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Microsoft BI (MSBI) Reviews

837 Ratings
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Score 8.2 out of 100

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Reviews (1-25 of 71)

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December 30, 2020

My Microsoft BI (MSBI) perspective

Rajesh Patel, CSCP, Six Sigma Black Belt | TrustRadius Reviewer
Rajesh Patel, CSCP, Six Sigma Black Belt
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source

Likelihood to Recommend

  1. You don't need an experienced user to build simple reports.
  2. Well suited when a flashy dashboard is required.
  3. Not suitable if the future plan is to migrate existing MSBI dashboards to other tools.
  4. Each user has the liberty to create their own custom dashboard.
  5. It doesn't cost a lot.
Read Rajesh Patel, CSCP, Six Sigma Black Belt's full review
February 10, 2021

Microsoft BI - Best tool for taking care of your reports.

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Verified User
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source

Likelihood to Recommend

Coming to me, I mostly do the reporting part inside BI and I use it to update process-related information every day in and out. It does saves lot of time to just update it and leave it for the people to view it later.
Read this authenticated review
April 22, 2020

Microsoft PowerBI unleashes the power of your data

Bradley Geppert | TrustRadius Reviewer
Bradley Geppert
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source

Likelihood to Recommend

It works great for our purposes. I highly recommend hiring a consultant to set it up for you though. I don't think we would have gotten very far had we tried to setup the reports and views ourselves. We're very happy with the results we've seen so far. We've been using it for about 3-4 months.
Read Bradley Geppert's full review
March 14, 2020

Microsoft BI the killer data analytics and visualization tool

Ashutosh Gaikwad | TrustRadius Reviewer
Ashutosh Gaikwad
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source

Likelihood to Recommend

Microsoft BI is best suited for creating interactive dashboards, and you can connect various data sources and analyze the data. I don't have any scenario where it is less suitable
Read Ashutosh Gaikwad's full review
April 25, 2020

Best when used by larger companies in a predominantly Microsoft environment

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Verified User
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source

Likelihood to Recommend

Microsoft BI will fit seamlessly into Microsoft ecosystems, especially when used with SharePoint and SQL Server. Larger companies with big data sets will be able to justify the high cost of ownership. The platform works well when used to drive strategic decision making and can compensate for gaps in relevant data when used with the lists feature in SharePoint.
Read this authenticated review
November 20, 2019

Microsoft BI review

Hrishikesh Kardile | TrustRadius Reviewer
Hrishikesh Kardile
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source

Likelihood to Recommend

BI is well suited where organizations want to automate the reporting process. Less suited where organizations want advanced analytics to supplement their BI.
Read Hrishikesh Kardile's full review
February 14, 2020

If you have ever struggled with Excel, then do give Microsoft BI a shot!!

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Verified User
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source

Likelihood to Recommend

Microsoft BI is very well suited to building dashboards and reports, which pull data from the same sources or servers and these reports/dashboards are reviewed at some cadence. Having a real-time dashboard thus saves time in trying to piece together data each time for review. If you are having problems with analyzing large amounts of data in Excel then also Microsoft BI is an easier way out.
Read this authenticated review
February 11, 2020

Great, easy to use product - provided you are an Office365 organization.

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Verified User
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source

Likelihood to Recommend

I would recommend this for smaller data work where users and physical resources are limited as the free version can accomplish a good amount. However, I would only recommend this to organizations which either do not need to share the visualizations/data work or are an Office365 organization as without that it is quite difficult to share/collaborate on projects.
Read this authenticated review
September 05, 2019

Excellent BI Stack for an all-in-one solution architecture, however may need specialized platforms for non-traditional datasets

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Verified User
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source

Likelihood to Recommend

If the client you are dealing with already has existing Microsoft licensing agreements, selecting the Microsoft Stack may be a no-brainer. However, truly understanding the client's needs is the most important place to start versus selecting the technology stack. B2C clients that need a visualization tool may need to look elsewhere if you are looking for a data visualization tool, as costs for licensing are high at the time of writing.
Read this authenticated review
February 07, 2020

Casual User’s POC

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Verified User
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source

Likelihood to Recommend

Microsoft BI is great for reporting on large data sets.
Read this authenticated review
March 19, 2019

Good for visualisations and reporting!

