Item: Microsoft Power BI
Rating: 10
Author: Bryan Goodyear

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Power BI is our visualization tool to make our data insightful and easy to digest. Power BI is nice because it builds on your Microsoft Suite of applications and is easy to use. Power BI helps create standard views for high-level insights, with the capability to drill down. A drill-down capability is a powerful tool for actionable insights.

Pros and Cons

Actionable insights
Subscriptions for scheduled reports to your email.
Easy to use with different types of data sources.

Manipulating standard views can be more challenging for less experienced users.

Return on Investment

Efficiency in preparing and presenting data.
Automated reports.
Ability to act faster in response to business data.

Alternatives Considered

Tableau Desktop

The primary other visualization tool I think of is Tableau. Tableau is fine and both options are usable as long as the underlying data architecture is good. I still prefer Power BI because I think it works better with the other Microsoft Applications and I find it cleaner to use.

Key Insights

Do you think Microsoft Power BI delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Microsoft Power BI's feature set?

Yes

Did Microsoft Power BI live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Microsoft Power BI go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Microsoft Power BI again?

Yes

Usability

I give Power BI an 8 out of 10 because it is very intuitive and flexible. It gets the job done while complimenting the rest of your applications. I wish some of the subscription capabilities were more dynamic as one example of the desired enhancement, but I'm confident in the future development of additional features. Also, since it's a Microsoft product, you can bet on the security and ongoing supportability of the product.

Support Rating

Supportability is extremely important. I personally haven't had a major issue requiring Microsoft intervention, which is probably the best support possible, but I'm also confident that Microsoft will continue to grow the Power BI capabilities and will have robust support when compared to smaller more boutique products on the market.

Likelihood to Recommend

Since Power BI is a data visualization tool, it's useful anywhere a standard report or visualization is required. I like to use Power BI, especially where you want to avoid inconsistent manipulation of data to produce insights. Taking this process out of the analysts' hands ensures data consistency and avoids the question of whether data can be reliably used. It keeps one source of truth.

Power BI is a Powerful Tool

Software Version

Overall Satisfaction with Microsoft Power BI