Using PowerBI for integrating to .NET application on-premise

[iversa]

We are developing a .NET application that we are already reselling that specifically integrates to a desktop application. This is an on-premise desktop application using PostgreSQL.

We want to build a dashboard in our .NET application and trying to figure out how to do that with Power BI desktop without having to publish them to the cloud Power BI. Is there a way to publish the dashboard to our .NET app so that the data presented in the dashboard will be from the on-premise database without publishing them to the cloud Power BI? We don't want to use the cloud Power BI option.

I hope this makes sense. I did a search on here and could not find a specific answer to my questions

[v-yuezhe-msft]

Hi @iversa,

If you want to integrate Power BI reports into your .Net application, you would need to use Microsoft Power BI Embedded feature, there is an example in this article: Get started with Power BI Embedded sample.

If you just want to host Power BI reports in On-premises BI service, as smoupre’s post, use Pyramid Analytics Server and the new feature of SQL Server 2016 Reporting Services. You can check the following blogs to get more details.

PYRAMID ANALYTICS: LAUNCHES ON-PREM BI FOR POWER BI DESKTOP
Technical Preview of Power BI reports in SQL Server Reporting Services now available


Thanks,
Lydia Zhang

[Greg_Deckler · Accepted solution]

So, for dashboards, there is no on-premises publishing solution that I am aware of. There are 2 on-premises solutions for publishing in general however, Pyramid Analytics Server (don't really know much about it) and the new (upcoming) feature of SQL Server 2016 Reporting Services. There is also Power BI Embedded but not sure if that would work for you in your circumstance as it is also essentially cloud-based.

Question, why not the cloud?

[ykurmangaliyev]

Hello,

I have came across the same problem. I have a .pbit / .pbix template which uses DirectQuery SQL database as data source, whereas server address and database name are extracted to parameters. There is also a parameter which holds a ReportId, which is used in queries. And I need to create a report from this template using my parameters. 

Did anything change since 2016? Are there any interop / SDK options for Power BI Desktop files now, or, perhaps, it can be edited in the document if I open it as ZIP file? 

Thanks!

[iversa]

Thank you for the reply. We sell our solution to small businesses and so far we encounter business who are not open to the cloud.

That is rapidly changing but that is still a reality.

I'm all for cloud and try to promote whenever I can.