Power View was first introduced as a new integrated reporting feature of SQL Server 2012 (Enterprise or BI Edition) with SharePoint 2010 Enterprise Edition. It has also been seamlessly integrated and built directly into Excel 2013 and made available as an add-in that you can simply enable (although it is not possible to share Power View reports between SharePoint and Excel).

Power View allows users to quickly create highly visual and interactive reports via a What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) interface. The following screenshot gives an example of a type of report you can build with Power View, which includes various types of visualizations:

Sales Dashboard

The following screenshot is another example of a Power View report that makes heavy use of slicers along with a bar chart and tables:

Promotion Dashboard

We will start by discussing PowerPivot and BISM and will then go over the setup procedures for the two possible ways to use Power View: through SharePoint or via Excel...