Excel Online connection to Azure Analysis Services? - excel

Is it possible to connect to Azure Analysis Services from Excel Online?
I can't find any option to do it, like in the offline version (Data -> Get Data). If I create a file in Excel desktop version and open it online there is a Refresh button shown (Data -> Refresh Selected Connections). However, when I click it, it returns an error.
I can't seem to find any information on the Microsoft site about it.

Unfortunately, you cannot connect Azure Analysis services from Excel Online.
Reason: The Online version of Excel is limited features - where get data is missing.
Appreciate if you could share the feedback on our feedback channel. Which would be open for the user community to upvote & comment on. This allows our product teams to effectively prioritize your request against our existing feature backlog and gives insight into the potential impact of implementing the suggested feature.

Related

How to get notified about breaking changes in Azure services?

I looked for this online and to my suprise I didn't find any relevant information.
We recently had a serious crash because one of Azure services had some breaking changes. This information was published on the service website and also I think shown as warning on Azure portal. The problem is that nobody checks the website if it's not needed and warnings can be overlooked.
I wonder if there is a mailing list or some other way to get emails only in case where there are some planned changes with serious impact on the services?
Regards
On this page https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/fundamentals/whats-new it says:
"Get notified about when to revisit this page for updates by copying and pasting this URL: https://learn.microsoft.com/api/search/rss?search=%22Release+notes+-+Azure+Active+Directory%22&locale=en-us into your RSS feed reader icon feed reader."
I didn't find anything about an email list, but I did find this tool that takes an rss feed and emails you.
https://blogtrottr.com/
Ok so this is what I was able to find.
The best way to get notifications about potential breaking changes is to use Azure Service health available in Azure Portal - link
Here we can see planned certificate changes, some services being updated etc.
We can also configure for this to have notfications in Health Alerts section

How to create workspace in A1 cored PowerBI service in azure portal?

Over the months of exploration into PBI, started with successfully creating a workspace using PowerBI pro license and ended with hosting a pbi report embedding into my custom MVC site using apps-own-data model.
First experience is maximum allowed embedded tokens running out.
My company decided to create a dedicated A1 core powerbi embedded service in a azure account. Now I have overcame token running out of count issue but seems cringy that my powerbi embedded service besides paused still my embedded site runs and accesses powerbi reports without any interruption.
Previously have created AD using embed tool provided by microsoft. I can see my AD been created in azure portal too.
How this is possible to view a pbi report where my azure powerbi embedded service been paused.
Am i supposed to use those pbi reports without getting billed?
Microsoft has limited information on documentation to clarify my doubts, but the PBI community site is somewhat helpful still having trouble getting clarification for the same.
Help required.
For your question:
How this is possible to view a pbi report where my azure powerbi embedded service been paused. Am i supposed to use those pbi reports without getting billed?
If the A1 Node is paused, then no, you will not be able to see your report or use the service in your front end. It has to be running to deliver the reports in your custom front end. You can still go into the Power BI Service with an assigned Power BI Pro licence and see your report, the workspace that the report has been deployed to, is flagged as 'embedded capacity' that will be shown as a diamond shape next to it.
You allocate the workspace to a capacity by editing the workspace and selecting the 'Advanced' option then 'Dedicated Capacity'
The MS documentation outlines pausing will not deliver content.
Pausing a capacity may prevent content from being available within
Power BI. Make sure to unassign workspaces from your capacity before
pausing to prevent interruption.
Pausing is designed to allow you to stop delivering connect for example, out side business hours, I have a few clients that only run their internal and external report during 7am to 7pm, the other 12 hours the service is paused. The A sku billing costs are reduced to 50%.
Hope that helps

