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2 min read

AX Content: Using Power View with Dynamics AX

Have you heard about Power View? Microsoft introduced the interactive data exploration, visualization, and presentation tool with SQL Server 2012. You can use it with Microsoft Dynamics AX to build some amazing-looking reports.

It’s just another reporting tool, isn’t it?

I’ve been a technical writer for 14 years. I’ve seen my fair share of reporting tools. Power View is actually…fun. (Can I say that?) I love playing around and experimenting with all the cool ways I can format reports. See Power View Design Experience to get a quick overview of the design environment and the options available to you. And check out the video here to learn more about how you can slice and dice your data with Power View.

How to use Power View with Microsoft Dynamics AX

You can use Power View to create a report that displays data from a Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services cube. For example, assume that you’ve deployed the Analysis Services cubes that are included with Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R2. Now suppose that you want to create a report that shows sales amounts for your retail stores. In this scenario, you would:

  1. Open Enterprise Portal and create a data source that connects to the Retail cube.
  2. Open Power View and connect to the data source that you created in step 1.
  3. Design the report by adding fields from the Retail cube.
  4. Display the report on a Role Center page in Enterprise Portal.

For complete instructions, see this topic on TechNet: Create a report by using Power View to connect to a cube.

You can also open Power View from specific list pages in Dynamics AX. This makes it easy to create a report and analyze the data that you saw on the list page. If you’re a developer and would like to enable this functionality on other list pages, see this topic on TechNet: Walkthrough: Creating an Analyze Data Button on a List Page.

The most important thing you need to know

In order to use Power View with Dynamics AX, you need to make sure that you have the required software installed. This is a MUST. For example, having SSRS 2012 SP1 installed is not enough…you must have SSRS 2012 SP1 installed in SharePoint-integrated mode with CU4 applied.

To see the complete list of requirements, see this topic on TechNet: Create a report by using Power View to connect to a cube.

Sally Erickson [MSFT]

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