Power BI For Office 365 (discontinued) vs. Sigma Computing

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Power BI For Office 365 (discontinued)
Score 8.2 out of 10
N/A
Power BI for Office 365 allowed users to model and analyze data, and query large datasets with complex natural language queries. It has been discontinued in favor of other editions of Power BI going forward.N/A
Sigma
Score 9.3 out of 10
N/A
Sigma Computing headquartered in San Francisco provides a suite of data services such as code free data modeling, data search and explorating, and related BI and data visualization services.N/A
Pricing
Power BI For Office 365 (discontinued)Sigma Computing
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Power BI For Office 365 (discontinued)Sigma
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeOptional
Additional DetailsContact us for pricing.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Power BI For Office 365 (discontinued)Sigma Computing
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Power BI For Office 365 (discontinued)Sigma Computing
BI Standard Reporting
Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Power BI For Office 365 (discontinued)
9.0
11 Ratings
10% above category average
Sigma Computing
7.7
160 Ratings
6% below category average
Pixel Perfect reports9.010 Ratings7.6103 Ratings
Customizable dashboards8.011 Ratings8.1158 Ratings
Report Formatting Templates10.08 Ratings7.5130 Ratings
Ad-hoc Reporting
Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Power BI For Office 365 (discontinued)
9.5
11 Ratings
16% above category average
Sigma Computing
8.0
163 Ratings
1% below category average
Drill-down analysis9.011 Ratings8.8153 Ratings
Formatting capabilities9.011 Ratings7.5160 Ratings
Integration with R or other statistical packages10.06 Ratings7.35 Ratings
Report sharing and collaboration10.011 Ratings8.4159 Ratings
Report Output and Scheduling
Comparison of Report Output and Scheduling features of Product A and Product B
Power BI For Office 365 (discontinued)
9.5
11 Ratings
13% above category average
Sigma Computing
8.8
153 Ratings
5% above category average
Publish to Web10.011 Ratings9.6102 Ratings
Publish to PDF10.010 Ratings8.3127 Ratings
Report Versioning9.06 Ratings9.7117 Ratings
Report Delivery Scheduling9.64 Ratings9.3130 Ratings
Delivery to Remote Servers8.73 Ratings7.367 Ratings
Data Discovery and Visualization
Comparison of Data Discovery and Visualization features of Product A and Product B
Power BI For Office 365 (discontinued)
10.0
11 Ratings
22% above category average
Sigma Computing
6.4
146 Ratings
23% below category average
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)10.010 Ratings7.5144 Ratings
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization10.011 Ratings5.626 Ratings
Predictive Analytics10.08 Ratings6.218 Ratings
Access Control and Security
Comparison of Access Control and Security features of Product A and Product B
Power BI For Office 365 (discontinued)
9.8
10 Ratings
14% above category average
Sigma Computing
-
Ratings
Multi-User Support (named login)10.010 Ratings00 Ratings
Role-Based Security Model9.08 Ratings00 Ratings
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)10.09 Ratings00 Ratings
Single Sign-On (SSO)10.05 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile Capabilities
Comparison of Mobile Capabilities features of Product A and Product B
Power BI For Office 365 (discontinued)
9.5
10 Ratings
18% above category average
Sigma Computing
-
Ratings
Responsive Design for Web Access10.010 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile Application9.09 Ratings00 Ratings
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile10.09 Ratings00 Ratings
Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding
Comparison of Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding features of Product A and Product B
Power BI For Office 365 (discontinued)
7.8
3 Ratings
1% below category average
Sigma Computing
-
Ratings
REST API9.02 Ratings00 Ratings
Javascript API8.02 Ratings00 Ratings
iFrames8.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Java API8.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Themeable User Interface (UI)7.02 Ratings00 Ratings
Customizable Platform (Open Source)7.02 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Power BI For Office 365 (discontinued)Sigma Computing
Small Businesses
Cyfe
Cyfe
Score 8.8 out of 10
Cyfe
Cyfe
Score 8.8 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Reveal
Reveal
Score 10.0 out of 10
Reveal
Reveal
Score 10.0 out of 10
Enterprises
Jaspersoft Community Edition
Jaspersoft Community Edition
Score 9.7 out of 10
Jaspersoft Community Edition
Jaspersoft Community Edition
Score 9.7 out of 10
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User Ratings
Power BI For Office 365 (discontinued)Sigma Computing
Likelihood to Recommend
8.0
(15 ratings)
9.2
(167 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.2
(4 ratings)
9.6
(6 ratings)
Usability
9.0
(1 ratings)
7.5
(48 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
8.2
(2 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(2 ratings)
Support Rating
9.0
(1 ratings)
10.0
(47 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(2 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
7.3
(1 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
8.2
(2 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
-
(0 ratings)
7.3
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
Power BI For Office 365 (discontinued)Sigma Computing
Likelihood to Recommend
Microsoft
If you're already using Office 365, Power BI for O365 is an easy choice. Start playing around with the free version and then easily add individual Pro licenses with little risk. However, if you anticipate using this with many users, it can get expensive quickly.
Read full review
Sigma Computing
If we have very huge data that has to be filtered based on the selection in the workbook filters, then passing the control IDs of the filters as the parameters directly in the SQL query is a great help. This way helps us in optimizing large SQL queries as well. If we want our front end application filters with the Sigma Computing dashboard filters to communicate with each other, we can certainly do that in embedding with the help of the control_ids.
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Pros
Microsoft
  • Easy to make visual dashboards from SQL queries. Previously we had to use a third party application that had to run on a web server that was so complex to setup and run. PowerBI removes all that.
  • Ability to control who/which group has access to each dashboard or report. Ties in well with the rest of the Office 365 ecosystem.
