What Are Paginated Reports in Power BI Premium?

What Are Paginated Reports in Power BI Premium?

Paginated Reports are nothing but the SQL Server Reporting Services which is also now Part of Power BI Premium service. Reports are called ‘Paginated’ because reports are well formatted and can be printed or shared.

Paginated Reports for Power BI is one such reporting service that helps in creating visually appealing reports and allow users to insert all the relevant and crucial information into it using Power BI report builder.

Paginated Reports for Power BI allow complete control of all the elements in a report. It allows users to customize the field of each report.  Fields like text size, colours, spacing, the print layout, can be all adjusted as per the users’ requirements. The Paginated Reports are also called pixel-perfect due to their ability to customize all the elements in the report.

Features of Paginated Reports

I. Data Sources

A single page Paginated Report can be linked with multiple data sources. Users can create embedded data sources in the report itself. However, shared data sources cannot be used for Paginated Reports. Various data sources can be connected in Paginated Reports such as:

  • Oracle
  • Power BI Premium Datasets
  • Azure SQL Database
  • Azure Analysis Services
  • SQL Server via a gateway

II.  Sensitivity Labels 

Sensitivity labels in Paginated Reports for Power BI allow users to classify the level of confidentiality through the labels. On basis of the department, organization hierarchy and many such factors, access to reports can be shared with limited people in an organization. Not all reports are meant for all the employees or managers and therefore, sensitivity label plays an important role in terms of providing access to users. Depending on the level of confidentiality, users can assign reports as non-business, public, general, confidential, and highly confidential.

III. Charts & Free-Form Layouts

In Paginated Reports, users can create various types of layouts. Be it a table, charts or a layout that has no fixed template such as invoices & receipts, all such graphical presentation is made possible in Paginated Reports. Matrix reports are useful to provide information in summarized form.

With the help of Report Builder wizards – tables, charts and matrix can be built and embedded with a data source connection. As mentioned above, multiple data sources can be connected in a Paginated Report and therefore, each graphical representation can be connected to a different dataset altogether.

IV. Report Definition

Paginated Report is not pre-defined. It helps you to define the report and help you to gather data, present it the way you want and so on. The report processor generates a report from the data you have inserted and combines it with a related layout. Users can upload the report definition to Power BI Services’s workspace with the employees of your organisation.

V. Exporting

Paginated Reports can be easily exported in MS Excel, MS Word, MS PowerPoint as well as PDF, CSV and XML formats. This way, files can be saved in any of the preferred formats and shared with respective people, in and outside the organisation.

VI. Email Subscription

Email subscriptions can be set up for Paginated Reports. The email can be sent to the report owner, team members or even people working outside of the organisation. The subscription attaches the report as a PDF in the email. Depending on how frequently you want to receive, the emails can be scheduled for daily, weekly or monthly recurrence.

When to Use Paginated Reports?

We now know the various features of Paginated Reports in Power BI Premium. Let us look at the applications of the reports.

You may require using Paginated Reports in the following scenarios:

  • Page formatting requirements are strictly for professional reasons.
  • Redesigning the current PDFs that have different visual elements like images, graphs, tables, etc.
  • When you need to export a large amount of data from a table and create a visualization of the data in the table.
  • Simple the page layout and make it easily readable and ensure that all the elements appear on a single page.
  • When you require reports to be directly emailed to you and others once it is ready.

Examples of Paginated Reports

A. Sales Performance Report:

Below paginated sample report shows the pixel perfect printable report for countrywide sales. Report highlights paginated features like:

  • Well formatted Headers and Footers
  • Parameters to explain details in the table
  • Data Bars
  • Trend lines
  • Expression Placeholders such as Up arrow, Down Arrows etc.
    Sales performance report

    Source : microsoft.com

    B. Invoice:

    Here is another example of paginated report- Self-contained Invoice. It is a pixel perfect printable invoice showing total Invoice amount, with itemised costing of the purchased products, quantity, and discounts.

    Invoice

    Source : microsoft.com

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