Microsoft Power BI

Score8.6 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.

Categories & Use Cases

Media

Screenshot of Microsoft Power BI - Turns insights into impact for business users

Screenshot of Power BI integrates easily with Microsoft 365

Screenshot of Microsoft Power BI - AI-Powered Capabilities

Screenshot of Microsoft Power BI - Copilot can be used to create reports

Screenshot of Microsoft Power BI - Data Hub

Screenshot of Microsoft Power BI - Scales as organizational needs grow

Screenshot of Microsoft Power BI - Data Governance

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Screenshot of Microsoft Power BI - Turns insights into impact for business users

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

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

#1 most frequent

Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services

18.1%

21,620 installations of 119,421

“AI enablement”

#2 most frequent

Manufacturing

14.4%

17,239 installations of 119,421

“Quick to get started but steep learning curve to gain proficiency”

#3 most frequent

Finance and Insurance

8.7%

10,377 installations of 119,421

Edson Pinheiro View profile

Data Engineer in Information Technology at Cognizant (10,001+ employees employees)

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

Verified User

Project Manager in Research & Development (51-200 employees employees)

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

Verified User

Analyst in Quality Assurance (10,001+ employees employees)

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

Verified User

Program Manager in Manufacturing (1001-5000 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Microsoft Power BI is useful for designing and developing visual dashboards by connecting data from sources such as SQL, sharepoint, etc .The development canvas supports drag and drop allowing to drag a visualization and also configure the fields of the visualization using drag and drop. Also it allows the automatic refresh of data from the original source by just scheduling the time of refresh which helps to ensure that the users are viewing the latest and most accurate data in the visualizations of the dashboard

Pros

Connects easily to the Microsoft data sources such as sharepoint files,onedrive,SQL etc very seamlessly and authenticates directly using your account
Has a lot of inbuilt visual charts which are useful for creating visualizations in the dashboard
The data query editor is very powerful and supports a wide variety of data transformations

Cons

Carrying out data transformation on large data sets is very time consuming as previewing data at each step takes a lot of time

Return on Investment

Data visibility has improved a lot. A dashboard can be shared to a wide er audience from multiple departments location easily by publishing to a common workspace improving better collaboration among team member and allowing them to make informed decisions based on data

Usability

Other Software Used

Miro

Sherri MacCheyne View profile

Director, Strategic Operations in Marketing at UNC Greensboro (1001-5000 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I use Microsoft Power BI to prepare an analysis of web content audits - what is completed, late, and coming up. The report pulls data from a SharePoint list and filters based on quarters, completion, and late. In addition, I use Microsoft Power BI to provide budget reports to department managers as needed.

Pros

Filter data by various fields and data points
Easily refreshes data from data sources
Easily allows users to format data in a variety of ways

Cons

It would be easier for users could Microsoft Power BI and Excel used the same programming languages.
Would like to see the online version of Microsoft Power BI be as powerful as the desktop version.
Publishing a Microsoft Power BI file online and then having to save the file is somewhat redundant.
Would like to export each page or chart as an image.

Return on Investment

Having accurate reporting from multiple datasets improves our productivity.
Easy-to-read visual graphics or charts assist managers in making accurate financial decisions.

Usability

Other Software Used

Claris FileMaker, Microsoft Power Automate, monday.com, Microsoft Visio, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Powerpoint, Microsoft 365, Microsoft SharePoint, Adobe Acrobat, Adobe Bridge, Adobe PhotoShop

Domo

Looker

Tableau Cloud

Microsoft Power BI

What is Microsoft Power BI?

Categories & Use Cases

Media

Key Features

Top Performing Features

Customizable dashboards

Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)

Javascript API

Areas for Improvement

Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile

Drill-down analysis

Report-Level Access Control

Most Frequent Users

Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services

Manufacturing

Finance and Insurance

Reviews

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Pros

Cons

Return on Investment

Usability

Alternatives Considered

Other Software Used

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Pros

Cons

Return on Investment

Usability

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Pros

Cons

Return on Investment

Usability

Alternatives Considered

Other Software Used

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Pros

Cons

Return on Investment

Usability

Other Software Used

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Pros

Cons

Return on Investment

Usability

Other Software Used

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