Power ON - Writeback Anywhere

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Power ON – Writeback Anywhere

February 3, 2021 | by Per Solli

Power ON Visual Planner Engine

Writeback Anywhere

Power ON made a strategic choice in 2015 when Microsoft launched Power BI and Azure Analysis Services; to build Visual Planner solution inside Power BI. Fortune 500 companies as well as both mid-sized and larger corporations are now taking advantage of this unique and tight integration with Power BI. Most Microsoft and Power ON’s clients refer to this integration as mandatory and seamless.

With thousands of users entering data directly into Power BI, the demand for enabling new databases is on the rise. To support all Power BI users, Power ON has developed Writeback Anywhere and it integrates with latest releases from Microsoft like Composite Models (Direct Query over Analysis Services). The Writeback Anywhere Engine enables writeback functionality to any writeable data source supported by Power BI.

Writeback Anywhere has two working modes:

Write to Source DB
Write changes to a Writeable source and combine it in Power BI

The SQL Family Edition was launched in 2015 and it is used daily by thousands of Power BI users across the globe.

In the “Editions” table below it is easy to compare features and supported configurations.

SQL Family

Power ON’s Visual Planner was originally built around Microsoft SQL On-Premises or in the Cloud, since SQL natively supports CRUD(Create, Read, Update, Delete) functions.

Figure 1:

Standard

The left side of Figure 1 is referred to as Standard Edition. A Financial Modeler has a need to collect data and starts out with building a SQL Datamart, then connects SQL to a Tabular model on-premises or in Azure Analysis Services(AAS). Power BI Connects to the Tabular Model, and Power ON’s Visual Planner writes to the Source SQL DB.

Premium

Premium works like Standard, but it also supports Power BI Premium per User (PPU), Embedded or Premium Capacity. The Tabular Engine will then reside in a Power BI Premium configuration. The SQL engine itself can be located on-premises or in Azure SQL. This removes the need for a standalone SSAS/AAS engine.

Writeback Anywhere

Power BI provides connectors to a multitude of data sources which is very helpful for the business analyst to combine data from disparate storage media on-premises or in the cloud. Power ON’s Writeback Anywhere can be deployed for writeback in 3 different scenarios: Standard, Premium and Enterprise.

Standard – Business Analysts can Combine data from any Power BI supported datasource and enables users to edit this data with Power ON’s Visual Planner and write the changes back to a datasource that supports Direct Query (DQ).
Premium – BA users use Power Query for ANY datasource and publish it to Power BI in any Premium Capacity, and the writeback engine writes the results of the end-users input to a writeable datasource and combines in the Power BI Report.
Enterprise – In Enterprise mode, Business Analysts can take advantage of all modes including Power BI Composite Models. Corporations can build large data warehouses with billions of transactions in Azure or on-premises, combine them with Power Queries from any Power BI Datasource, and writeback to databases that stores end-user inputs and combines it in the Power BI Report. IT also tracks all changes in audit tables.