R Visuals

[CLNersesian]

Hello All,

Does anyone know if you use an R Visualization in a content pack if the subsequent users need to R installed on their computers to access the image? (In other words, are they similar to custom visualizations, which the user needs to have installed?)

Thank you!

C. 

[greggyb]

Content packs live entirely in the cloud, and so do not depend on anything being installed on the machine of a consumer.

That being said, I do not believe R visuals are supported in Power BI Service yet, only as a preview feature in Power BI Desktop.

The issue you see with custom visuals in content packs is that the custom visual definition is not included. Consumers need to add the custom visual to the reports in the browser, but there is no local installation in this process. This is not at all good behavior, but it's important to know where the gaps are and where data is actually living.

[CLNersesian]

The R visuals preview feature documentation says that R visuals can be uploaded to Power BI service, but they are static images that do not interact with the service. However, rendering the images requires the R script (as Power BI desktop uses the R application from the computer that's generating it), thus I was wondering if R visuals uploaded to reports in Power BI service require R to be on the computer that's accessing them? (The content pack example was just meant to demonstrate a potentially similar requirement -- i.e., custom visualizations require users to have those downloaded/ or defined as you say - R visualizations may require the program to be installed on the users computer...)

[greggyb]

Power BI Service has no interaction with a consumer's local environment beyond the browser.

[CLNersesian]

Your statement is contrary to documentation online:

Custom visualizations in power bi reports 

Please note option 4. 

And since I know you're going to argue with me about this: please see this link to confirm that this is directly related to power bi service. 

I am posting to the desktop forum because my questions are based in the desktop application. Uploading reports or content packs to the power bi service doesn't mean that everyone uses those reports specifcally in the power bi service. Likewise with content packs, which can be downloaded and used by others in the desktop. 

Please, if you don't have an answer to my questions based in the desktop application - please don't respond.

[greggyb]

... with a consumer's local environment

Content packs (and all other content in Power BI Service) explicitly cannot be exported in any format that can be consumed on the desktop. Feel free to vote for that feature here.

I'll repeat the answer from my first reply, that consumption of a Power BI Service report does not depend on the resources of a consumer's desktop environment.

If you want to share copies of .pbix files with people, then of course they will need an installation of R on their local machine, as you understand, because Power BI Desktop depends on an external R environment in this preview mode. This is not the question you asked, though. You explicitly asked about the requirements for R visuals in a content pack, which is Power BI Service only. These visuals are displayed, as you know and have mentioned, as a static image in the Service.