Microsoft Power BI
About Microsoft Power BI
Microsoft Power BI is a suite of analytics tools for analyzing business data and sharing insights via rich visualizations. Customizable and pre-built dashboards unify important metrics into single views, showing real time updates to every device. The centralized, web-based Power BI service interfaces Power BI gateways to connect to and unify organizational data while Power BI Desktop for Windows provides local data mashup and report authoring features. Live dashboards offer an instant 360-view on business health, leveraging 59 out-of-the-box connections for apps or services such as Salesforce, Google Analytics, Azure, Facebook, Github, QuickBooks Online, Twilio and Zendesk. Power BI brings all that data, wherever it resides, together to form a complete picture of key metrics that can then be queried using natural language.
With Power BI Desktop, users can author reports using intuitive drag-and-drop tools and share amongst colleagues through the online Power BI Service. Integrating with Microsoft’s established Query engine, data modeling and visualization technologies, Power BI Desktop connects, shapes and reports to centralize a typically disjointed process of reporting. Outputting to .pbix format, these report files can then be manually shared like any other or uploaded to the shared service. In addition, this ability to keep all users on the same page at all times extends to a suite of optimized mobile support. Power BI Mobile keeps remote connectivity consistent across native apps for Windows Mobile, iOS and Android devices, adding intuitive gesture-based operation. Live dashboards can be viewed on the fly, alongside full report sharing capabilities and data-driven alerts.
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Reviews
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- Industry: Electrical/Electronic Manufacturing
- Company size: 10,000+ Employees
- Used Weekly for 2+ years
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Review Source
Overall rating
- Ease of Use
- Likelihood to recommend 9.0 /10
The next step on data visualization and reporting
Reviewed on 20/06/2021
This is a great tool which allows our organization to share data in a meaningful way. Unfortunately,...
This is a great tool which allows our organization to share data in a meaningful way. Unfortunately, the tool is so complex that only a few have the full understanding of how the tool works and how to solve certain bugs originated by the raw data.
Pros
Very flexible tool with various types of data visualization. It resemblance to Excel allows advanced users from Excel to easily migrate to this new tool.
Cons
The tool have many complications regarding publishing of dashboards and we need to pay extra money just for the creation of market spaces where we can share the reports and dashboards.
- Industry: Information Technology & Services
- Company size: 51–200 Employees
- Used Weekly for 2+ years
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Review Source
Overall rating
- Value for Money
- Ease of Use
- Customer Support Software
- Likelihood to recommend 10.0 /10
Best Self Service BI Solution to start with
Reviewed on 28/09/2021
Dashboard, Reports, Data extraction/Transformations from websites, PDF's and other sources,...
Dashboard, Reports, Data extraction/Transformations from websites, PDF's and other sources, transformations and also as an alternative to vba)
Pros
Capability to Extract, Transform data at the desktop level in a single package. (Others solutions like have Data transformation feature inbuilt)
Cons
On publishing your report online, it gets slightly cumbersome to configure through (like configuring gateways for auto-refresh)
Alternatives Considered
TableauReasons for Choosing Microsoft Power BI
Ease of use, be it using it as an alternative for VBA or using it for analysing large amount of data (that excel cannot handle)Switched From
Microsoft ExcelReasons for Switching to Microsoft Power BI
Ease of deployment, cost and eased-up learning curve- Industry: Wholesale
- Company size: 201–500 Employees
- Used Weekly for 6-12 months
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Review Source
Overall rating
- Value for Money
- Ease of Use
- Customer Support Software
- Likelihood to recommend 8.0 /10
Microsoft Power BI - Powerhouse in Data Analytics
Reviewed on 14/08/2023
I believe Power BI to be a powerful tool that gives users access to great data analysis, visualizati...
I believe Power BI to be a powerful tool that gives users access to great data analysis, visualizations, and collaboration tools. The challenging components include a somewhat steep learning curve and some constraints with some of the data visualizations.
