Power BI: Reports in Service—No Desktop

Key insights

• Power BI Service now lets you build full reports in the browser without installing Power BI Desktop for many scenarios.
  Use an Excel file and a Power BI license to connect data and start authoring immediately.
• Power Query Editor in the browser lets you transform and clean Excel data, name tables, and prepare data for reporting.
  Work flows from Excel (OneDrive/SharePoint) into the browser-based editor and then into a semantic model.
• Semantic model support in the service lets you add structure and calculations directly online.
  You can create measures such as Total Actuals, Total Budget, Variance, and Variance Percentage inside that model.
• Build visuals like KPI cards, slicers, and column/line/bar charts to answer core business questions such as budget vs actual and which categories drive variance.
  These visuals help you quickly see if the company is over or under budget and where differences come from.
• Key benefits: no Desktop install, works in a browser on Mac, iPad, or other non-Windows devices, and speeds ad hoc reporting for business users.
  This lowers friction for quick, workspace-level report creation.
• Limitations: the service currently supports reports from an existing semantic model or from pasted/manually entered tables only.
  For advanced data shaping or complex modeling, Power BI Desktop may still be required.

Keywords

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