In this post I want to cover my personal thoughts about the journey from Power View to Microsoft Fabric over the last ten years.
I have been thinking about this recently due to the fact that I presented a retro session at the Data Toboggan conference over the weekend. Which was called “Delivering Power View with SQL Server 2014 and SharePoint 2013 like its 2014“.
To clarify for newer members of the Microsoft Data Platform community. Before Power BI was available Microsoft introduced another way to work with reports within a web browser.
By configuring an application called SharePoint on a server along with additional applications. In order to create reports with a data visualization tool called Power View.
By the end of this post, you will know my thoughts about the journey over the last ten years from Power View to Microsoft Fabric. Along the way I share plenty of links.
Journey from Power View to Microsoft Fabric
Personally, I think it has been an interesting journey from Power View to Microsoft Fabric over the last ten years.
Back in 2014, some of us were working with Power View either in Excel or through SharePoint.
Then in 2015, Microsoft released Power BI to the general public. Which replaced Power View and became one of the popular Business Intelligence offerings of modern times.
Many years passed, and over that time Power BI evolved and its adoption significantly increased. Then in 2023, Microsoft introduced Microsoft Fabric to the world during Microsoft Build.
Offering a service which contained Power BI along with various other types of workloads. All under one roof.
Which generated a lot of excitement in the Microsoft Data Platform community due to what it has to offer. As you can see in the original diagram that I showed in my first ever Microsoft Fabric post. Where I covered spreading your SQL Server wings with Microsoft Fabric.
In reality, this architecture diagram is now out of date. Due to the rebranding of Real-time analytics to Real-Time Intelligence due to the new functionality. Plus, the introduction of Industry Solutions in Microsoft Fabric.
Elements from the old Power View environment
As I mentioned in last weeks T-SQL Tuesday contribution, I stopped working with Power View some time ago.
However, going back over the environment created to be able to run Power View within SharePoint made me realize just how many elements that existed in the old environment can be found within Power BI and Microsoft Fabric.
Even from a quick glance at editing a Power View report you can see elements that exist in Power BI Desktop.
Including the ability to select multiple types of visualizations. Plus, the ability to work with items such as filters and slicers.
It also allowed you to view thumbnails of your reports in the PowerPivot Gallery.
Anyway, you can also see further evidence of this when you look at elements used for data sources. Such as the SQL Server Analysis Services Tabular Models. Which Power BI semantic models are based on.
For example, you can see various items which we work with today were available when creating Tabular Models with Visual Studio. Including the ability to work with measures, hierarchies and KPIs. Plus, the ability to view the Data Model and manage relationships.
After creating the Tabular Model, you could then work with these elements in Power View reports.
Of course, you can now do the same within Power BI Desktop. Plus, so much more due to its evolution over the years and the introduction of Microsoft Fabric.
Another interesting observation is back then you worked with BI Semantic Models in Power View. Whereas recently what were known as datasets in Power BI were renamed to semantic models.
Typical setup to work with Power View in SharePoint
Like Andy Cutler (l) mentioned during my data Toboggan session, we are in a way spoilt now.
Because ten years ago it took some effort to create a SharePoint environment to allow people to create their own Power View reports. Whereas now it is a lot easier for people to create their own reports within Microsoft Fabric.
For example, a typical setup of a single server to allow people to work with Power View reports in SharePoint 2013 included the following installations:
- SQL Server database engine
- SharePoint 2013 perquisites (typically through an internet connection)
- SharePoint 2013
- Typically, either a multi-dimensional or Tabular SQL Server Analysis Services instance. Sometimes both depending on requirements.
- SQL Server PowerPivot for SharePoint Role installed (via the SQL Server install set)
On top of that, you needed to install the Silverlight add-in on a supported combination of browser and operating system to open up the Power View report canvas. Which in my opinion somewhat reduced adoption back then.
Luckily, I was able to show Power View reports locally using Internet Explorer with Silverlight installed over the weekend. I discovered how to do this in a blog post that showed how to open and use Internet Explorer in Windows 11.
Just to be clear, I am not endorsing anybody to look to create the above environment. Due to the fact that it is no longer supported.
I am showing it in this post to highlight how much effort was involved to create such an environment. In order to highlight how much simpler it is to create a report in Microsoft solutions these days.
Plus, to provide an insight into where some of todays functionality evolved from.
Final words about journey from Power View to Microsoft Fabric
I hope my thoughts about my journey from Power View to Microsoft Fabric has been an interesting read. In addition, I hope it was a good trip down memory lane for some of you.
I must admit, the main reason I showed the PowerPivot Gallery in this post is because somebody mentioned they like the layout.
Of course, if you have any comments or queries relating to this post feel free to reach out to me.
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