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Microsoft Power BI

Microsoft Power BI

Overview

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…

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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

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Pricing

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Entry-level set up fee?

  • No setup fee
For the latest information on pricing, visithttps://powerbi.microsoft.com/en…

Offerings

  • Free Trial
  • Free/Freemium Version
  • Premium Consulting/Integration Services

Starting price (does not include set up fee)

  • $10 per month per user
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Product Demos

Microsoft Power BI Guided Tour

powerbi.microsoft.com
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Features

BI Standard Reporting

Standard reporting means pre-built or canned reports available to users without having to create them.

8.2
Avg 8.1

Ad-hoc Reporting

Ad-Hoc Reports are reports built by the user to meet highly specific requirements.

7.6
Avg 8.0

Report Output and Scheduling

Ability to schedule and manager report output.

8
Avg 8.3

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.

8
Avg 8.0

Access Control and Security

Access control means being able to determine who has access to which data.

8.5
Avg 8.5

Mobile Capabilities

Support for mobile devices like smartphones and tablets.

8
Avg 7.8

Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding

APIs are a set of routines, protocols, and tools for used for embedding one application in another

8.4
Avg 7.8
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Product Details

What is Microsoft Power BI?

Power BI: Comprehensive Business Intelligence Platform


Capabilities:

  • Discover Insights with AI: Utilizes advanced data-analysis tools, AI features, and a report-creation tool to transform complex data into accessible visuals, making it easier to uncover valuable insights.

  • Consolidate Data with OneLake: Integrates datasets from diverse sources into OneLake, creating a centralized, reliable source of truth for data. This integration reduces data duplication and simplifies analysis.

  • Drive Decision-Making: Infuse actionable insights into everyday applications like Microsoft 365, enhancing decision-making processes across the organization.

  • Empower Data Teams with Microsoft Fabric: Revolutionizes organization's data management and usage by incorporating Microsoft Fabric into the Power BI experience.


Key Differentiators:

  • Scalability: Power BI offers exceptional scalability, capable of transforming petabytes of data and supporting thousands of users without compromising performance.

  • Integration with Microsoft Ecosystem: Seamlessly embed and share insights across Microsoft services like Teams, PowerPoint, Excel, and the Power Platform, ensuring coherent and unified data handling.

  • Advanced AI Capabilities: Features AI tools that automatically find patterns, generate reports, and provide insights, enhancing efficiency and accuracy.

  • Robust Data Governance: Ensures data security and compliance with Microsoft's comprehensive governance and protection measures.


Copilot in Power BI:

  • Efficient Report Generation: Generates reports rapidly using conversational language. Copilot in Power BI enables quick creation of DAX calculations, summaries, and tailored reports.


Integration with Microsoft Fabric:

  • Enhanced Accessibility: Allows interaction with reports and data across Microsoft Fabric workloads, even for users without paid licenses.

  • OneLake Data Hub: Facilitates the connection and curation of data from varied sources, promoting efficient data engineering.


Power BI PRO:

  • Self-Service Analytics: License individuals for self-service analytics, enabling them to publish and share reports, fostering a culture of self-service BI.


Free Account Options:

  • Power BI Desktop & Free Trial: Offers a free app for data connection, modeling, and visualization, along with an easy-to-use report canvas.

  • Comprehensive Training: Access step-by-step Microsoft training courses to fully leverage Power BI capabilities.


Key Benefits:


  • Unified Data Management: Connect disparate data sources to establish a governed, unified source of truth.

  • Empower All Users: Ensures accessibility and ease of use for everyone, supported by free training resources and numerous accessibility features.

  • Immediate Start: Quickly begin with report creation, AI-generated reports, and a wide range of templates.

  • Customer Engagement: Enhance user engagement in apps by embedding Power BI reports.



Microsoft Power BI Features

BI Platform Features

  • Supported: Administration via Windows App
  • Supported: Administration via Web Interface
  • Supported: Live Connection to External Data
  • Supported: Snapshot of External Data
  • Supported: In-memory data model
  • Supported: OLAP (Pre-processed cube representation)
  • Supported: ROLAP (SQL-layer querying)
  • Supported: Multi-Data Source Reporting (Blending)
  • Supported: Data warehouse / dictionary layer
  • Supported: ETL Capability

Supported Data Sources Features

  • Supported: MS Excel Workbooks
  • Supported: Text Files (CSV, etc)
  • Supported: Oracle
  • Supported: MS SQL Server
  • Supported: IBM DB2
  • Supported: Postgres
  • Supported: MySQL
  • Supported: ODBC
  • Supported: Cloudera Hadoop
  • Supported: Hortonworks Hadoop
  • Supported: EMC Greenplum
  • Supported: IBM Netezza
  • Supported: HP Vertica
  • Supported: ParAccel
  • Supported: SAP Hana
  • Supported: Teradata
  • Supported: Sage 500
  • Supported: Salesforce
  • Supported: SAP
  • Supported: Google Analytics

