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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

(936)

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(51-73 of 73)
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 Recommend
Any organization that requires a full-featured, high performance data storage and analytics platform should consider the Microsoft BI stack. However, many organizations are tied to another RDBMS system because of critical business applications like SAP or Oracle EBS, and their internal development and support teams are experts in a different stack. In those cases, integrating the Microsoft Business Intelligence stack can require a steeper learning curve than "Microsoft shops".
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 Recommend
Microsoft BI works across many different scenarios and solutions, so it is an ideal tool for small department roll outs that may grow to full enterprise solutions or even starting at the enterprise level. The biggest thing to keep in mind when deciding whether or not to use SSRS is are you going to be able to support all of the group's reporting needs as it does not have a good end-user report development tool at this point (Report Builder is no longer being supported by Microsoft). SSRS is meant to be an IT driven reporting environment where the report formats are very rigid and the reports need to be delivered to a set of users by a specific time every hour/week/day/month. SSRS is NOT an ad-hoc reporting tool and should never be thought of that way. If you are looking for ad-hoc analysis of data then you should consider setting up either Multi-Dimensional or Tabular structures in SSAS and then the users can access those structures in Excel and create "reports" in Excel to show it. If you are looking for a way to get control of your data and end the Excel "spreadmarts" then the tools provided in SQL Server Microsoft BI will help with that given that you have the time and resources to develop that solution.
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 Recommend

Appropriate:

  • SSAS - Cross-Process Area Analysis - On the server side, tying multiple data sources together for a single analyst view
  • Enabling Collaboration via the SharePoint Portal for enhanced communication across a large organization
  • Analyst Usability and Report Sharing- Breaking beyond the traditional Excel limitations associated with static spreadsheets and record limits (with SSAS only, Server stored data sources and Excel Services)
  • Simple Data Mining and Predictive Analysis - Introduce the organization to more advanced Analysis without having to hire a Math Department

Not Appropriate:

  • Non-SharePoint portals - This review was written before the full release of Power BI with HTML5 capability. While reporting services can publish to other portals via iframes, it's best to stay within the Microsoft technology stack for simple & quick wins.
  • Mobile Device Access - Performance Point only works on an iPad. That is being addressed by PowerBI, but Tableau has had superior mobile device access for some time. Report Builder reports can render in HTML5 with SQL 2012, but the performance could be stronger.
November 06, 2014

Microsoft BI entering 21st century for its analytical capabilities

Jerome Lambert, PhD | TrustRadius Reviewer
Jerome Lambert, PhD
Business Analyst | Digital Analytics
Anametrix Inc, an Ensighten Company (Computer Software, 51-200 employees)
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Likelihood to Recommend
Microsoft BI is perfect for this type of scenario (even if lots of other scenarios can be envisioned): I need the last 2 weeks of data from the data source X and the previous weeks from the data source Y. PowerQuery will allow to reach such challenges and will be updated automatically every week.
November 05, 2014

Tools and Integration

Shawn Lee | TrustRadius Reviewer
Shawn Lee
Microsoft BI Architect
DST Systems (Financial Services, 10,001+ employees)
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Likelihood to Recommend
Microsoft was able to assist us in building dynamic row level security into the SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS) cubes. This is, typically, a difficult thing to accomplish at a database level.
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 Recommend
Microsoft has pulled a great trick. The trick is getting you into the pricing for only $20 to $50 dollars a month. They then made it very easy to push to the SharePoint site and keep it updated with free gateway product that will keep your reports live and consistently updated. Now here is a gotcha....IF you use the Data modeling tool (Power Query) for example that is then connected to a large database, you will have no issues. The issues begin at publishing information to SharePoint. There is a size limitation to how large the excel sheet can be. I would point out that we are not making large spread sheets with Pivot tables and millions of rows of data. We are simply connecting through Power Query. The sheet is still very small but the issue is the data model size. This is tapped at a gig on SharePoint. To be considered a true enterprise product, this size limitation will have to be overcome.

There is a (not sure if beta or not) version of some of the power views that can be done in Power BI. These views when rendered locally are wonderful. When they are rendered from the web, they can take a little longer. The part that can be agonizing is the showing views through HTML5. This is almost unworkable when using power maps or maps through power view. The response is so jittery that it is almost unusable.
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 Recommend
Microsoft BI is an excellent fit for companies that are already using SQL Server and/or SharePoint. PowerBI is an excellent fit for companies that are already using Microsoft Office and/or Office 365. If you're looking for an agile tool with the option for publishing dashboards and reports to the cloud, then Power BI is an appropriate choice. While considering other products, be sure to ask if they have a data integration layer. Microsoft BI includes Integration Services and Data Quality Services, other vendors might not have that same offering.
September 25, 2014

Microsoft - Your Old Trusted Friend?

Julia Gusman | TrustRadius Reviewer
Julia Gusman
BI Consultant
Altis Consulting (Information Technology and Services, 51-200 employees)
Score 1 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Likelihood to Recommend
Many companies consider SSIS as 'free' since it comes included with the SQL server database. It seems an obvious choice if your data resides in SQL server to go ahead and utilize Microsoft BI tools. Notice, this is not the only option you have but one that many people would consider convenient. However, if most of your data does not reside in SQL server already, consider a wider choice of options for your BI. Another factor is the availability of skilled resources to maintain your BI environment. Due to its popularity on the market you will find most of people in the BI world are able to work with Microsoft BI.
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 Recommend
I think that Microsoft BI products are suited well for companies that have traditional data needs. To be more specific, if your data is organized nicely into a RDBMS (SQL Server, Oracle) and you want a way to distribute it easily across your organization, then SSRS can get the job done very well for you. The best situation is where you are purely a Microsoft shop. In that instance, all these products work seamlessly with SQL Server. If you have really specific needs like real time visualization, dashboarding, ability to blend data from multiple data sources then Microsoft BI may not be the right product for you as of yet.
July 21, 2014

Microsoft BI tool provides the visibility into the business that could make strategic decisions at a low cost with ease of implementation.

Scott Lerner | TrustRadius Reviewer
Scott Lerner
Director of IT
Graham-Field Health Products (Hospital & Health Care, 201-500 employees)
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Likelihood to Recommend
We selected Microsoft’s BI tool for the fact that a tool was needed to measure the company above and beyond “just sales”. We also needed a tool that could grow with Graham-Field. While there were many tools to choose from during the section process, having a Microsoft platform from data to portals makes the Microsoft BI tool a much easier choice from both an integration and implementation standpoint.
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 Recommend
Microsoft made huge strides to help user community to adopt its BI Suite. Seven or so years ago, most people used SQL server only. With SQL 2005 release, the community adopted the whole BI suite. In my opinion licensing model, intuitiveness and ease of use, and integration with Visual Studio encouraged adoption of the BI tools.
September 06, 2013

Build a highly automated and flexible BI solution for your organization!

Sean Brady | TrustRadius Reviewer
Sean Brady
Business Intelligence Architect
BAASS Business Solutions (Transportation/Trucking/Railroad, 5001-10,000 employees)
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Likelihood to Recommend
Although it is technically a different product, you can build a really nice self-service intranet reporting solution by integrating Reporting Services into Microsoft SharePoint (Enterprise). I would highly recommend going in that direction if you are looking to deploy this stack.
Also, remember that Excel is your friend! No, it should never be used to store data, but it is an amazingly flexible and powerful analysis and reporting tool - especially when combined with Power Pivot and SharePoint.
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