SharePoint 2016 Excel Services Deprecated and the Road Forward

I felt it was worth writing a little something extra on this topic as I have been seeing this question come up a lot with the new release of SharePoint 2016.

What is Excel Services?
Excel Services was introduced way back in SharePoint 2007 which was SharePoint’s first step at bringing Excel into the browser to create dashboards.  The concept was straight forward, empower users who know Excel to create a web dashboard with the tools they know.  It was made part of the SharePoint Enterprise Suite and has gone through several improvements over the years.

Is Excel Services really gone?
Excel Services in SharePoint has been deprecated as part of the SharePoint 2016 on-premises release however you can still get to a similar solution with Office Online Service (OOS) and Power BI.

When you review the deprecated features listing, it specifically states that Excel Services is no longer “hosted on SharePoint Server” and that Excel Services functionality is now part of Excel Online in OOS.  My understanding of this is that there is a general move of capabilities.

What is Office Online Service (OOS)?
The new Office Online Service (OOS) can be installed on-premises and is the replacement to the Office Web Apps Server 2013.  This will provide you the similar services to Office Online that is part of Office 365.  OOS provides you the ability to view, edit and co-author Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote.  OOS integrates with SharePoint 2016, Exchange Server 2016 and Skype for Business 2015 which all have capabilities to provide Office through a browser.  Moving the Office Web Apps Server out into its own service has been part of the vision to provide Office Online to all Microsoft productivity and enterprise services.

What Excel Services features are lost as part of this move?
Are there some changes as part of the move?  Yes, for sure.  When you review the deprecation listing, it says that feature such as Trusted data providers, Trusted file locations, Trusted data connection libraries, Unattended service account, Excel Services Windows PowerShell cmdlets, and Opening of Excel workbooks from SharePoint Central Administration site are deprecated. 

However, with OOS, you still have access the following Excel Services capabilities: Viewing and editing Excel workbooks in a browser (with or without the Data Model), Excel Web Access web part for SharePoint, ODC file support (no longer requires Data Connection Libraries), and Programmability features such as JavaScript OM, User Defined Function Assemblies, SOAP and REST protocol support.

So, if you are reliant on features that were deprecated, then you will need to achieve the same end result through other means.  But in most cases, organizations are going to be able to do almost everything they had been doing with the old Excel Services with the new OOS.

So how do I Excel Services moving forward?
Transition to OOS: My personal recommendation is the following, I would try to start making the transition over to OOS with Excel Services altogether.  I would review what you are doing with the older Excel Server web parts and try to get completely hooked in with OOS.

Introduce Power BI: Additionally, if you are using Excel Services to make connections to line of business databases that is still supported on-premises.  For instance, you can still connect to Analysis Services, SQL Server, and Custom data providers (via connection string) on-premises.  However, making these line of business connections in SharePoint Online (Office 365) is not possible.  If you are really thinking about transitioning to the Office 365 cloud, you really need to start thinking about moving over to Power BI because that is the direction moving forward.  Power BI has the ability to connect to a wide range of data sources whether they are on-premises databases, data in SharePoint Online, data residing on other clouds, etc.  Power BI is the next generation cloud BI service that will allow you to create high end reporting and dashboard solutions in the cloud.  You can make this work with your on-premises SharePoint and when you transition the rest of it to SharePoint Online, Power BI will already be in the cloud.  From a get started perspective, you basically need to introduce the Power BI Gateway into your on-premises environment this will refresh your data in the cloud for reporting purposes.  I have some references below.

What about licensing of OOS?
OOS is available to customers who have a Volume Licensing account with at no cost.  This will provide you the ability to get view-only functionality.
If you need the ability to create, edit, save, and co-author, you will need to have an on-premises Office suite license with Software Assurance or an Office 365 ProPlus subscription.  Note if you have purchased on-premises Office 2016 suite VL before Aug 1, 2016 you are exempt from the Software Assurance requirement through Aug 1, 2019.

References
What's deprecated or removed from SharePoint Server 2016 - https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/mt346112(v=office.16).aspx

Business intelligence in Excel and Excel Services (SharePoint Server 2013) - https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Business-intelligence-in-Excel-and-Excel-Services-SharePoint-Server-2013-2740f10c-579d-4b40-a1d9-7beb5d38547c - This provides a good comparison between Excel Services in SharePoint 2013 and Excel Web Apps.  I recommend reading this to help remind you why you picked Excel Services in the first place.

