TrustRadius: an HG Insights company

Microsoft Power BI

Score8.5 out of 10

2,129 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.

Media

Microsoft Power BI - Turns insights into impact for business users
Power BI integrates easily with Microsoft 365
Microsoft Power BI - AI-Powered Capabilities
Microsoft Power BI - Copilot can be used to create reports
Microsoft Power BI - Data Hub
Microsoft Power BI - Scales as organizational needs grow
Microsoft Power BI - Data Governance

1 / 7

Top Performing Features

  • 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: 8.6

Areas for Improvement

  • Predictive Analytics

    Predictive Analytics is the ability to build forecasting models based on existing data sets.

    Category average: 7.2

  • Pattern Recognition and Data Mining

    Pattern recognition and data mining mean the ability to recognize hidden patterns in large quantities of data.

    Category average: 7.1

  • 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

Power BI is an expensive but useful visualization tool for data.

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

Plugs into existing tech works well

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

Great for Data Visualizations. Accurate and Reliable info graphic generation

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

A powerful visualization tool

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I use Microsoft Power BI to measure metrics and, with this information, to make decisions about the medical field. We use it a lot to monitor our teams' performance. I need to update the information at least weekly so management can make decisions. I use different types of visualizations and consume various databases.

Pros

  • Very easy layout
  • Powerquery is very instinctive
  • AI helps create measures

Cons

  • Editing views is very messy
  • Some tools do not have a manual explaining each field

Return on Investment

  • Positive Impact: We always accelerate our performance thanks to these reports. Because we have a detailed view of each person, we already know exactly where to target for improvement.
  • Negative: Due to update errors, which often make no sense, this delays the delivery of the report.

Usability

Alternatives Considered

Tableau Desktop, Looker Studio and Qlik Analytics Platform

Other Software Used

Amazon Redshift, Microsoft Lists

Microsoft Power BI a tool for business intelligence

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

So in my organization i use Microsoft Power BI to create reports and dashboards that gives better business idea on how the products,services are behaving within the market for my client. Dashboards,scorecards and reports having visualizations with extensive calculation are created by me and my team that gives a clearer picture on how the business is behaving

Pros

  • Scorecards creation
  • Dashboards creation
  • Advanced calculations

Cons

  • AI integration
  • In Dataflows
  • Buffer management

Return on Investment

  • Better decision making using visuals
  • Cost
  • Platform independent

Usability

Other Software Used

Microsoft Power Automate, Azure SQL Database