Dan English on 29 Aug 2017 18:35:12
In the August 2017 preview support was added to view Excel files in the browser with the addition of Office Online Server. Now that we have that ability why are we being limited to just Excel. I would like to be able to view Word, PowerPoint, etc. In the browser and not just have to download them. Thanks.
Administrator on 31 Aug 2017 00:27:21
Thanks for submitting this idea, Dan! We'd love to hear more about how people imagine they'd use this feature. What types of Word documents or PowerPoint presentations would you want to store in Power BI Report Server rather than in more general-purpose document storage (SharePoint, OneDrive, file share, etc.)? Comment below!
- Comments (3)
RE: Power BI Report Server view Office Docs browser
I didn't realize we were being limited to Excel only. We definitely have word docs and PowerPoints we'd like to store with our reporting system. Some examples: the How-to docs for the system itself, the report request forms for the users to request new reports, we have how-tos on using the various tools - excel, pbi, whatever. Some teams store other data related info with their reports - like a list of the upcoming releases. We'd also store detailed docs related to custom terms that are used in our reports. There are lots of options. For now, we'll have to copy/paste into word, or save our word docs as pdfs - those can also render in the browser.
RE: Power BI Report Server view Office Docs browser
A power point presentation or a word document will help to put together a wiki or howto guide on the report. It would be best to keep PBIRS reports and documentation under the same folder in the report server. In the same way index.html in same report server folder may provide a table of content on what the folder contain in each report tab.
RE: Power BI Report Server view Office Docs browser
Even though the report server does give you the ability to leave a comment this does not work well when it comes to explaining trends in the information shown in your report. The Office suite and PowerPoint is still a powerfull tool where analysts have the ability to comment and slice the data to emphesize specific trends.
Allowing the Report Server to render PowerPoint presentations would enable it to become the central repository for analysis and information in the enterprise.