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Microsoft Power BI

Score8.5 out of 10

1,906 Reviews and Ratings

What is Microsoft Power BI?

Microsoft Power BI is a visualization and data discovery tool from Microsoft. It allows users to convert data into visuals and graphics, visually explore and analyze data, collaborate on interactive dashboards and reports, and scale across their organization with built-in governance and security.

Media

Microsoft Power BI - Turns insights into impact for business users
Power BI integrates easily with Microsoft 365
Microsoft Power BI - AI-Powered Capabilities
Microsoft Power BI - Copilot can be used to create reports
Microsoft Power BI - Data Hub
Microsoft Power BI - Scales as organizational needs grow
Microsoft Power BI - Data Governance

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Top Performing Features

  • Customizable dashboards

    Customizable dashboards are dashboards providing the builder some degree of control over the look and feel and display options.

    Category average: 8.5

  • Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)

    Multiple access permission levels means that different levels of users have different rights.

    Category average: 8.3

  • Javascript API

    A Javascript API is a type of API

    Category average: 8.3

Areas for Improvement

  • Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile

    In-app dashboard reports and data visualization.

    Category average: 7.9

  • Drill-down analysis

    Drill down analysis is the ability to get to a further level of detail by going deeper into the hierarchy.

    Category average: 8.4

  • Report-Level Access Control

    Report-level access control means that the type of report determines who has access to it.

    Category average: 8

Plugs into existing tech works well

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I work at an architecture firm, and we use Microsoft Power BI for a range of uses, both internal-facing and external-facing. We have typical accounting data, project management data and marketing data - these get visualized for consumption using standardized dashboards. But we also have standard dashboards for staff skill metrics and analytics for our large (BIM) building models. Our final use case is for design studies, showing clients how different design options compare in terms of performance and cost.

Pros

  • Drag and drop widgets that cross-interact
  • Data ETL allows loading and cleaning of data from a variety of sources
  • Keeping complex processes and large quantities of data tidy

Cons

  • Text string length is capped during import, but it isn't well documented
  • The UI can be very complex for new users
  • Sharing content with people outside of your organization can be very difficult

Return on Investment

  • Real-time reporting of BIM metrics helps teams make smarter, cleaner models and reduces time spent debugging or cleaning the models later
  • Being able to do complex data visualization and analysis for clients has directly translated into new kinds of work and new projects. Tasks like spatial inventories and audits are now part of our service offerings.
  • We've been able to see the information that was already stored in our systems in one place, visually. This has helped us de-silo and use that data to inform firm operations. Hiring and staffing in particular have benefitted from dashboards that show gaps in staff members' skills.

Usability

A powerful visualization tool

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I use Microsoft Power BI to measure metrics and, with this information, to make decisions about the medical field. We use it a lot to monitor our teams' performance. I need to update the information at least weekly so management can make decisions. I use different types of visualizations and consume various databases.

Pros

  • Very easy layout
  • Powerquery is very instinctive
  • AI helps create measures

Cons

  • Editing views is very messy
  • Some tools do not have a manual explaining each field

Return on Investment

  • Positive Impact: We always accelerate our performance thanks to these reports. Because we have a detailed view of each person, we already know exactly where to target for improvement.
  • Negative: Due to update errors, which often make no sense, this delays the delivery of the report.

Usability

Alternatives Considered

Tableau Desktop, Looker Studio and Qlik Analytics Platform

Other Software Used

Amazon Redshift, Microsoft Lists

Microsoft Power BI a tool for business intelligence

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

So in my organization i use Microsoft Power BI to create reports and dashboards that gives better business idea on how the products,services are behaving within the market for my client. Dashboards,scorecards and reports having visualizations with extensive calculation are created by me and my team that gives a clearer picture on how the business is behaving

Pros

  • Scorecards creation
  • Dashboards creation
  • Advanced calculations

Cons

  • AI integration
  • In Dataflows
  • Buffer management

Return on Investment

  • Better decision making using visuals
  • Cost
  • Platform independent

Usability

Other Software Used

Microsoft Power Automate, Azure SQL Database

Versatile and fully customizable tool with game changing AI capabilities

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I'm a healthcare data analyst for the southwest Missouri regional hospitals and clinics. We have several compliance and patient care KPIs that we need to track daily. I build Power BI reports for various healthcare service lines based on long and short term analytics goals. I connect our Power BI reports to a range of data sources, be it, Sharepoint, Oracle, or Cloud based sources. This offers a wide scope to our analytics playbook as patient care excellence requires many pathways.

Pros

  • Connects to a large variety of data sources
  • Has plenty of visual options and tools for complex reports
  • Allows for very specific and detailed customizations.
  • Has a robust and key AI assistant in Copilot

Cons

  • Changes too often, the feature options and look are updated monthly
  • Requires education, not a good right of the box tool for general use
  • If there are failures or steps missed it is difficult at times to troubleshoot

Return on Investment

  • Great for futurecasting!
  • We can easily track healthcare trends across locations

Usability

Alternatives Considered

QlikView and Salesforce CRM Analytics

Other Software Used

Toad Data Point, Microsoft Excel, Epic EpicCare EMR

Microsoft Power BI is a great tool for reporting and data visualization

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Microsoft Power BI has allowed us to create reports and utilize data from multiple data sources throughout our organization. We can easily create reports, add visuals, slicers, and share reports to end users. It is easy to add permissions and create user groups to allow the reports to be viewed only by certain users, and we can add an additional level of permissions within the reports to share only certain data.

Pros

  • Easy to connect to data sources
  • Easy to share reports between users
  • Mobile app to access reports on your phone
  • Add dashboards and visuals to reports

Cons

  • Need experience with coding to write queries for the reports
  • Expensive, cost based on number of licenses

Return on Investment

  • Real-time view of data (ticket sales, partnership revenue)
  • Easily share reports to save time
  • Reliance and trust the data is accurate

Usability

Alternatives Considered

Tableau Cloud and Vena

Other Software Used

Vena, NetSuite ERP, Okta