Important: In Excel for Microsoft 365 and Excel 2021, Power View is removed on October 12, 2021. As an alternative, you can use the interactive visual experience provided by Power BI Desktop, which you can download for free. You can also easily Import Excel workbooks into Power BI Desktop.
Power View in SharePoint server is a browser-based Silverlight application that's a feature of the SQL Server 2012 Service Pack 1 (SP 1) Reporting Services Add-in for Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 and 2013. Creating, opening, and saving Power View reports (RDLX files) all take place in SharePoint Server 2010 and 2013.
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There are two versions of Power View: Power View in Excel 2013 and Power View in SharePoint Server 2010 and 2013. This topic is only about creating Power View reports (RDLX files) in SharePoint Server. Read about creating a Power View sheet in Excel 2013.
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Read about everything else you can do in Power View.
Create a report in Power View in SharePoint Server
To create a Power View report, start Power View from a data model file in SharePoint Server 2010 or 2013. Models, or connections to models, can be in a SharePoint Server document library or in a Power Pivot Gallery, a special purpose SharePoint Server document library that provides rich preview and document management for published Microsoft Excel workbooks that contain data models.
To create a Power View report from a Power Pivot Gallery
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Click the Create Power View Report icon in the upper-right corner by the Excel (XLSX) file.
To create a Power View report from a SharePoint Server document library
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Click a shared data source (RSDS) or BISM Connection File (BISM) to start Power View. Read about creating a shared data source for a data model.
The Power View design environment opens to the view where you build your reports, with the fields from the shared data source (RSDS) or BISM Connection File (BISM) listed in the Field List.
In this article
Open an existing Power View report
When you open reports in a Power Pivot gallery, you can choose to open the report at a specific view.
To open a report in a Power Pivot gallery
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In Internet Explorer, navigate to the Power Pivot gallery site hosting your Power View reports.
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Click any of the images of the report.
The report opens at that view in reading mode.
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To edit the report, click Edit Report in the upper-left corner.
To open a report in a SharePoint Server document library
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In Internet Explorer, navigate to the home page of the SharePoint document library hosting your Power View reports.
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To open a report in reading mode, click the report title.
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To edit the report, click Edit Report in the upper-left corner.
Save a report
You save a Power View report (an RDLX file) to a Shared Documents library or a Power Pivot Gallery on the same SharePoint server as the model from which you launched Power View.
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To save the report, on the Power View File menu click Save or Save As.
The first time you save the report, the default location will be the folder where the model is located.
To save it to a different location, browse to that location, and then click Save.
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In the Save As dialog box, in the File name field, enter the name of the file.
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By default, the Save preview images with report check box is selected. For privacy reasons you may want to clear it and not save preview images.
Read Choose Whether to Save an Image of Each View with the Report to decide if you want preview images.
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Click Save.
The report is saved. To exit Power View and return to the SharePoint site, click the browser Back button.
Note: You may be able to edit a report, but not have the permissions to save to that SharePoint library or folder.
Permissions for Power View
Power View uses SharePoint permissions to control access to Power View reports. If you have Open Items permissions for a SharePoint folder, you can open any Power View report in that folder in either Reading or Edit mode. Thus, you can modify the report in Edit mode as much as you want. However, you can only save your changes if you also have Add Items permissions for the destination library or folder, or Edit Items permissions to overwrite the existing document.
You can export a report to PowerPoint if you have Open Items permissions. However, you can’t export a report to PowerPoint with unsaved changes. So if you have only Open Items permissions, you can export a report as is, but not modify it and then export it. To do that, you need to save your changes first, meaning you need Add Items or Edit Items permissions.
RDLX file format
Power View creates files with the RDLX file format. These are not compatible with RDL files you create in Report Builder or SQL Server 2012 SP 1 Reporting Services (SSRS). You cannot open or edit RDL files in Power View, and vice versa.
Export to PowerPoint from Power View in SharePoint
You can export an interactive version of your report from Power View in SharePoint to PowerPoint. Each view in Power View becomes a separate PowerPoint slide.
Note: There are two versions of Power View: Power View in Excel 2013 and Power View in SharePoint Server 2010 and 2013. You can only export to PowerPoint from Power View in SharePoint Server.
Interacting with Power View reports exported to PowerPoint is similar to interacting with Power View views in Power View reading and full-screen modes. In PowerPoint slide show and reading view modes, you can interact with the visualizations and filters that the report creator has added to each view, but you cannot create visualizations or filters.
For more information, see Export a Power View Report to PowerPoint.
Refresh the data in the report
You can refresh the data in a Power View report without also refreshing the page.
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Click the Refresh button on the Power View Quick Access Toolbar.
Note: If you click the Refresh button in your browser, and then click Leave this page, you will lose whatever changes you have made to the report since you last saved it.
Print views in a report in Power View in SharePoint Server
You can print a Power View report from design or reading modes, but not from full-screen mode. Power View prints one view at a time─the current view.
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To print a view, on the Power View File menu click Print.
The browser Print dialog box opens.
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Click Print.
The view always prints in landscape orientation, regardless of settings in the Print dialog box. It prints exactly what you see in the view. For example, Power View prints:
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The part of a visualization that is visible when you print, if the visualization has a scroll bar.
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The selected tile in a tile container.
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The Filters Area, if it is expanded.
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The current frame of a scatter or bubble chart with a play axis.
Power View reports based on data models
In SharePoint, you always start Power View from a data model. The model can be:
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An Excel workbook (XLSX) with a Data Model in a Power Pivot Gallery in SharePoint Server. Use Power Pivot Gallery.
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A shared data source (RSDS) in SharePoint Server with a Microsoft Business Intelligence Semantic Model data source type, based on:
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An Excel workbook .
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A tabular model on an Analysis Services server. Create a Shared Data Source for a Data Model.
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A multidimensional model on an SSAS server. Understanding Multidimensional Model Objects in Power View.
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A BISM connection file (BISM) based on a tabular model on an Analysis Services server. BISM connection files can be either in a standard SharePoint Server document library or a Power Pivot gallery. Use a BI Semantic Model Connection.
About tabular and Excel data models
Data models are the next generation of models designed specifically for analytical and reporting workloads. Data models can import data from a wide variety of data sources including:
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SQL Server
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DB2
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OData
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Oracle
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Teradata
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And others
You can create a data model in Excel, enhance the data model with Power Pivot for Excel, and then save the model to a document library in SharePoint Server or to a Power Pivot Gallery. Model developers in an IT-focused organization create models in SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT), and then deploy them to a SQL Server 2012 Service Pack 1 Analysis Services (SSAS) server.
More info
Export a Power View Report to PowerPoint
Create a Shared Data Source for a Data Model