BI Standard Reporting Features

  • Supported: Pixel Perfect reports
  • Supported: Customizable dashboards
  • Supported: Report Formatting Templates

Ad-hoc Reporting Features

  • Supported: Drill-down analysis
  • Supported: Formatting capabilities
  • Supported: Predictive modeling
  • Supported: Integration with R or other statistical packages
  • Supported: Report sharing and collaboration

Report Output and Scheduling Features

  • Supported: Publish to Web
  • Supported: Publish to PDF
  • Supported: Output Raw Supporting Data
  • Supported: Report Versioning
  • Supported: Report Delivery Scheduling
  • Supported: Delivery to Remote Servers

Data Discovery and Visualization Features

  • Supported: Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)
  • Supported: Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization
  • Supported: Predictive Analytics
  • Supported: Support for Machine Learning models
  • Supported: Pattern Recognition and Data Mining
  • Supported: Integration with R or other statistical packages

Access Control and Security Features

  • Supported: Multi-User Support (named login)
  • Supported: Role-Based Security Model
  • Supported: Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)
  • Supported: Report-Level Access Control
  • Supported: Table-Level Access Control (BI-layer)
  • Supported: Field-Level Access Control (BI-layer)
  • Supported: Single Sign-On (SSO)

Mobile Capabilities Features

  • Supported: Responsive Design for Web Access
  • Supported: Mobile Application
  • Supported: Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile

Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding Features

  • Supported: REST API
  • Supported: Javascript API
  • Supported: Java API
  • Supported: Themeable User Interface (UI)

Microsoft Power BI Screenshots

Screenshot of Microsoft Power BI - Turns insights into impact for business usersScreenshot of Power BI integrates easily with Microsoft 365Screenshot of Microsoft Power BI - AI-Powered CapabilitiesScreenshot of Microsoft Power BI - Copilot can be used to create reportsScreenshot of Microsoft Power BI - Data HubScreenshot of Microsoft Power BI - Scales as organizational needs growScreenshot of Microsoft Power BI - Data Governance

Microsoft Power BI Competitors

Microsoft Power BI Technical Details

Deployment TypesOn-premise, Software as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based
Operating SystemsWindows
Mobile ApplicationApple iOS, Android, Windows Phone, Mobile Web
Supported CountriesAsia Pacific, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Europe, France, Germany, India, Japan, Korea, Norway, South Africa, Switzerland, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States
Supported LanguagesArabic, Basque - Basque, Bulgarian - Български, Catalan - català, Chinese (Simplified) - 中文(简体), Chinese (Traditional) - 中文(繁體), Croatian - hrvatski, Czech - čeština, Danish - dansk, Dutch - Nederlands, English - English, Estonian - eesti, Finnish - suomi, French - français, Galician - galego, German - Deutsch, Greek - Ελληνικά, Hebrew, Hindi - हिंदी, Hungarian - magyar, Indonesian - Bahasa Indonesia, Italian - italiano, Japanese - 日本語, Kazakh - Қазақ, Korean - 한국어, Latvian - latviešu, Lithuanian - lietuvių, Malay - Bahasa Melayu, Norwegian (Bokmål) - norsk (bokmål), Polish - Polski, Portuguese (Brazil) - Português, Portuguese (Portugal) - português, Romanian - română, Russian - Русский, Serbian (Cyrillic) - српски, Serbian (Latin) - srpski, Slovak - slovenčina, Slovenian - slovenski, Spanish - español, Swedish - svenska, Thai - ไทย, Turkish - Türkçe, Ukrainian - українська, Vietnamese - Tiếng Việt

Frequently Asked Questions

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.

Microsoft Power BI starts at $10.

Tableau Cloud, Looker, and Domo are common alternatives for Microsoft Power BI.

Reviewers rate Javascript API highest, with a score of 9.9.

The most common users of Microsoft Power BI are from Enterprises (1,001+ employees).
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Comparisons

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Reviews From Top Reviewers

(1-5 of 139)

Data Visualization and Data Analyzes

Rating: 8 out of 10
June 13, 2019
MC
Vetted Review
Verified User
Microsoft Power BI
1 year of experience
Great platform for data visualization and data analyzes. The organization is migrating to Power BI because of its integration with Microsoft applications. R is very well integrated with Power BI which makes statistical modelling easier to use. Report generation and sharing has become very simple. Very useful to create dashboards for the top management to make data driven business decisions.
  • Intuitive and User-Friendly
  • R Statistical Modelling modules integrated
  • Very well integrated with Microsoft applications.
Cons
  • Not very easy to make custom graphs and charts
  • Requires some time to get used to the interface
  • Documentation can be more detailed
For generating value out of data, the dashboards are very intuitive and showcases a great volume of data. Very easy to make decisions out of it. Also, report generation and sharing has become very easy which makes it easier for the top management. Production reports are generated daily, weekly, monthly and yearly.