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Verified User
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source

Likelihood to Recommend

If your primary use case requires the use of several visualisation options and graphical representations, then Microsoft BI might be a good option to use. However, if your data management needs do not revolve around reporting, then it is better to go with other standard business intelligence tools available in the market like Oracle BI or Tableau.
Read this authenticated review
February 17, 2019

Microsoft BI is great if you're looking for a BI product that feels like the other Microsoft products you use

Thomas Young | TrustRadius Reviewer
Thomas Young
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source

Likelihood to Recommend

Microsoft BI is great if you and your team have used Microsoft products for a long time. Connecting Microsoft BI to your current processes will be a breeze. The software also makes it easy to create executive dashboards and automated data reporting. For simple financial reporting, Microsoft BI is as easy as they come.
Read Thomas Young's full review
January 23, 2019

Microsoft BI - Putting the power into your reporting

Shelby Bowden | TrustRadius Reviewer
Shelby Bowden
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source

Likelihood to Recommend

For large and complex datasets, Microsoft BI excels in presenting the data in a manageable and informative way. Its graphical interface does a great job of quickly and easily displaying data, and the reporting tools are well above average for analytical software. It is also great when used in conjunction with other Microsoft products, but does not do well when paired with alternate programs.
Read Shelby Bowden's full review
January 17, 2019

Outstanding Report Creator

Michael Timms | TrustRadius Reviewer
Michael Timms
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source

Likelihood to Recommend

If you are part of an enterprise that is running daily reports to many users, and you want to up your game by making visually stunning, easy to follow reports, PowerBI is the tool for you and well worth the cost. If you are in an environment that runs one report a month, the cost might not be worth it just for some bells and whistles.
Read Michael Timms's full review
January 16, 2019

Microsoft BI - A diamond in the rough

Ivan Leung | TrustRadius Reviewer
Ivan Leung
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source

Likelihood to Recommend

Dashboarding with simple data relationship.

In the oil and gas industry, it's common to be analyzing geospatial items along with cross-sectional data, and this can easily go over the row limit that Microsoft BI has for its map visualization; this is a shortfall.

For high-level dashboarding, say, aggregated data for management reporting, Microsoft BI is perfectly suited due to its professional layout and ease of deployment. The data modeling aspect in Microsoft BI leaves much to be desired as it doesn't allow for many relationships which are rather common in the data used in our industry; this forces users to create a unique key by having to concatenate columns of interest, which tend to result in untidy data and make maintenance difficult.
Read Ivan Leung's full review
January 09, 2019

Business Intelligence like you never seen before

Jean Franco | TrustRadius Reviewer
Jean Franco
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source

Likelihood to Recommend

You can have Microsoft BI in any scenario since it can gather information from many different sources. You also need to take into consideration that Microsoft BI provides a lot of resources to developers allowing you to customize and do much more with this tool. In some circumstances where you need to build graphics in real time from sources where you need a task to import the data, it can be cumbersome.
Read Jean Franco's full review
December 06, 2018

Power BI just works!

Jason Shaw | TrustRadius Reviewer
Jason Shaw
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source

Likelihood to Recommend

Well Suited:
Reporting numbers for accounting to an executive team that can be displayed and referenced frequently.
Read Jason Shaw's full review
October 19, 2018

MIcorosft BI - Gather, share and take action on your data

Brian Caulfield | TrustRadius Reviewer
Brian Caulfield
Score 4 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source

Likelihood to Recommend

Microsoft BI is well suited for a data landscape that traverses multiple business units. its ability to bring different type of information together and communicate it in a more concise manner is great. Scenarios that required continuous monitoring and team communication, Microsoft BI is perfect. The ability to access the information on the fly through the mobile app is outstanding.
Read Brian Caulfield's full review
June 19, 2018

Power BI will put an S on your chest

Jason Leidig | TrustRadius Reviewer
Jason Leidig
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source

Likelihood to Recommend

Flexibility, engagement, training resources, updates, cost, implementation, ease of use, support; these are the reasons why I would recommend Power BI. Power BI is best suited for situations where collaboration is needed among several different groups who are working concurrently on different activities. Where there are multiple levels of data that need to be parsed through. It's difficult to think of a scenario where it wouldn't be beneficial other than the obvious.
Read Jason Leidig's full review
January 12, 2019

Multiple tools in single package.

