How to Configure Power BI Report Server

Introduction

Many organizations are reluctant to go to cloud environment due to various reasons such as data privacy, security, compliance or data-sovereignty and data sensitivity. Power BI Report Server is best option for those who has compliance issue to keep their data in the cloud or Power BI online and want to use Power BI reports for reporting, business intelligence and data analysis. 

In previous part of article, I have described what is Power BI Report Server, it’s features and how to install it. If you are new to this article, you can go through that What is Power BI Report Server and How to install it for understanding of Power BI Report Server. In this article I will describe necessary steps to setup or configure Power BI Report Server for on-premises environment.

SQL Server Reporting Services is a part of suite of SQL Server services. Additionally, Microsoft has provided Power BI Report Server in two ways: SQL Server Enterprise edition with Software Assurance, and Power BI Premium license.

The configuration and setup of SSRS and Power BI Report Server is almost similar and people get confuse on it specially, regarding setup and usability. As I had got requirement for both SSRS and Power BI Report Server configuration in the same Windows Server, here in this write up, I will share how can we configure it.

This article will describe how to configure Power BI Report Server separately as well as in the same machine where SQL Server Reporting Services is up and running.

Let us follow below steps for Power BI Report Server setup.

Steps for Configuration

Open Report Server Configuration Manager. You may have SSRS (SQL Server Reporting Service) installed in your machine so, open it from Microsoft Power BI Report Server location. Otherwise, its setup may conflict with SSRS configuration and you may get error.

When you open it, then you will get below screen. Choose Report Server Instance as PBIRS and click on Connect as depicted below.

Go to Service Account and then select Virtual Service Account in Use built -in account option. You can select Use another account also and configure with Account (Domain\user) and Password as illustrated below. Then, click on Apply.

After that, go to Webservice URL. A Report Server virtual directory will be created by default. If you have your own Report Server Web Service Site then you can use its IP Address, TCP Port, HTTPS Certificate, and HTTPS Ports for your web service URL. Furthermore, you can choose default virtual directory as well as can choose default values for Report Server Web Service Site identification. 

For my case, as I have already installed SSRS in my environment with default virtual directory, so I am changing Virtual directory for Power BI Report Server to different than the default. Also, my default port is already in use, so I am assigning different port for Power BI Report Server.

Then, click on Apply.

Go to Database then click on Change Database as shown below.

After that, you will get below screen. Select create a new report server database if you are creating a report server database for the first time. However, you can select choose an existing report server database if you have already installed a report service. Then click Next.

Database Server 

Insert your Server name then select Authentication Type as SQL Server Account, Username, Password, and then Test Connection. If your test connection is succeeded, then click on Next.

However, you can continue setup with default values as illustrated below.

Database

Choose Report Server Database Name as report server (default name) and click Next. Alternatively, you can give another name for database. In my scenario, I am giving different name to my Database than the default value.

Credential 

Select Authentication Type as SQL Server Credentials, insert username and password, then click Next as depicted below.

If you have selected default values in Database server selection in previous step, then you can go with default values here also.

You can see details of setup in summary wizard. Click on Next in the summary wizard.

It may take few minutes to complete the setup.

When the setup is successful, click on Finish.

Now, setup is completed. You can, go to Web Portal URL. You can see default virtual directory there with which you can Apply the setting. Additionally, if you want to change the Virtual directory just Put different virtual directory name than the default value and click Apply. I have already installed SSRS with the default Virtual directory, so I have changed the directory name in my case.

Now, Click on URLs available on above screen or you can simple type URL in the browser to open the Power BI Report Server.

Your Power BI report server will be open in the browser as shown like below.

Conclusion

Hence, this article has described how to configure Power BI Report Server on-premises. After configuration, you can upload your Power BI report files in the Power BI report Server. 

I hope, it will help you to configure Power BI Report Server in separate machine or in the same machine where already SSRS is running successfully.