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Improve the process of approving allowable R Packages in the Power BI Service

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Mike H on 16 Nov 2022 15:08:01

Problem: Utilization of the R Visual in Power BI is a powerful tool, however, it's true potential is significantly limited in the Power BI Service because it only supports a fraction of the available R Packages. Nothing is more frustrating that building the perfect R-Visual that works in Power BI Desktop only to find it doesn't work when you publish it to the Power BI Service because an R Package you are using isn't supported/approved.


Microsoft currently maintains a list of supported R Packages in the Power BI Service here Learn which R packages are supported - Power BI | Microsoft Learn. However, if the R package you need isn't on the list, the only recourse is to submit an "Idea" to the vast abyss that is the Power BI Idea forum and hope for the best? This is certainly not a process you can plan around.


Solution: Create a more streamlined process to get an R-package approved, particularly if it meets all the requirements listed in the documentation here (publicly published to CRAN, open source, no client-server queries etc.). In fact, if the package meets all requirements, why can't it just be supported by default (rather than individually approved)?





Furthermore, the only recourse (per documentation) is


If you would like to request support of an R package not found in that list, please submit your request to Power BI Ideas


Microsoft currently maintains a list of supported R Packages in the Power BI Service here Learn which R packages are supported - Power BI | Microsoft Learn. However, this is just a tiny fraction of the packages available in R. This creates a very frustrating experience by endBy nature, R packages are created to do very specialized tasks, so the odds ar


Utilization of the R Visual in Power BI is a powerful tool.


This significantly limits the potential integration of R. Furthermore, the current processBy nature, R packages are designed to do very specialized analysis for specialized datasets



Nothing is more frustrating than creating the exact specialized R visual that works in Power BI desktop, only to upload it to the Power BI service and see it doesn't work because you are using an R package that isnt in the approved list.







Generally speaking, users turn to using the R Visual when they can't accomplish what they need to do using other Power BI Visuals. R has thousands of "packages" that are designed to do very specific specialized analysis, however, . Currently, it appears as if



speaking, in the Power BI ecosystem, users wturn to R-Statistics to generate specialized analysis/visuals

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Mike H on 16 Nov 2022 15:14:24

RE: Improve the process of approving allowable R Packages in the Power BI Service

Moderator - Please remove this (I cant seem to figure out how to edit/delete it myself). It's a draft version I accidentally saved. I published a cleaned up version of the idea.