Enhanced interactive data visualization tool

Rating: 8 out of 10
May 15, 2021
Vetted Review
Verified User
Microsoft Power BI
2 years of experience
Power BI was is being used as a data visualization tool and for creating dashboards across the complete organization. All stats based reporting is now being done through it as it is easy to slice and dice through it in an interactive and easy manner. It also allows to drill down to next level of analysis.
  • Interactive tool with great user interface
  • Different types of visualization possible
  • Custom reports can be created
Cons
  • Not self learning tool
  • A small change in one input file, can have huge impact on the report and it is very difficult to test it
  • Need to learn coding for advanced reporting
Suited when different type of visualizations is needed; need to be shared with multiple users including external users; need slicing and dicing; need drill down capability

Not suitable for simple visualization as MS Excel pivot tables are equally good with less hassle and effort.

The King of Data Visualization!

Rating: 10 out of 10
May 15, 2021
AS
Vetted Review
Verified User
Microsoft Power BI
1 year of experience
Microsoft Power BI is used by the management [across] different departments to monitor our [team's] performance and feedback reports using very intuitive visualizations which gives us insights regarding managing our teams in a more efficient way. It provides very good Dashboards with [a] drill-down feature to go into more details. Also, it helped the Finance Department and gave us great predictive insights regarding the organization's financial health by analyzing different data collected.
  • Dashboard Reports
  • Drilldown Reports
  • Predictive Analysis and Charts
  • Scheduled Reports Feature
Cons
  • Needs some training to be able to use it
  • Can sometimes be slow if the report has large data
Microsoft Power BI is well suited for creating intuitive Dashboard Reports with different insightful Charts. I think this is one of the best tools in Data Visualization. Unfortunately, you will need to get away from Reports that need complex computations as it might slow the reports.

Microsoft PowerBI: awesome data visualization tool

Rating: 9 out of 10
March 02, 2018
BC
Vetted Review
Verified User
Microsoft Power BI
1 year of experience
PowerBI is used in our organization as a tool to provide a better data visualization. It is used mostly by the intelligence and media department, in order to produce better reports for clients and making the process easier and faster, mostly automatic, when possible. It is also used by the People and Culture department to produce evaluation reports.
  • Data visualization (dynamic graphics, for example).
  • Connecting and fetching data from different sources accross the internet.
  • The possibility of publishing reports online, which makes it really easy to share conclusions and insights.
Cons
  • The management of databases should be easier, more flexible like Excel.
  • The Q&A feature is not easy to use.
  • The pricing is not ideal. At least, the free version has some big limitations.
Power BI is well suited for creating reports, specially when dealing with high volumes of data. The possibility of creating dynamic reports, with variables working as filters, is also a great tool for those who seek to produce a presentation: in some scenarios, PowerBI can even replace keynotes or powerpoints, as it allows to to present in a dynamic way all the information you have been analysing.

Very solid free data visualization software

Rating: 7 out of 10
March 14, 2017
GL
Vetted Review
Verified User
Microsoft Power BI
2 years of experience
We currently use Power BI for tracking quality metrics. It ties to a few different SQL and Access databases to access and display real time data. The primary uses at the moment are related to on time shipment and first pass yield. We also use it to track warranty returns and are working on implementing it further to track nonconformances and corrective actions.
  • Adjusting displays and graphs is pretty intuitive. It's definitely Microsoft based, so if you have experience in Excel, you'll have a pretty easy time navigating.
  • Access to dashboards is really easy, as simple as a static URL. The viewer only needs web access to work with it, so not everyone needs an installed copy of the software (or the web version).
  • The free version of the software is not bad at all. Updates are frequent and new functionality comes online regularly. It's not quite as powerful as paid alternatives but for the price it's excellent.
Cons
  • Tying together data from multiple sources can be tricky, sometimes about impossible.
  • Updates to the web dashboard must be "pushed", the free option doesn't allow real time data updating.
  • Customer service is largely forum based. While it's nice to crowd source answers, it can be slow.
Small companies or applications are ideal for this software. Not everyone can afford a multi-thousand dollar dashboard software license, and not everyone needs one. This software is relatively simple (not as powerful as Tableau or other alternatives) but can really get metric tracking and dashboards off the ground. I suspect it's more than enough for most small businesses.
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