Microsoft Power BI

Score8.5 out of 10

2,209 Reviews and Ratings

What is Microsoft Power BI?

Microsoft Power BI is a visualization and data discovery tool from Microsoft. It allows users to convert data into visuals and graphics, visually explore and analyze data, collaborate on interactive dashboards and reports, and scale across their organization with built-in governance and security.

Categories & Use Cases

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Screenshot of Microsoft Power BI - Turns insights into impact for business users

Screenshot of Power BI integrates easily with Microsoft 365

Screenshot of Microsoft Power BI - AI-Powered Capabilities

Screenshot of Microsoft Power BI - Copilot can be used to create reports

Screenshot of Microsoft Power BI - Data Hub

Screenshot of Microsoft Power BI - Scales as organizational needs grow

Screenshot of Microsoft Power BI - Data Governance

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Screenshot of Microsoft Power BI - Turns insights into impact for business users

Customizable dashboards
Customizable dashboards are dashboards providing the builder some degree of control over the look and feel and display options.
Category average: 8.3
Multi-User Support (named login)
Named model access means that users have access based on name and password.
Category average: 8.3
Single Sign-On (SSO)
Allows users to use one set of login credentials to access multiple applications
Category average: 8.7

Themeable User Interface (UI)
A themeable user interface means that a specific visual them can be applied to it
Category average: 7.4
Predictive Analytics
Predictive Analytics is the ability to build forecasting models based on existing data sets.
Category average: 7.2
Java API
A Java application programming interface (API) is a list of all classes that are part of the Java development kit (JDK)
Category average: 7.8

Most Frequent Users

Top 3 industries using Microsoft Power BI.

Based on HG Insights installation data

View all Reviews

#1 most frequent

Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services

16.0%

28,261 installations of 177,122

#2 most frequent

Manufacturing

11.5%

20,372 installations of 177,122

#3 most frequent

Finance and Insurance

6.9%

12,287 installations of 177,122

Pros

Robust data connectivity and handling for diverse sources
Effective ETL processes and management of large datasets
Intuitive user interface for data transformation (e.g., PowerQuery)

Cons

Complex user interface with a steep learning curve for new users
Inadequate and difficult-to-find documentation and support
Difficulties with integration and sharing, especially with external parties

Verified User

Analyst in Quality Assurance (10,001+ employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I'm a healthcare data analyst for the southwest Missouri regional hospitals and clinics. We have several compliance and patient care KPIs that we need to track daily. I build Power BI reports for various healthcare service lines based on long and short term analytics goals. I connect our Power BI reports to a range of data sources, be it, Sharepoint, Oracle, or Cloud based sources. This offers a wide scope to our analytics playbook as patient care excellence requires many pathways.

Pros

Connects to a large variety of data sources
Has plenty of visual options and tools for complex reports
Allows for very specific and detailed customizations.
Has a robust and key AI assistant in Copilot

Cons

Changes too often, the feature options and look are updated monthly
Requires education, not a good right of the box tool for general use
If there are failures or steps missed it is difficult at times to troubleshoot

Return on Investment

Great for futurecasting!
We can easily track healthcare trends across locations

Usability

Alternatives Considered

QlikView and Salesforce CRM Analytics

Other Software Used

Toad Data Point, Microsoft Excel, Epic EpicCare EMR

Verified User

Director in Research & Development (11-50 employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We capture a lot of vehicle data and need a way to display and filter it for clients. Specifically, we need to help them answer the question "where are the elevated levels of risk for my drivers?" Each telemetry point is matched with human-labeled "road errors," which are then used to determine the driver's level of risk and the elevated risk to a company's fleet as a whole. Power BI helps organize, display (the ArcGIS plugin), and deploy this data for our clients.

Pros

Pulling, syncing, and serving large tranches of data.
Filtering data in tables.
Providing a way to show live intuitive tables without needing to write a script.

Cons

The pricing for the tier to have publicly, universally accessible reports was, for a long time, cost-prohibitive.
Difficulty setting up gateway networks for data privacy.
OData interface was buggy at times, and slow.

Return on Investment

It's very expensive for standalone public reporting, and we have considered leaving for that reason at times.
We've been able to show patterns clearly to our clients using the ArcGIS plugin.
We've been able to avoid slowing down our main database.

Usability

Alternatives Considered

Plotly Chart Studio

Other Software Used

Azure App Service, Azure AI Vision, Microsoft 365 Copilot

Verified User

Analyst in Information Technology (5001-10,000 employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I’ve been using Power BI to turn complex and non-clear datasets into clear, interactive dashboards. We can connect different data sources to make one report. Power BI is a great tool if we need to organize a lot of information and want to build something that actually helps people who are in a business. I find data visualization is fun and exciting, and clients really love the results.

Pros

It is affordable, because desktop version is free
Very easy to filter data in tables and in datasets
We can create live and interactive dashboards.
It is very user friendly, clients can use their own.

Cons

There is no Desktop version for mac
It will slow, if we are using big data
we can't easily share our live report with our team for free

Return on Investment

best for the report that needs to stay updated every day without someone manually clicking " Refresh".
perfect for sharing a main dashboard that the whole team can check on their phone or laptop.
Automating reports saves hours of manual work in excel every day.

Usability

Alternatives Considered

Tableau Desktop

Other Software Used

Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Edge, Google Sheets

Verified User

Project Manager in Research & Development (51-200 employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I work at an architecture firm, and we use Microsoft Power BI for a range of uses, both internal-facing and external-facing. We have typical accounting data, project management data and marketing data - these get visualized for consumption using standardized dashboards. But we also have standard dashboards for staff skill metrics and analytics for our large (BIM) building models. Our final use case is for design studies, showing clients how different design options compare in terms of performance and cost.

Pros

Drag and drop widgets that cross-interact
Data ETL allows loading and cleaning of data from a variety of sources
Keeping complex processes and large quantities of data tidy

Cons

Text string length is capped during import, but it isn't well documented
The UI can be very complex for new users
Sharing content with people outside of your organization can be very difficult

Return on Investment

Real-time reporting of BIM metrics helps teams make smarter, cleaner models and reduces time spent debugging or cleaning the models later
Being able to do complex data visualization and analysis for clients has directly translated into new kinds of work and new projects. Tasks like spatial inventories and audits are now part of our service offerings.
We've been able to see the information that was already stored in our systems in one place, visually. This has helped us de-silo and use that data to inform firm operations. Hiring and staffing in particular have benefitted from dashboards that show gaps in staff members' skills.

Usability

Verified User

Professional (51-200 employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I use Microsoft Power BI for data visualizations of pie charts, bar charts, and presentation slides.

Pros

Represents each data input accurately
Provides great templates such as maps and charts that integrate accurately with data updates
Reliable and easy to share with team mates and save.

Cons

Hard to integrate data visualizations in a presentation slide, as the data is detailed and hard to showcase as a simple map/chart in the slide
Learning curve is intermediate, so youtube tutorials are a necessity.

Return on Investment

Great for reporting on market data trends and data analysis for key decision making
Reliable database integration
Great selection of infographic templates

Usability

Alternatives Considered

Google Sheets

Other Software Used

Google Sheets

Domo

Looker

Tableau Cloud

Microsoft Power BI

What is Microsoft Power BI?

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