Microsoft BI - a complete BI offer at last!
December 15, 2016

Microsoft BI - a complete BI offer at last!

Charles Saulnier | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Microsoft BI

We build BI solutions on our source systems through Microsoft BI. We use most of SQL Server Enterprise tools, more specifically SSRS, SSIS, SSAS; our end-users mostly work with SS Management Studio, Reporting Services and Excel. Our BI department is for external clients only, we have no internal BI infrastructure.

Pros

  • Relative ease of use of SSAS cubes for end-users
  • Versatility of SSRS for creating reports and automating their executions
  • Integration with Office 365

Cons

  • SSRS Report Builder requires more IT skills than other reporting tools
  • No SSAS actions available in Report Builder
  • Integrated security tools are not readily available; Management Studio works well for SSAS, but no way to keep track of global security attributions unless you build a report on the DB
  • At the moment, the lack of use of Power BI has indered our market progression IMO
  • A large majority of customers keeps the solution once implemented, very few have switched platform
  • Once organizations implement Office 365, the potential for added business with Microsoft BI will really manifest. At this time, the slow adoption of Office 2013 or more recent is limiting the analysis and visualizations capabilities of our average client.
For analysis and visualization, Power BI is aiming to take a large chunk of Tableau's market share. The rhythm of iterations at this time has in my opinion given the momentum to Power BI. The added functionalities in Excel also make it possible for intermediate users to get familiar with data modeling.
Microsoft BI is a no-brainer for departments or enterprises who already work with MS Office or in a Windows environment, since users can easily make connections with actions they already know.

The added functionalities in Excel to connect to data sources, build tables and relationships through PowerPivot makes it a powerful tool that 99% of people already have access to. When linked with SQL Server and Power BI, you have a complete solution for analysing and visualizing data that is easy to use, but at the same time scalable to work with complex DBs and datasets.

Microsoft BI (MSBI) Feature Ratings

BI Platform ()
Not Rated
Supported Data Sources ()
Not Rated
8.0
Pixel Perfect reports
9
Customizable dashboards
9
Report Formatting Templates
6
7.5
Drill-down analysis
7
Formatting capabilities
7
Integration with R or other statistical packages
8
Report sharing and collaboration
8
8.5
Publish to Web
9
Publish to PDF
8
Report Versioning
8
Report Delivery Scheduling
9
8.3
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)
9
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization
9
Predictive Analytics
7
9.0
Multi-User Support (named login)
9
Role-Based Security Model
9
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)
9
8.0
Responsive Design for Web Access
8
Mobile Application
Not Rated
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile
8
Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding ()
Not Rated

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