Microsoft Azure realtime charts for externals

since a couple of weeks I'm working with Microsoft Azure and I wonder if there is a possibility to create realtime charts in my Web App for external customers.
I know Microsoft provides two different services called 'Power BI', which supports realtime charts and 'Power BI embedded'. But my problem is that, as far as I know, Power BI is only intended for internal users and Power BI embedded, which is inteded for charts e.g. in Web Apps for external customers, only provides reports which are not realtime.
Am I missing something or is it currently not possible to provide realtime charts inside web apps with the given services of Azure? If yes, what would be alternatives to achieve my goal?
Thank you very much in advance.
Kind regards,
Felix
I would look at Power BI Embedded, with the data source using a Direct Query connection to Azure SQL Database or Azure SQL Datawarehouse. Every user action in the report (filtering, drilling etc) will generate a query against the database.
That Power BI Embedded architecture is explained on this page:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/power-bi-embedded/power-bi-embedded-what-is-power-bi-embedded
Direct Query is explained on this page:
https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/powerbi-azure-sql-database-with-direct-connect/
1) Consider that Real Time is like in an IOT scenario where you see your graphics on your dashboard moving in Real Time and not after a refresh. So in this context you should consider using Azure Stream Analytics Jobs. It's get an input from a blob storage, an event Hub, ..., and then in output you can use your power BI account to write in real time events ingested from Azure Streaming Analytics. Very powerfull! you use SQL for querying the input, the only thing to be aware is the thumbling time window that is somehow new to the SQL language.
2) Letting your customer access to the dashboard I would suggest you to pubblicate your dashboard for free access, and then secure your dashboard inside a web app on which you can apply a security pattern. You can also invite people outside of your organisation via email. Which is faster than the previous solution, but people accessing to your report must have a power BI Pro license. You can use the free trial for 60 days.
Hope that helps!
Cheers!

Azure live cost monitoring

In my Azure environment I am often tinkering around, adding new services, scaling roles up and down, etc. The problem is that I am always unsure as to how I may have affected my monthly bill. I'm also scared of forgetting to kill services after I don't need them (for example, I mistakenly had a Reporting Service running for a few weeks - very expensive!).
I'm looking for an add-on or service which can give be a basic idea of how much money I am consuming in Azure. I don't need something complicated. A graph or two could be great (perhaps a burn down).
I found these but without luck:
Foglight for Azure: This didn't work for me. All my figures showed up as 0.
Active Cloud Monitoring: This has been removed from the Azure add-ons.
Does anyone know of such a solution?
thank you for the question and the feedback. The new Azure portal, which is currently in public preview, does have this feature. You can try out the new portal at https://portal.azure.com/ . Once there, click on Billing tab on the left of the screen, which should bring up a billing summary for all your subscriptions. Click on the subscription that you need to check, and that will show you the billing details for that subscription. Details include subscription status, days left, current charges, burn down, and a breakdown of current charges by resource.
Please try this out and send your feedback using the "Give feedback" link at the top of the new portal page. You will have to click on your account name to see the "Give feedback" option in the drop down.
If you are using "Enterprise Agreement" as a billing option, the Azure portal does not provide sufficient billing information.
You could use Microsoft Power BI to import the data from Azure and use it for reporting. In Power BI you can use the Content pack "Microsoft Azure Enterprise" and connect it to your subscription. You will need the Enrollment number for your Enterprise Agreement and an API key to access the data.
A detailed explanation can be found in this blog entry.

Exporting and importing subscriptions to SharePoint-hosted reports that were created in SQL Server Reporting Services

I came across this question in related questions which basically asks the same thing.
Is there a way of exporting and importing subscriptions to SharePoint-hosted reports that were created in SQL Server Reporting Services?
Scenario: During report re-deployments, reports are deleted and re-created, and the associated subscriptions are deleted (orphaned?). Is there a way (automated - either by a custom tool or via SharePoint/SSRS APIs) that I can export out the subscriptions before deleting the associated report and import back the subscriptions after the report has been redeployed?
Something to try...
When a SSRS subscription is create a job gets created under SQL Server Agent\Jobs. The job name looks like a guid so it's not easy to tell one subscription from another. But you can right click on the job and the "Script Job as" options are available.
I'm sure someone with more T-SQL could come up with a neat little script that does everything for you. But that would be a whole new question. :)
Note: I know this for sure with SSRS 2005 I would image 2008 is similar.

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