Power BI has rapidly matured into one of the most capable analytics ecosystems in the industry. What started as a powerful visualization tool is now a comprehensive reporting platform that supports everything from high-impact dashboards to structured, print-ready operational reports. For organizations modernizing their data stack, understanding Power BI is full reporting capabilities is essential—especially now that interactive analytics and paginated reports coexist inside the same cloud environment.
At brs, we believe clarity drives confidence. So in this article, we break down the Power BI reporting ecosystem in a clear, structured way—helping teams understand how the pieces fit together, where each tool delivers the most value, and how both interactive reports and paginated reports can coexist strategically to support an organization’s complete reporting needs.
Power BI Desktop remains the foundation for designing interactive analytical reports. It connects to virtually any data source—whether through an on-premises data gateway or directly to cloud platforms like Azure—and publishes those reports to the Power BI service for distribution. This environment is built for discovery: slicers, drill-downs, filters, tooltips, and sleek visualizations all work together to help users explore trends and uncover insights on their own terms.
Paginated reports introduce a second authoring experience through Power BI Report Builder, a tool specifically designed for pixel-perfect layouts. This is where organizations build content that must be consistent, complete, and formatted with precision—such as invoices, statements, sales orders, financial schedules, and operational documents. With Report Builder, teams gain full control over structure, pagination, and report page layout, all while still publishing to the cloud.
These two tools—Desktop and Report Builder—form the dual-authoring foundation of Power BI’s reporting ecosystem. One is optimized for exploring data dynamically; the other ensures structured reporting with absolute clarity using standardized definitions such as RDL (Report Definition Language).
No matter which tool you use to build reports, everything ultimately flows into the Power BI service—the centralized hub for hosting, sharing, and managing analytics across your organization.
For companies operating at scale, Power BI Premium provides the enterprise-grade capabilities needed to deliver a complete BI solution. It offers a single, unified view of your organization, partners, customers, and suppliers, empowering better decision-making at every level. As a Software as a Service (SaaS) product, Power BI Premium allows users to securely consume content through mobile apps, internally developed applications, or directly in the Power BI portal. Premium also unlocks advanced capabilities such as:
For software vendors or organizations wanting to integrate analytics into custom applications, Power BI Embedded offers a seamless way to bring both interactive and paginated reports into internal or external solutions. Designed for ISVs, it enables clients—whether inside or outside the organization—to view and act on insights stored within dedicated embedded capacities, ensuring data-driven decisions directly within the applications they already use.
Together, these deployment options form a modern, scalable analytics architecture that supports everything from small teams to enterprise-wide programs; ensuring insights are accessible wherever decisions happen.
Built for exploration, discovery, and real-time analysis.
Interactive Power BI reports excel when users need to understand what is happening in the business—patterns, trends, exceptions, performance drivers, and opportunities. They are visual, intuitive, and designed to let users follow their curiosity.
These reports shine in scenarios such as:
If the objective is insight generation, interactive reports deliver.
Built for precision, structure, and operational reporting.
Paginated reports serve a fundamentally different purpose. Instead of enabling exploration, they ensure that every row, column, and section appears exactly as intended—no scrolling, no hidden content, and no missing details. They are designed to print cleanly, export consistently, and meet regulatory or operational formatting requirements.
Ideal use cases include:
If interactive reports help teams analyze, paginated reports help teams communicate with clarity.
Long before paginated reports became part of Power BI, paginated reports existed as a cornerstone of SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) and Power BI Report Server. Many organizations still rely on these on-premises environments today, especially for operational reporting workflows that demand consistent formatting and print-ready output.
The cloud now brings the best of both worlds: the proven reliability of paginated reporting paired with the scalability and accessibility of the Power BI service. Existing SSRS reports can be migrated into Power BI using their RDL structures, allowing organizations to modernize delivery without rebuilding from scratch.
To publish paginated reports in the cloud, organizations need Power BI Premium capacity or an equivalent Azure capacity (A4 or higher). This ensures proper memory and compute resources for rendering and distributing pixel-perfect documents.
Once enabled, the paginated workload remains dormant until the first report is published, eliminating unnecessary configuration steps. This streamlined approach makes it easy for authors to begin working immediately, without waiting on capacity administrators.
Paginated reports support a broad range of data sources. When connecting to cloud systems, Power BI communicates directly with the service. When connecting to on-premises systems, an on-premises data gateway securely bridges the Power BI service to local databases.
This flexibility ensures organizations can modernize reporting without restructuring their data infrastructure.
Paginated reports can be consumed in multiple ways:
One of the most powerful capabilities of paginated reports is export flexibility. Reports can be downloaded in various export formats including PDF, Excel, Word, PowerPoint, XML, CSV, MHTML, and TIFF.
It is telling that nearly 70% of paginated report users export their data—underscoring how essential formatted, printable output remains for operational workflows.
Subscriptions further enhance the experience by allowing users to receive reports automatically on a defined schedule.
Consider a workspace containing both interactive and paginated reports. An interactive Sales Analysis report displays dynamic visuals, slicers, and cross-filtered insights—perfect for an analyst exploring fiscal year trends.
But when drilling into a detailed sales order containing dozens of rows, the interactive report relies on scrolling. When exported to PDF, Power BI captures only what fits on the screen, leaving most of the order out of the exported document.
Rebuilding this sales order as a paginated report solves the problem immediately. Instead of a scrolling table, the layout flows across multiple pages. Exporting the paginated version creates a complete, polished, multi-page PDF—every line included.
Both report types did exactly what they were designed to do. And together, they deliver a complete reporting experience.
Microsoft Power BI offers a comprehensive reporting ecosystem that balances insight with precision. Interactive Power BI reports empower teams to explore data dynamically, while paginated reports ensure structured, print-ready output for operational and regulatory needs.
The result is a modern, flexible, and scalable reporting environment—capable of supporting every layer of the business, from C-suite dashboards to front line operational documents.
At brs, we can help you turn your data into insights with Power BI. Whether you are in oil and gas, mining, or manufacturing, our team can design and implement interactive reports or paginated reports tailored to your needs.
Your data is your most valuable asset — let us help you visualize it. Contact us today at info@bowriversolutions.com or visit www.bowriversolutions.com to start your data visualization journey.
This article is part of our Power BI Paginated Reports Series, a structured guide designed for both business leaders and report authors.
For C-level and senior decision-makers, the series explains how paginated reports support operational reporting, governance, scalability, and consistent decision-making across the organization. For analysts, developers, and power users, it provides practical insight into how paginated reports are designed, built, and refined using Power BI Report Builder.
Each article focuses on a specific stage of the paginated report lifecycle—from foundational concepts to advanced capabilities. You can explore the series in order or jump directly to related topics:
View the full series: https://bowriversolutions.com/blog