  • Has many connectors to allow pulling data from various systems, both onsite (via gateway) or external (via APIs), and join the data to create a report/dashboard.
  • Ability to show data but also export the data, if permitted.
  • Easy to show PowerBI dashboards on SharePoint or on other websites via embedded code.
Read full review
Sigma Computing
  • Allows end users to easily dive into the data without having direct access to the table in our database management software.
  • Can easily turnaround dashboards that are detailed and visually pleasing.
  • Sigma is intuitive and as new features are rolled out it is easy to adopt and incorporate them into new and existing dashboards.
Read full review
Cons
Microsoft
  • Licensing: Currently, Microsoft has a fixed pricing model for Office 365 users, regardless of role/function of the user. Most organizations have a small number of "power users" that create usable content and many more "consumers" that simply view/run reports created by power users. Microsoft does not differentiate between these users, and thus the pricing limits organizations from large deployments of the software.
  • Version incompatibility: Excel 2010 and 2013 workbooks are compatible with each other. However, workbooks created in 2010 that include PowerPivot databases must be upgraded to 2013 format to run in 2013. Subsequently, you cannot open these upgraded PowerPivot workbooks in 2010. This requires ALL users to be on the same version.
  • Visualization: Excel charting with PowerPivot workbooks is adequate for many users. Power View also contains a number of GREAT visualizations, including animated bubble charts and a very flexible dashboard/report design canvas. However, compared to some of the other self-service BI solutions, it is still limited in its visualization capabilities.
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Sigma Computing
  • Viewer level license is quite limited. These users can't download data or even add filters on datasets. Something to keep in mind.
  • Directly querying the underlying data warehouse will lead to increased usage. Not a big deal on something like Redshift, but your Snowflake consumption will increase, potentially by a lot.
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Likelihood to Renew
Microsoft
I will continue to recommend this suite to folks looking for a reporting and analytics solution, as I find in MOST cases, it's great at meeting almost every requirement I've been given by a multitude of clients across a range of industries. I've built Capacity Planning solutions that allowed end user input which was then submitted to SharePoint, Executive Dashboards, custom applications, simple analytical tools for teams to easily slice and dice data, and super simple reports as well as some very complicated ones. If you haven't seen the demos online, do a search, and see for yourself - this is a great BI suite! (I do not work for Microsoft, although I do consult out there from time to time. I do occasionally make a recommendation for a different BI reporting tool, but in general, find Excel can accomplish quite a bit for less money and in less time.)
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Sigma Computing
Sigma has helped us a lot and has become an integral part of our daily workflow. It would be difficult to switch to another platform and have to rebuild the numerous metrics and performance reports that we have already established
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Usability
Microsoft
We are satisfied with the functionality and capabilities of Power BI. Product is cost effective and full-fill the reporting requirements of the organization. You can perform most of the report level complex analysis with the help of DAX which makes Power BI very powerful analytic tool. Power BI for Office 365 has gone away and Power BI is the next evolution of it. Power BI comes with your Office 365 E5 subscription or you can purchase licensing for it separately.
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Sigma Computing
It has a clean and modern interface. However, it is not completely intuitive. I think it would be better and easier to navigate with more Windows style drop down menus and/or tabls. There is a significant learning curve, but that may be due in part to the technical nature of this type of software tool.
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Reliability and Availability
Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Sigma Computing
Yes, as long as you don’t conduct user error sigma is always up and running and waiting for you to complete your dashboards
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Performance
Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Sigma Computing
It depends, it loads quickly for smaller dashboards but when loading larger amounts of data it takes more time to do so
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Support Rating
Microsoft
as of now there is strong community for Power BI, you can get solution for most of your problems from there. Also you can send your error to Microsoft as well. After every 15 days they release updates to overcome all the issues of defects.
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Sigma Computing
Support team is helpful in answering questions and providing help with using the UI. There are knowledgeable people within the support team. There are also good online support tools. There are significant community support resources available. There is however lack of a live support. It would be useful to have live phone number or chat to use.
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Implementation Rating
Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Sigma Computing
Was not involved in implementation
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Alternatives Considered
Microsoft
Oracle was nice, super expensive to implement if it's not in use already. JobDiva is choppy and heavy on the system while does not give great reports. Salesforce is good; remote access is good however their support is terrible
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Sigma Computing
Sigma is by far the best. It is easiest to learn and easiest to use on a day to day basis. I never have to wait for dashboards to load and it's very easy to understand the variables that are going into my visualizations. Best of all I can manipulate the data within Sigma very easily. In these other platforms data manipulation is difficult or must be done in the data warehouse
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Scalability
Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Sigma Computing
It is a cloud service offering that is able to expand based on your usage
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Return on Investment
Microsoft
  • As a Microsoft Partner implementing Business Intelligence solutions, Power BI has removed the barrier for our clients to begin the "BI journey". So often, projects get hung up in that early phase of procuring and installing/configuring expensive hardware and software. Just simply getting started and designing a beginning solution has allowed our clients to see results in 1-2 weeks using their data that might have taken months to achieve otherwise.
  • One significant ROI example is process improvement. In many cases, individuals or teams are spending days each month gathering data from multiple sources for reporting to their constituents. We are reducing these times to minutes by automating many of the data collection and integration processes that were previously manual.
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Sigma Computing
  • Monitoring health of cloud platform has allowed the company to anticipate issues before they affect customers – Sigma prompted us building a canary monitoring process that provides customer container health.
  • Customer success has used an activity report to discover customers running runaway processes that they were unaware of, creating an alert to contact the customer and prevent an embarrassing situation.
  • Customer success uses the activity report to prompt conversations regarding increases or declines in behavior that led to increasing contract limits or addressing churn concerns.
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ScreenShots