Paul Turley explains when to use each type of report:
Technology evolves, the industry changes and the way businesses use technology changes. The road that has brought us to the current state of reporting capabilities in the Microsoft data platform has been long and winding. Ten years ago, we were using SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) to create interactive, dashboard-like reports scorecard reports. It wasn’t easy and the report interactivity wasn’t exactly “snappy” as the report server had to re-query data and re-render the report every time a link or chart series was clicked. But, because SSRS was the best tool that we had back in the day, the techniques we used for advanced report development were arcane by today’s standards. Over the years, I’ve written a few articles and posts about how to create reports with interactive KPI gauges, charts and scorecards using SSRS. Today we have a better tool for that style of reporting and analytics. Reporting Services remains a powerful and flexible tool for a few different styles of reports. Now that SSRS has been integrated into the premium Power BI service as “Paginated Reports”, this raises questions about how and when to use each tool – and how to use them together.
Read on for more information, including a handy set of bullet points to help you make a decision.