"background-color: transparent;\">connection to your Premium workspaces and datasets. This means that the following client tools can all connect to your Power BI dataset:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>DAX Studio<\/li>\n<li>Power BI Desktop\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>Power BI Report Builder\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>And even Tableau<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"background-color: transparent;\">The ability to connect third party applications to Power BI Premium workspaces and datasets is a giant step toward Microsoft\u2019s long-term vision of Power BI Premium becoming a <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/powerbi.microsoft.com\/en-us\/blog\/power-bi-premium-and-azure-analysis-services\/\" style=\"background-color: transparent;\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">superset of Analysis Services<\/a><span style=\"background-color: transparent;\">. This feature should only improve in the coming months as the ability to also allow <\/span><strong style=\"background-color: transparent;\"><i>write<\/i><\/strong><span style=\"background-color: transparent;\"> operations are now in public preview. You can check out the announcement <a href=\"https:\/\/powerbi.microsoft.com\/en-us\/blog\/announcing-read-write-xmla-endpoints-in-power-bi-premium-public-preview\/\" rel=\" noopener\">here<\/a>!<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"background-color: transparent;\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/3cloudsolutions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/XMLA-endpoint-2.png\" alt=\"XMLA endpoint 2\" width=\"602\" style=\"width: 602px; display: block; margin: 0px auto;\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center; font-size: 14px;\"><i>Connecting to a dataset that resides in a Power BI Premium workspace from DAX Studio<\/i><\/p>\n<h2 style=\"font-weight: normal;\">Top Three Features<\/h2>\n<h3 style=\"font-weight: bold;\">\u00a0<\/h3>\n<h3 style=\"font-weight: bold;\">1. Paginated Reports<\/h3>\n<p>The first Power BI Premium feature we selected was the ability to leverage <a href=\"https:\/\/docs.microsoft.com\/en-us\/power-bi\/paginated-reports\/paginated-reports-report-builder-power-bi\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">paginated reports in Power BI service<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<h3 style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are Paginated Reports?\u00a0<\/h3>\n<p>Paginated reports have been a key component of Microsoft\u2019s Business Intelligence offering for 15+ years. Paginated reports are commonly referred to as \u201cSSRS reports\u201d, since they originated in SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS). Paginated reports are a great compliment to Power BI reports. Whereas Power BI reports tend to be more visual and interactive in nature, paginated reports are great for showing tables of data that can be heavily formatted, while also spanning hundreds of pages.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/3cloudsolutions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/Paginated-reports-1.png\" alt=\"Paginated reports 1\" width=\"300\" style=\"width: 300px; float: right; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px;\"><\/p>\n<h3 style=\"font-weight: normal;\">Power BI Report Builder<\/h3>\n<p>Power BI Report Builder is a client tool that can be used to author paginated reports. Power BI Report Builder can be downloaded from the download menu within the Power BI service (it\u2019s called Paginated Report Builder in the menu). If you\u2019re already familiar with Report Builder for SSRS or PBIRS, then you\u2019ll feel right at home with this client tool.<\/p>\n<h3 style=\"font-weight: normal;\">\u00a0<\/h3>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<h3 style=\"font-weight: normal;\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/3cloudsolutions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/Paginated-reports-2.png\" alt=\"Paginated reports 2\" width=\"1600\" style=\"width: 1600px;\"><\/h3>\n<p style=\"font-size: 14px; text-align: center;\"><i>\u00a0The Power BI Report Builder interface.<\/i><\/p>\n<h3 style=\"font-weight: normal;\">\u00a0<\/h3>\n<h3 style=\"font-weight: normal;\">Connecting to a Power BI Dataset<\/h3>\n<p>There is a reason we called out the XMLA endpoint as an honorable mention. When you are authoring a paginated report, the first thing you\u2019ll want to do is connect to a data source. This is a necessary first step before you can even build your report\u2019s dataset(s). Power BI Report Builder makes this process seamless. Shown below, you can see the dialog that appears. Simply sign-in to your Power BI account and a list of available workspaces and datasets you can connect to will appear.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/3cloudsolutions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/Power-BI-Dataset-1.png\" alt=\"Power BI Dataset-1\" width=\"746\" style=\"width: 746px; display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\"><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center; font-size: 14px;\"><i>\u00a0Power BI Report Builder allows you to easily connect to a Power BI dataset via the XMLA endpoint<\/i><\/p>\n<p>The ability to connect your paginated reports to an existing Power BI dataset encourages both re-usability and a single version of the truth. It\u2019s a best practice to build robust data models (datasets) that can be used by multiple reports and dashboards. Shown below, you can see we have four reports all leveraging the same Power BI dataset. Two of the reports are paginated.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/3cloudsolutions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/Paginated-reports-4.png\" alt=\"Paginated reports 4\" width=\"1556\" style=\"width: 1556px;\"><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center; font-size: 14px;\"><i>Not a premium feature, but the new Lineage view of Power BI allows you to easily see your workspace dependencies. It is shown here to illustrate that we have two paginated reports referencing a single Power BI Premium dataset.<\/i><\/p>\n<h3 style=\"font-weight: normal; text-align: center;\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/3cloudsolutions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/Paginated-reports-5.png\" alt=\"Paginated reports 5\" width=\"600\" style=\"width: 600px; display: block; margin: 0px auto;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14px;\"><i>Sample paginated report.<\/i><\/span><\/h3>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<h3 style=\"font-weight: normal;\">Feature Parity with Power BI Report Server<\/h3>\n<p>The Power BI team is working hard to reach feature parity with paginated report functionality we\u2019re already accustomed to in SSRS or PBIRS. You\u2019ll discover that the vast majority of features you\u2019re already familiar with work in Power BI Premium. However, you should understand the <a href=\"https:\/\/docs.microsoft.com\/en-us\/power-bi\/paginated-reports-report-builder-power-bi#limitations-and-considerations\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">current limitations<\/a> of paginated reports within Power BI before moving forward with your implementation.