Office Online Server now available - https://blogs.office.com/2016/05/04/office-online-server-now-available/

Office Online Server - https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj219456(v=office.16).aspx

Data authentication for Excel Online in Office Online Server - https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj219657(v=office.16).aspx

Power BI - https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/powerbi-landing-page/

Power BI Gateway – Enterprise - https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/powerbi-gateway-enterprise/

Data sources for Power BI service - https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/powerbi-service-get-data/ 

Office 365 Power BI is now Generally Available

If you did not hear this week, there was a big announcement that Power BI has now moved into General Availability for Office 365. Please read this announcement - http://blogs.office.com/2014/02/10/power-bi-for-office-365-now-available-to-do-more-with-business-insights-in-excel/.

Now you may be wondering, what is this actually mean if you actually own Office 365 or SharePoint Online Plan 2? I actually found this table right here gave the exact answer I was looking for - http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/powerBI/pricing.aspx#fbid=qNWaVwao6BA.

The core features of Power BI for Office 365 you get:

• BI Sites
• Scheduled Data Refresh
• Enterprise Data Search
• Data Stewardship
• Mobile BI
• Natural Language Query

So if you are an existing E3/E4 customer, you get those features.

Remember with SharePoint Online Plan 2 you already get BI solutions such as Excel Services, Power View and Power Pivot reporting through the browser, etc. For more information read the Service Description here - http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/sharepoint-online-insights-service-description.aspx.

Additionally with Office ProPlus and Excel you get Data Discovery & Access, Data Modeling & Analysis and Visualization which equates to Power Query, Power Pivot, Power View and Power Map.

So you may be asking, what are these new features. I have pulled together some quick references for you to read:

• Power BI Site - http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/powerbi/default.aspx
• BI Sites – Here is a good article that speaks exactly to Power BI Sites - http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/office365-sharepoint-online-enterprise-help/power-bi-sites-on-power-bi-for-office-365-HA104097290.aspx.
• Scheduled Data Refresh – Here is a good article here - http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/office365-sharepoint-online-enterprise-help/schedule-data-refresh-for-workbooks-in-power-bi-for-office-365-HA104180761.aspx. This solution is heavily tied to the Data Management Gateway. I have blogged about it before and you should check this out - http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/office365-sharepoint-online-enterprise-help/introduction-to-data-management-gateway-HA104079171.aspx.
• Enterprise Data Search – Several new features that allows to search for data across your organizations and the public internet. This solutions serves of as a foundation for identifying data sources.
• Data Stewardship – This is a role of a person in the organization or organizes data sources, manages data definitions, publishes data assets, etc. There are several administration screens and solutions for them to manage data across the enterprise. For more information, I recommend reading this - http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/office365-sharepoint-online-enterprise-help/understanding-the-role-of-data-stewards-in-data-management-HA104079191.aspx. I highly recommend reading through these - http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/office365-sharepoint-online-enterprise-help/data-management-experience-in-power-bi-for-office-365-help-HA104079156.aspx.
• Mobile BI – There are apps and web pages rendering support so that reports can be published and accessed across mobile platforms.
• Natural Language Query – I have not dug up an article on this but is a new natural language query capabilities which allows users to ask questions to get answers. Users will enter questions and then Power BI will interpret and generate answers using interactive charts and graphs based on available data.

Frankly I need to spin up on this a little bit more, but wanted to get some quick information out to folks…

Power BI Data Management Gateway and Resources

Power BI continues to be a hot topic that many people have been asking me about.

As you may know, there was an announcement in July about the new Power BI in Office 365 that is coming. Here is more information about that announcement - http://www.astaticstate.com/2013/07/office-365-power-bi-announcement.html

A lot of people have been asking for more information.

First if you want to try out the Power BI Preview, please go here to sign-up for the preview - http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel/power-bi-FX104080667.aspx

Second I have had many people ask me for some good resources. If you want to learn more about Power BI with Power Query, Power Pivot, Power View and Power Map here are two really good links - http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn198234.aspx and http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn198234.aspx. If you follow the sub links of these articles you will find a ton of good information.

Third, the biggest question I still get is does the new Power BI support the ability to connect to line of business databases. This is probably one of the most exciting things being introduced because up till now because Excel Services could only work with the data contained in the spreadsheet. The answer is the new Data Management Gateway. It requires to you to install a gateway on-premise that will make a secure connection to SharePoint Online. It push data from on-premise (on demand or a schedule) to your spreadsheets stored in SharePoint Online to render the reports through the browser. You still have the ability to open the Excel client with the add-ins for Power Query, Power Pivot, Power View and Power Map.

Here is a really good reference for you to start reading and all of its associated articles - http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/office365-sharepoint-online-enterprise-help/power-bi-admin-center-help-HA104078330.aspx?CTT=5&origin=HA104078557. There are articles that cover what the Data Management Gateway is, how it is installed / configured, how to create data sources using OData and then how to connect them into Excel. There is even a really interesting article about how SSIS can be utilized as a data source for Power BI. As well is a good article on health reports and utilization of the Data Management Gateway.