MSBI : a new boom in the digital world!
I use MSBI specifically for data generation and data analytics. It has helped me to create a data way more simpler and easy to understand. …
Starting at $9.99 per user/per month
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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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Popular Features
- Report sharing and collaboration (49)8.989%
- Report Formatting Templates (47)8.989%
- Formatting capabilities (49)8.080%
- Customizable dashboards (49)8.080%
Reviewer Pros & Cons
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
Features
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Product Details
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- Competitors
- Tech Details
- FAQs
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.
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 Types | Software as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based |
|---|---|
| Operating Systems | Unspecified |
| Mobile Application | No |
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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Reviews and Ratings
(937)Attribute Ratings
Reviews
(26-50 of 62)Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
May 03, 2018
Great Graphics presentations
The software stacks [well] because it has more graphics resolution and the colors are fresh and actualized. On the other hand, there is the Microsoft family software and this is an advantage. Microsoft has a lot of users around the world and it's like everyone knows how to do things intuitively, even if they are wrong, because of previous knowledge with the software vendor.
Microsoft BI is mainly based on Microsoft SQL Server, so it is perfectly integrated. Many of the Microsoft BI components require using SQL Server as the database engine. Generally, the functionalities that are achieved when using SQL Server as a database engine are greater than when using any other engine.
October 16, 2017
Microsoft BI - Advanced Surveys
Microsoft BI is an extension of Microsoft SQL Server, it can be used to develop the data warehousing of the information stored in SQL Server and also turn that information in fully customizable reports.
February 03, 2017
Microsoft BI is the perfect Dash-boarding product
TIBCO Spotfire is better in loading multiple data sources, a bit faster on data mining, but not so nice on the dashboard side if this needs to be accessed by several users. On the other hand, Microsoft BI is perfect for an online dashboard.
December 15, 2016
Microsoft BI - a complete BI offer at last!
For analysis and visualization, Power BI is aiming to take a large chunk of Tableau's market share. The rhythm of iterations at this time has in my opinion given the momentum to Power BI. The added functionalities in Excel also make it possible for intermediate users to get familiar with data modeling.
November 15, 2016
Microsoft BI from a Consultant's Perspective
Microsoft BI has many more features than MySQL and contains a set of fully-integrated applications to cover all BI needs. It is widely used as an enterprise-level BI system among our clients, allowing us to easily design solutions in-house and implement them in our clients' environments. Additionally, Microsoft provides methods for importing/exporting data that may be sourced from or delivered to outside sources/destinations.
November 07, 2016
Microsoft BI Review
Microsoft BI is ideal for proficient Excel users, and it is the best choice in terms of visualizations. We decided to use Microsoft BI for these reasons.
October 24, 2016
Microsoft BI- Multiple sources, One solution
- BizNet Excel Suite, Tableau Desktop and Tableau Online
Microsoft BI is very well suited to implement reporting and visualization within departments. Choosing Microsoft BI over tools like Tableau is the variety of third party apps it extracts data from. This functionality is limited in Tableau as it digests data from large data sources like SQL etc.
Especially for marketing departments where data is coming from social media campaigns, email campaigns, and other campaigns, BI handles it all very well.
Especially for marketing departments where data is coming from social media campaigns, email campaigns, and other campaigns, BI handles it all very well.
October 17, 2016
Clean and Clear Data Analytics
- SAP Business Objects and QlikView
One of the main reasons Microsoft BI was chosen by our company is because it is a reliable program. We tried different programs in the past (and currently also use other ones for certain reporting and analysis needs) but Microsoft BI was the least buggy out of our top choices.
September 26, 2016
Think hard on your BI goals
I'd rather not say to avoid unnecessary arguments. Thanks.
August 07, 2016
It's Excel for Big Data. So easy, so cheap, so fast, and powerful enough most everything.
- Tableau Desktop, Google Analytics, Google Charts, SAP Crystal Reports, SAS Visual Analytics, SAS Analytics, QlikView and D3.js
Looking at the visualization portion of BI, there are three types of tools.
- Programming packages. Free and powerful, they let you make any diagram, at the cost of difficulty of use.
- Specialist software like Tableau and Microsoft BI. This is the best choice in most cases due to ease of use and quality of output.
- More generic software offered by the big IT companies, often part of a BI suite. There's really a lot of variety here. Use this when it fits the workflow and you are already using the relevant software. But, personally, I'd still use the specialist software.
Our company's implementation of Business Warehouse was abhorrent. It was so clunky and unreliable we couldn't get any real reporting information from the warehouse itself. It wasn't sleek at all and everything had to be manually downloaded and plugged into an offline spreadsheet to generate any kind of data. It was not worth the effort.
Microsoft BI helps you not only streamlines your data but you can create sleek reports from within the system and either do your presentation in real time or download the information to an offline report to help you show how successful your campaigns have run.
