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Microsoft BI (MSBI)

Microsoft BI (MSBI)

Overview

What is Microsoft BI (MSBI)?

Microsoft BI is a business intelligence product used for data analysis and generating reports on server-based data. It features unlimited data analysis capacity with its reporting engine, SQL Server Reporting Services alongside ETL, master data management, and data cleansing.

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Recent Reviews

Casual User’s POC

8 out of 10
February 08, 2020
Incentivized
Microsoft BI is being used for report generation to monitor ongoing technology projects and business initiatives. We have two users who …
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Awards

Products that are considered exceptional by their customers based on a variety of criteria win TrustRadius awards. Learn more about the types of TrustRadius awards to make the best purchase decision. More about TrustRadius Awards

Popular Features

View all 30 features
  • Report sharing and collaboration (49)
    8.9
    89%
  • Report Formatting Templates (47)
    8.9
    89%
  • Formatting capabilities (49)
    8.0
    80%
  • Customizable dashboards (49)
    8.0
    80%

Reviewer Pros & Cons

View all pros & cons
Verified User
Administrator in Sales
Information Technology & Services Company, 201-500 employees
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Pricing

View all pricing

Power BI Pro

$9.99

Cloud
per user/per month

Power BI Premium

4,995

Cloud
per month

Entry-level set up fee?

  • No setup fee
For the latest information on pricing, visithttps://powerbi.microsoft.com/pricing

Offerings

  • Free Trial
  • Free/Freemium Version
  • Premium Consulting/Integration Services
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Features

BI Standard Reporting

Standard reporting means pre-built or canned reports available to users without having to create them.

8.6
Avg 8.2

Ad-hoc Reporting

Ad-Hoc Reports are reports built by the user to meet highly specific requirements.

8.7
Avg 8.1

Report Output and Scheduling

Ability to schedule and manager report output.

8.9
Avg 8.4

Data Discovery and Visualization

Data Discovery and Visualization is the analysis of multiple data sources in a search for patterns and outliers and the ability to represent the data visually.

9
Avg 8.1

Access Control and Security

Access control means being able to determine who has access to which data.

9
Avg 8.6

Mobile Capabilities

Support for mobile devices like smartphones and tablets.

8.5
Avg 8.0

Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding

APIs are a set of routines, protocols, and tools for used for embedding one application in another

8.8
Avg 7.9
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Product Details

What is Microsoft BI (MSBI)?

Microsoft BI (MSBI) benefits from the ubiquity of SQL server and the set of tools built around the database, including an ETL layer, master data management, data cleansing, report and reporting.

The reporting engine is SQL Server Reporting Services which does not have the visualization capabilities of visualization tools like Tableau or Qlik. Excel has historically been the platform visualization tool. Power BI for Office 365 has done much to improve the discovery and visualization capabilities of Excel.

Microsoft now offers Power BI cloud as the visualization platform with geospatial 3D, natural-language query generation, and self-service ETL along with charting and other data visualizations that can be uploaded and shared through the Power BI service.

The Power BI platform also provides live access to on-premises Microsoft SQL Server instances, and self-service access to third-party cloud sources including Salesforce, Marketo, Zendesk, and GitHub. Mobility is supported through a native iPad app, an iPhone app.

This new platform is viewed by Microsoft as a visualization layer sitting on top of their earlier generation of installed SQL-based technology.

Microsoft BI (MSBI) Competitors

Microsoft BI (MSBI) Technical Details

Deployment TypesSoftware as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based
Operating SystemsUnspecified
Mobile ApplicationNo

Frequently Asked Questions

Microsoft BI is a business intelligence product used for data analysis and generating reports on server-based data. It features unlimited data analysis capacity with its reporting engine, SQL Server Reporting Services alongside ETL, master data management, and data cleansing.

Oracle Analytics Server and Spoom are common alternatives for Microsoft BI (MSBI).

Reviewers rate Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile highest, with a score of 9.9.

The most common users of Microsoft BI (MSBI) are from Enterprises (1,001+ employees).
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Comparisons

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Reviews and Ratings

(937)

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(1-25 of 25)
Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
March 21, 2015

Microsoft BI provides the best bang for your buck, now and into the future.

Chris Utter | TrustRadius Reviewer
Chris Utter
Regional BI Practice Director
Neudesic (Information Technology and Services, 201-500 employees)
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Likelihood to Renew
10
The primary reason I give this a 10 is because of my previous experience with Microsoft. While I can be effective with other tools and solutions, my experience is primarily focused on the Microsoft solution stack and surrounding tools. Some people are Java-centric, some are C#-centric; I am Microsoft SQL Server-centric. Even with the explosion of "big data" tools, I always seem to gravitate toward the Microsoft solution because I know and understand it better than any other solutions.
February 04, 2015

Why is Microsoft BI Right for Me?

Steve Wake | TrustRadius Reviewer
Steve Wake
Consultant
RevGen Partners (Management Consulting, 51-200 employees)
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Likelihood to Renew
10
Flexibility and ease of use! I have not found something that I can't do with the Microsoft BI tools. Some things may be a struggle, but that comes with any tool. The online community support for developers and users of Microsoft is tops as well. If you have a problem you can post in the forums provided by Microsoft or just post on Twitter and you will get an answer from the experts in the field in no time. There is no better community out there for technology that is very supportive and will not bash you even for asking the most basic question. There are plenty of options for support that don't require you to contact Microsoft and that helps save a lot of dollars and time. The tools are keep up-to-date and are constantly evolving.
February 03, 2015

Microsoft BI -- Say GoodBI to the Competition for the Moment.

