Microsoft Power BI and Paginated Reports for Construction
As your construction organization moves to Microsoft 365, the question of how to report on all your data becomes critical. Microsoft 365’s de facto reporting solution is Power BI. It is the one-stop-shop for reporting on data generated in Microsoft’s expansive cloud platform as well as external applications.
Microsoft Power BI is known as a robust dashboard report builder. It can connect to many different data sets and applications to build stunning dashboards and KPIs that can be displayed on any device. Microsoft continually enhances Power BI with functionality and integration capabilities and puts that power in the hands of the users. This helps to make it a prime reporting solution on the market today.
While Power BI can publish SQL Server paginated reports, it did not provide the option to create paginated reports until recently when Microsoft released a new desktop Power BI Report application.
So, What are Paginated Reports and How Would I Use Them in Construction?
Paginated reports can be extensively formatted, can fit one or more pages, and are designed to be easily printed. In construction, they are great for printing a formatted form (eg. Submittal Form):
Or data logs with multiple pages (eg. Submittal Log):
Get Started with Power BI and Create Paginated Reports
To get started with creating paginated reports in Power BI, you will need a Power BI Premium license and you must download and install the Power BI Report Builder software. Please be aware that Power BI Premium is expensive. Before you consider Power BI for paginated reports, we recommend reaching out to Microsoft to understand licensing requirements. There are also some settings required in your Power BI service that will be needed. We would recommend doing an internet search on Microsoft Power BI Paginated Reports for step by step instructions as these might change.
See Microsoft’s FAQs for Power BI Paginated Reports for more information.
Lastly, to build effective reports, you will need to have a good understanding of where your information (ie. data sets) resides in your topography. We would recommend that you start mapping out your data sets sooner rather than later to ensure power users all create reports using the same structured data.
Get Reporting Expertise from Lydon Solutions
Having the ability to create paginated reports in Power BI is a great feature. Lydon Solutions has been building SQL Server Reports (SSRS) and Power BI reports for construction for many years. If you have any questions or need help building SQL Server or Power BI reports, you can get a free consultation to talk with our team of experts. If you need an enterprise construction management PMIS that can be deployed into Microsoft 365, complete with reporting, or get a demo of our easy-to-use project management software solution, Construction Viz.
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