Power BI: bringing life to your disparate data
February 15, 2019
Power BI: bringing life to your disparate data
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with Microsoft Power BI
Power BI is being used to build dashboards and reports. It is used mainly by the marketing department as far as I know but I really wouldn't be surprised that it is being used in other departments. It allows us to have an insight into our business through the visual representation of our data. With this new breed of "reporting tool" (like Tableau software), we are able to simplify the data to allow easy communication to higher management. Power BI helps management make business decisions based on data (ex, whether to close or open branches based on customers in a region, launch refinancing campaign in regions where the mortgage to value rate is low, etc.).
- Power BI has a step by step approach to integrating data that makes it really easy to get exactly what you want out of your raw data. If you do one manipulation wrong, you can see it right away with the preview.
- Power BI already contains a wide variety of visual objects you can use but you can also create your own if you have a specific need. Mind you, this will require some node.js knowledge but there are a lot of available tutorials online.
- The access to the software is extremely easy for people in any organisation as the base software is free (The Author version). It is limited slightly in terms of collaboration and refresh capacity but is perfect for evaluation or one time data analysis.
- The pricing for pro is a subscription format which I personally dislike. It is also heavily focused on cloud deployment which is probably fine for most of the people but if you need a solution installed on-premise, this solution could be a little more complex (at least it seemed like it to me when we talked about it).
Integration of data sources feels more robust and strict. Definitely a more classic or formal approach to data integration. In terms of visuals, Power BI is not completely up to par with Tableau but is nonetheless a great tool especially for a new player in that field of software. Where Power BI really leaves Tableau in the dust is with the cost. For data exploration, users can use the free "Author" version and that usually accounts for more than half of the total users in an org. With Tableau, if someone wants to do some exploration, they need a Tableau Desktop license which is really expensive.