Lee Cullom | TrustRadius Reviewer
Lee Cullom
President
Northcraft Analytics (Computer Software, 11-50 employees)
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Likelihood to Renew
10
Microsoft BI is fundamental to our suite of BI applications. That being said, Northcraft Analytics is focused on delighting our customers, so if the underlying factors of our decision change, we would choose to re-write our BI applications on a different stack. Luckily, mathematics are the fundamental IP of our technology... and is portable across all BI platforms for the foreseeable future.
November 13, 2014

Thoughts on MS BI

Stephanie Grice | TrustRadius Reviewer
Stephanie Grice
Business Intelligence Analyst
Praeses (Information Technology and Services, 51-200 employees)
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Likelihood to Renew
10
As Microsoft Gold partners, we had access to the software already and have enjoyed success with a very small implementation. As this grows we may look toward additional delivery options but not the base data warehouse system.
November 04, 2014

Microsoft Power BI - Excel Lovers Dream

Sean Warren | TrustRadius Reviewer
Sean Warren
CIO (Chief Information Officer)
Mountain Medical (Hospital & Health Care, 201-500 employees)
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Likelihood to Renew
8
I will renew because the pain to change, rip out and buy new is simply too much to live through. I am under the assumption that this is still 1.0. Microsoft will better my concerns and I still see them adding features from time to time. They have released new versions of the Power Query, and the Gateway over the past couple of months. They have single evenhandedly turned Excel from the preferred tool of presentation to making Excel Middle ware. Middle Ware? Don't hang up and close the browser yet. Yup, its middle ware. Excel connects to the data, SQL database or the data model, Excel is the tool that passes the information to the real presentation layer. Excel is just a middleware tool that has become more powerful than ever and the platform that Microsoft BI resides upon.

While my review may seem at times critical its the familiarity of the tools (Excel), ease of use, and price that make Microsoft BI the recommended tool for the small to medium size company looking for BI.
November 04, 2014

Best TCO but many layers to the overall solution

Verified User
Manager in Professional Services
Information Technology and Services Company, 1001-5000 employees
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Likelihood to Renew
9

These are low risk and very proven traditional BI tools. However, while they are a very good fit for a wide variety of scenarios, other vendors are now offering features and approaches that are worth considering. If an organization does not already use some other Microsoft products like SQL Server, Office, and SharePoint then they might want to consider some of the other competing products. Simply put, if you are already using SQL Server and/or Microsoft Office and/or SharePoint then Microsoft BI makes a lot of sense

.

November 04, 2014

Best TCO of any comprehensive database and analytics platform

Jacob Saunders | TrustRadius Reviewer
Jacob Saunders
National Practice Director - Business Intelligence
Neudesic
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Likelihood to Renew
10
I've been implementing Microsoft, and other, BI tools for many years and will continue to drive adoption of this platform in my client base as it matures. My firm also uses the platform internally for all our operational and analytical systems.
September 14, 2014

Microsoft BI - A good all around suite of products for the traditional data environment

Mashhood Syed | TrustRadius Reviewer
Mashhood Syed
Business Intelligence Specialist
Kaiser Foundation Health Plan (Transportation/Trucking/Railroad, 501-1000 employees)
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Likelihood to Renew
8
Assuming that I will continue to have a need to monitor and report on the operational aspects of the organization using transactional data, Microsoft BI is a solid choice. Its kind of like how you still have legacy applications that serve a strong need that is critical to the day to day operations. The fact that the tools are similar to stuff the users have already been using makes the adoption and buy in that much easier.
September 12, 2014

Useful but reporting could be more sexy...

FF
Frederic Freyermuth ☁
Responsable d'application CRM - Salesforce.com
Argus de la Presse (Public Relations and Communications, 201-500 employees)
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Likelihood to Renew
6
Microsoft BI's technical integration is ok and an upcoming evolution could be done on this basis. The reporting tools are too Excel oriented. Doesn't give ability for multi-criteria analysis and dynamic dashboards. Report scheduling also seems difficult to put in action.
April 05, 2014

Microsoft BI and Parallel Data Warehouse in Ambulatory Healthcare

Nathan Patrick Taylor | TrustRadius Reviewer
Nathan Patrick Taylor
Quality Informatics Manager
Alliance of Chicago (Hospital & Health Care, 11-50 employees)
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Likelihood to Renew
9
The product has functioned as promised and the level of support has been excellent. We get a sense the Microsoft is putting a lot of effort into help us succeed with their products. Even though Power View and Report Builder are lacking in some functionality, I have already seen improvements in the tools and I know enhancements are forthcoming.
October 24, 2013

MS BI Suite Review

Verified User
Consultant in Corporate
51-200 employees
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Likelihood to Renew
9
It's very intuitive to use. SQL Server Reporting Services is very easy to learn even If you have never developed reports before. In my opinion it’s much simpler to use than, for example, Business Objects.
October 20, 2013

Microsoft BI

Bryan Simmons | TrustRadius Reviewer
Bryan Simmons
Analyst in Sales
Unicity International (Consumer Goods, 201-500 employees)
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Likelihood to Renew
7
Microsoft BI is a great tool but may require additional, expensive staff to maintain the software and keep it running on a day to day basis from an operational perspective. Other BI products are making the jump to "Self Service" Business Intelligence, empowering the end user to create and modify their data needs. However, if a company resides on a MS SQL server structure, Microsoft's BI tool is easy to integrate and can deploy an enterprise BI solution in a relative short time. Considering the initial software costs, you get a lot for your money.
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