Where did SSAS connections go from power bi service online?

[Alandwehr]

So, we are an all cloud company using power bi desktop and the power bi service. We are currently developing new SSAS structures over our Azure warehouse and I wanted to test what it would be like for a user to connect to it via the online services. When I go to get data and choose SSAS it now errors and says its no longer supported? When did this go away? Why? 

As I understand it, you now have to use a gateway, but that's for on-prem and we have literally nothing on prem. 

Help?

[Seth_C_Bauer]

@Alandwehr Connect and build your report in the Power BI Desktop. Once you publish it to the Service the connection will just work, you don't need to set up a gateway. The Desktop allows you to build our additional measures and calculations so it is where you want to do your development anyway. The Service just gives you the basics in terms of report building.

[Alandwehr]

What if we're working to train users to only use the bi service? We werent' going to have people install locally and teach them how to use desktop? 

[Seth_C_Bauer]

@Alandwehr At this point, there isn't really a choice. There are numerous benefits to using the Desktop, but I don't know all the workings of your solution to say it is a "better" fit. The end users can easily connect, and actually extend the report by adding any missing measures or calculated columns now on a live connection. In any case, the Desktop is the "go to" for report building, and now appears to be a requirement for most data sources.

[Mike_Carlo]

My recommendation is to always use the desktop to author reports.  This enables flexible model & DAX measure creations.  If you don't want users to be able to add additional cacluations (DAX) measures (which is not possible in the service) then you can allow users to create reports in the service.  

In most usecases creating reports in the service is not a good idea as reports that are created in the service can only live in the service. 

[Alandwehr]

Perhaps I'm not clear, the bigger picture is that people are not authoring reports. They are doing quick ad-hoc pulls to answer something. I'm not talking about people publishing standard content. It would be for them only. 

It's one area of Power BI I see lacking for an enterprise. I could create and publish some blank report for them to drag & drop things onto, but that defeats my purpose as well. 

I look at BI from different views.... there are tech people creating dax and doing lots of cool stuff to put out as standard consumable content, then there are super users who might create reports for their group or area, and lastly the common user who just needs to be able to quickly grab a few things and throw it up on the wall. 

It's the third level I'm trying to account for. 

[Alandwehr]

For our use case, we want an easy web based quick drag & drop for users to do self-service ad-hoc queries. We have a few people that will use desktop, but a larger group that wouldn't. 

It would be nice to understand Microsoft's thoughts on this toolset.