\u00a0<\/p>\n<h3>2. AI Workload<\/h3>\n<p>Previously, we provided a <a href=\"\/blog\/artificial-intelligence-features-in-power-bi\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">tour of AI features<\/a> available in the Power BI ecosystem, as well as an in-depth look at <a href=\"\/blog\/enrich-power-bi-data-with-ai-insights-from-cognitive-services\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Power BI\u2019s AI Insights from Cognitive Services<\/a>. If you haven\u2019t seen those posts, please give them a read as they go into greater detail than this section will.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>When you purchase a Power BI Premium SKU, you unlock the AI workload, which provides additional AI insights during your data preparation tasks. These AI insights are powered by <a href=\"https:\/\/azure.microsoft.com\/en-us\/services\/machine-learning\/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Azure Machine Learning\u00a0<\/a>and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/azure.microsoft.com\/en-us\/services\/cognitive-services\/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Azure Cognitive Services<\/a>. There is no added cost to your organization to leverage the AI workload since the use of the underlying Azure services is already bundled into the price of Power BI Premium.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In addition to the AI insights during query preparation, the AI workload also unlocks <a href=\"https:\/\/docs.microsoft.com\/en-us\/power-bi\/service-machine-learning-automated\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">AutoML<\/a>, which provides a machine learning interface within Power BI service. AutoML is essentially machine learning with \u201ctraining wheels\u201d which allows analysts to create, train, and apply ML models to their dataset directly in Power BI service.\u00a0<\/p>\n<h3>3. Deployment Pipelines (<a href=\"https:\/\/docs.microsoft.com\/en-us\/power-platform-release-plan\/2020wave1\/business-intelligence\/deployment-pipeline--develop-test-deploy-workspace-content\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">coming soon<\/a>)<\/h3>\n<p>Oddly enough, none of the responses to David\u2019s tweet mentioned Deployment Pipelines. The most likely reason is because Deployment Pipelines still won\u2019t be available for preview for several months. That\u2019s right, the last feature we selected is one that isn\u2019t even in preview yet, but that should indicate how much of a \u201cgame changer\u201d we think Deployment Pipelines could be.<\/p>\n<p>Deployment Pipelines were first introduced to the community last November at the Ignite conference. Deployment Pipelines will significantly improve the deployment process of Power BI assets across different environmentally defined workspaces (i.e. development, test, production). Even more, Deployment Pipelines will be baked into Power BI service as a new user interface. This feature should be welcomed by any Power BI administrator or developer who has bemoaned the need to leverage the API or PowerShell module to facilitate deployment tasks. If you\u2019re not currently familiar with Deployment Pipelines, we encourage you to check out the Ignite announcement video <a href=\"https:\/\/myignite.techcommunity.microsoft.com\/sessions\/83502?source=sessions\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"font-weight: normal;\">Wrap Up<\/h2>\n<p>Many Power BI customers with less than a few hundred users immediately dismiss Power BI Premium due to its price tag. However, Power BI Premium can bring many value-add features to your Power BI implementation that could immediately justify the cost. In addition to its cost-effectiveness for larger implementations, support for larger models, and ability to leverage third party applications, we highlighted our three favorite Premium features:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Paginated Reports<\/li>\n<li>AI Workloads<\/li>\n<li>Deployment Pipelines<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>BlueGranite can optimize your investment in Power BI with our\u00a0<a href=\"\/modern-bi?__hstc=233546881.214aab3060cb58136970cdcc297b831d.1585158261011.1585158261011.1585158261011.1&#038;__hssc=233546881.1.1585158261012&#038;__hsfp=1770436128\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Catalyst for Modern BI<\/a>. To learn more about the key pillars of successful deployment and adoption addressed by BlueGranite\u2019s Catalyst approach, register for our upcoming <a href=\"\/power-bi-office-hours?__hstc=233546881.214aab3060cb58136970cdcc297b831d.1585158261011.1585158261011.1585158261011.1&#038;__hssc=233546881.1.1585158261012&#038;__hsfp=1770436128\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Power BI Office Hours<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Additional links:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Additional\u00a0<a href=\"\/blog\/topic\/power-bi?__hstc=233546881.214aab3060cb58136970cdcc297b831d.1585158261011.1585158261011.1585158261011.1&#038;__hssc=233546881.1.1585158261012&#038;__hsfp=1770436128\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Power BI blog posts<\/a>\u00a0from our team at BlueGranite.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Here are 3 key features of Power BI Premium that you should consider if your organization is implementing, or already using, Power BI service.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":13052,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[260],"tags":[273],"class_list":["post-15754","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-data-ai","tag-power-bi","topics-blog"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/3cloudsolutions.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15754","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/3cloudsolutions.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/3cloudsolutions.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3cloudsolutions.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3cloudsolutions.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15754"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/3cloudsolutions.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15754\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3cloudsolutions.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13052"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/3cloudsolutions.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3cloudsolutions.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3cloudsolutions.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}