Lakhan Suri | TrustRadius Reviewer
Lakhan Suri
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source

Likelihood to Recommend

The interface is good, and even we can use drag and drop functionality to create packages and reports and other tasks.
Read Lakhan Suri's full review
September 07, 2018

A Very Powerful and Innovative BI and Virtualization Tool: MS BI

Celil ÇİYNEKLİ | TrustRadius Reviewer
Celil ÇİYNEKLİ
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source

Likelihood to Recommend

Microsoft BI is well suitable for Data Mining, Data Analyzing, Reporting, Data Visualizing, Prediction, Data Insight, Distributed Dashboards, Private Dashboards, Complex Data Analysis and Data gathering from any resource (Web, Excel, SQL, Access, Oracle, Text, Google Analytics, MailChimp, many more) projects.
Microsoft BI is less suitable for Big Data, especially if data is larger than a TB.
Read Celil ÇİYNEKLİ's full review
July 14, 2018

Ideal for Data Analytics and Visualization, but not for noobs

Zee Gimon | TrustRadius Reviewer
Zee Gimon
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source

Likelihood to Recommend

If you want Excel on steroids in terms of graphs and data analysis - this is your beast. It has all kinds of visualizations available and you can filter the data to make it as precise as you want. We use it for managing the data from the mobile app and to create visual reports of the users' actions.
Read Zee Gimon's full review
April 09, 2018

Microsoft BI - Good choice for departmental deployments and limited budget

Gonzalo Angeleri | TrustRadius Reviewer
Gonzalo Angeleri
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source

Likelihood to Recommend

Well suited for:
- Customers with a Microsoft landscape who use MS Office or Office 365, SQL Server and Active Directory a lot.
- Departmental deployments.
- Self-Service Capabilities
- Small Budgets
- Mobile Capabilities

Some issues with:
- non-Microsoft environments
- Complex data sources like SAP.
- Complex calculations in Power BI

Read Gonzalo Angeleri's full review
May 03, 2018

Great Graphics presentations

Yemsi Pino | TrustRadius Reviewer
Yemsi Pino
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source

Likelihood to Recommend

The software is really well designed to make presentations and graphics once the data in the sheets are complete and there are no more corrections. Instead, if you feel that you need corrections you will have to start the process over again. It's frustrating. I think this software requires more capabilities than others, network knowledge and how the Microsoft software is connected.
Read Yemsi Pino's full review

Microsoft BI (MSBI) Scorecard Summary

Likelihood to Recommend (837)
8.2
Likelihood to Renew (25)
8.0
Usability (7)
9.0
Availability (4)
9.5
Performance (4)
7.0
Support Rating (14)
8.5
In-Person Training (3)
6.9
Online Training (2)
8.5
Implementation Rating (14)
9.6
Data Sharing and Collaboration (48)
8.0
Data Sources (47)
8.3

Feature Scorecard Summary

BI Standard Reporting
8.2
Pixel Perfect reports (40)
7.8
Customizable dashboards (47)
8.6
Report Formatting Templates (45)
8.3
Ad-hoc Reporting
7.7
Drill-down analysis (42)
8.1
Formatting capabilities (47)
7.8
Integration with R or other statistical packages (38)
6.8
Report sharing and collaboration (47)
8.0
Report Output and Scheduling
7.4
Publish to Web (42)
6.9
Publish to PDF (42)
7.9
Report Versioning (38)
7.4
Report Delivery Scheduling (42)
7.6
Delivery to Remote Servers (22)
7.0
Data Discovery and Visualization
7.7
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.) (45)
7.4
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization (42)
7.8
Predictive Analytics (40)
7.8
Access Control and Security
8.3
Multi-User Support (named login) (44)
8.4
Role-Based Security Model (41)
7.9
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete) (45)
8.6
Single Sign-On (SSO) (26)
8.3
Mobile Capabilities
7.8
Responsive Design for Web Access (33)
7.8
Dedicated iOS Application (26)
7.7
Dedicated Android Application (26)
7.8
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile (35)
7.7
Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding
7.4
REST API (17)
7.3
Javascript API (18)
7.5
iFrames (17)
7.8
Java API (16)
7.6
Themeable User Interface (UI) (16)
7.1
Customizable Platform (Open Source) (12)
7.1

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.
Categories:  Full-Stack Business Intelligence,  Business Intelligence (BI)

Microsoft BI (MSBI) Competitors

Microsoft BI (MSBI) Pricing

  • Does not have featureFree Trial Available?No
  • Has featureFree or Freemium Version Available?Yes
  • Does not have featurePremium Consulting/Integration Services Available?No
  • Entry-level set up fee?No
EditionPricing DetailsTerms
Power BI Pro9.99per user/per month
Power BI Premium4,995per month

Microsoft BI (MSBI) Technical Details

Deployment Types:SaaS
Operating Systems: Unspecified
Mobile Application:No