Pros
For me, I appreciate Power BI for its robust data visualization, interactive dashboards, ease of sharing insights, and seamless integration with the Microsoft Office suite, such as Microsoft Excel.
Cons
At the same time, the things I like the least about Power BI is the dependency on using the Microsoft Office suite, as well as some limitations to the data transformation and the tendency to be very slow when dealing with extremely large datasets.
- Industry: Information Technology & Services
- Company size: 2–10 Employees
- Used Daily for 6-12 months
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Review Source
Overall rating
- Value for Money
- Ease of Use
- Likelihood to recommend 10.0 /10
Powerful Data Analysis Tool
Reviewed on 25/09/2019
I am using Power BI to do enterprise level reporting and analysis on large telecoms service...
I am using Power BI to do enterprise level reporting and analysis on large telecoms service inventory data bases (2GB, updated monthly). Reports run the full gamut of spend analysis, type of services, transition and modernization opportunities and progress and sub-organizational level for all the above.
Pros
I like the intuitive user interface and the ability to work with data files too large for spreadsheets or desktop-quality data bases. Power BI is great for creating summary reports in large inventory data bases, which is what I work with mostly.
Cons
There is no easy way to export the summary reports from Power BI. You can only export the raw data that generated the report, which is often too large to export directly.
- Industry: Human Resources Software
- Company size: 201–500 Employees
- Used Daily for 1+ year
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Review Source
Overall rating
- Value for Money
- Ease of Use
- Customer Support Software
- Likelihood to recommend 8.0 /10
Ideal for generating kpi's
Reviewed on 04/07/2023
As an HR analyst, I was in charge of generating monthly headcount reports and analyzing FTE's in...
As an HR analyst, I was in charge of generating monthly headcount reports and analyzing FTE's in the CSA region. After hearing positive reviews about Power BI, I decided to try to streamline our reporting process and gain deeper insights from our data.
Pros
- User-Friendly Interface- Powerful Data Visualization, including charts, graphs, maps, and custom visuals.- Seamless Integration with Multiple Data Sources, including databases, cloud services, Excel spreadsheets, and online services- Real-Time Data Analysis- Collaboration and Sharing, allowing users to share reports and dashboards with colleagues, teams, or stakeholders-Mobile Accessibility: ensures that users can stay connected to their data and make informed decisions from anywhere, anytime.
Cons
- Steep Learning Curve- Cost: The cost may be a barrier for small businesses or individuals with limited budgets.- Data Size Limitations- Dependency on Internet Connectivity-Data Security: data is in clouds- Limited ETL Functionality- Data Refresh Limitations
Microsoft Power BI FAQs
Below are some frequently asked questions for Microsoft Power BI.Q. What type of pricing plans does Microsoft Power BI offer?
Microsoft Power BI offers the following pricing plans:
- Starting from: $9.99/month
- Pricing model: Subscription
- Free Trial: Available
Power BI Pro: $9.99 per user, per month Power BI Premium: $20 Per user/month and $4,995 Per capacity/month
Q. Who are the typical users of Microsoft Power BI?
Microsoft Power BI has the following typical customers:
2–10, 11–50, 51–200, 201–500, 501–1,000, 1,001–5,000
Q. What languages does Microsoft Power BI support?
Microsoft Power BI supports the following languages:
Arabic, Chinese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Hebrew, Hungarian, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Traditional Chinese, Turkish, Ukrainian
Q. Does Microsoft Power BI support mobile devices?
Microsoft Power BI supports the following devices:
Android (Mobile)
Q. What other apps does Microsoft Power BI integrate with?
Microsoft Power BI integrates with the following applications:
Microsoft 365, Microsoft Excel, Quickbooks Online, Salesforce Sales Cloud, Twilio
Q. What level of support does Microsoft Power BI offer?
Microsoft Power BI offers the following support options:
Email/Help Desk, FAQs/Forum, Knowledge Base Software, Phone Support, 24/7 (Live rep), Chat
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