For Memorial Day, I wanted to revisit one of the most popular blog posts I’ve written, which was about how to insert a live Datazen dashboard into a PowerPoint slide. As we transitioned the Datazen functionality in SQL Server 2016 Reporting Services, I wanted to make sure this still worked with Reporting Services. Let’s walk through the steps again you’d use to enable this functionality (you’ll need Office 2013/2016 or Office365 for this) –
1. Go to the Insert Tab in PowerPoint. You should see the Store Add-In in the ribbon. Click it to open the App Store –
2. A pop-up will open with the apps available in the store. You can now run a search for the app you wish to use
Type Web Viewer into the search bar and hit Enter. You see the Web Viewer app created by Microsoft, which is what we’ll use.
I added the app to my slide and then entered the address for my Reporting Services site. And this is what came up –
Curses! But wait – I don’t really want to go to the home page and browse to my report. I want to go to directly to my report, so I want to use the report address and the embed functionality we introduced in RC1. When I do that, it works perfectly –
I know what you’re thinking – does this mean it also works for paginated reports in Reporting Services using the embed url? Yes it does!
Also, all of your security rules are still active on your reports, meaning you could provide this powerpoint deck to several people who would then only see the reports and/or data they have access to (row level security will depend on the security rules you have in place in your organization).
I’ve done hundreds of customer visits in the last few years, and I’d be hard-pressed to think of one that wouldn’t have a use case this scenario would readily address. And it seems to cover the objections I’ve heard previously –
– It’s an app made by Microsoft
– It respects your security in Reporting Services, so it can be shared freely if needed and have people see only the reports/data they have access to
– You can still use your deck offline if you’d like by selecting the “Show as Saved Image” functionality in the app flyout menu in the upper right-hand corner (shown below)
This is a great way to get a ton of additional value out of your Microsoft investment at your organization, and I encourage all you to give a try. Until next time!