Microsoft BI helps you not only streamlines your data but you can create sleek reports from within the system and either do your presentation in real time or download the information to an offline report to help you show how successful your campaigns have run.
March 10, 2016
Microsoft BI - A Brand Trust worthy
Oracle is primarily one amongst the leader in ERP applications and they have quite easily leveraged their BI products to offer pre-built dashboard and operational reporting which is received well by the users. But with Microsoft BI there are host of other features which beats its competitors. Easy of use, navigation, layouts, etc are primarily easy to connect to for the users.
February 20, 2016
Intelligent big boy Microsoft BI
- Tableau, Spotfire and Apptio Technology Business Management
Microsoft BI is a great tool when it comes to various integration with line of business applications and its own ecosystem which contains office applications widely used all over the world. Hence, it is well suited for organizations that are complex and have global foot-print. It is also well suited for Power Users who may not have deep technical knowledge but familiarity with day-to-day applications such as word, excel etc...Tableau, Spotfire, Apptio and other tools are much better suited for web-friendly visualizations and for smaller organizations.
February 12, 2016
Microsoft BI platform good for Reporting but always changing for the rest of the toolset so use caution for your needs.
I wasn't part of the decision that selected Microsoft BI but we are heavily invested in AX for our finance and distribution platform and SQL as a database platform.
February 10, 2016
Microsoft BI Review
Spotfire is very powerful, but the learning curve is pretty steep.
January 15, 2016
Great value for money with Microsoft's BI
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
IBM Cognos, Informatica,and MicroStrategy. We picked the Microsoft solution primarily due to the best TCO and match for our requirements.
June 10, 2015
"MS BI" = $$$
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Not reviewed any other product yet.
March 30, 2015
Why I Love Microsoft BI.
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
- Pentaho,Crystal Reports,jasper
Its a fast, easy to use and complete solution.
With over 20 years in IT, I have experienced a full range of relational and non-relational data solutions, from Oracle and Informix to MongoDB and Hadoop. In my opinion, the Microsoft BI stack is the most complete, well-rounded, high performing data management system on the planet right now. More and more, the ability to make data-driven decisions sets organizations apart from their competitors, and no one offers a better solution than Microsoft and its partners. As more and more of what we do in business life moves to the cloud, Microsoft is again leading the way with its Azure platforms.
March 10, 2015
Microsoft BI platform review
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Oracle
February 04, 2015
Why is Microsoft BI Right for Me?
Microsoft BI provides the most flexibility and best integration across of the products in the SQL Server Microsoft BI Suite (and with other Microsoft tools). The tools are flexible enough to work just as well in a small group as they are in a large enterprise and without having to re-learn the products to fit those different scenarios. All of the tools in the SQL Server Microsoft BI stack are provided with one licenses (assuming you install everything on one server) and all of the development tools required are available for free if they they aren't included with the main installer. The Microsoft BI tools will work with most of the major database systems out of the box and if it doesn't, there is a very active 3rd party software environment that develops free or paid add-ons that will cover the options that Microsoft doesn't out of the box. The tools are easy to learn and use and updated on a very regular basis. There is always the flexibility to add or take away from the products installed as part of a Microsoft BI solution, so you never have to be locked into using only the tools provided by Microsoft.
February 03, 2015
Microsoft BI -- Say GoodBI to the Competition for the Moment.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
- SAP Business Objects,Tableau Server,MicroStrategy Analytics,Oracle BI Foundation Suite
We chose Microsoft BI due to performance, functionality, TCO and openness (yes, I know, this sounds strange for Microsoft).
- SAP Business Objects has a less attractive GUI for end users, inferior Excel integration, inferior SharePoint integration, requires more labor to enhance performance and has higher licensing costs than Microsoft BI.
- Tableau Server has no real ETL capabilities... and thus requires an underlying BI stack. So, while Tableau rules the visualization world with Tableau Desktop, Tableau Server doesn't give us all of the capability we need for a full BI solution for our clients. Tableau Desktop makes an excellent complementary product to Microsoft BI. We typically recommend using both to customers in certain situations.
- Microstrategy - Comprehensive Multidimensional/HOLAP platform, expensive, visualizations are better than SAP BO, but not as strong as Microsoft, especially Microsoft SSAS + Tableau (which can be acquired at a lower price point). Excel integration isn't as seamless as SSAS to Excel either.
- Oracle - Expensive, patchwork of acquired BI tools rather than a platform, inferior visualizations. This platform is meant for customers who are already trapped in Oracle licensing.
November 06, 2014
Microsoft BI entering 21st century for its analytical capabilities
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Microsoft BI stacks up against Tableau because Tableau cannot blend various data sources easily. Tableau produces nice reports with a single data source. Today, it's not what we need. We need to easily combine multiple data sources. I would recommend either Microsoft BI or Anametrix with the ODBC connector for Tableau. With the last solution, you combine the power of Tableau (nice reports) and Anametrix (all data sources living under one single roof).