Microsoft Power BI - a powerful scalable solution
February 24, 2025

Microsoft Power BI - a powerful scalable solution

David Jensen | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Software Version

Power BI Pro

Overall Satisfaction with Microsoft Power BI

Complex calculations and pulling data from multiple sources or objects. We use it when Salesforce reporting becomes insufficient to show the number of data points we want in a single view. It is also helpful when we need to use more than one source of data such as spreadsheets alongside Salesforce for example.

Pros

  • Visualizations
  • Calculated Measurements
  • On-demand Data Filtering

Cons

  • Low Approachability
  • Lack of No-code solutions (DAX is still code)
  • Overly complex subscription system
  • It's enabled c-suite level reporting
  • Provided overall company health metrics in one place
  • Provided an ability to keep a close eye on financial metrics
It's excellent in that it's extraordinarily customizable but there is definitely a learning curve to get it to do what you want it to do. You have to learn how to format your data, how to use dax to create measures and then you have to have an eye for aesthetically pleasing data arrangements for a basic dashboard.
Microsoft Power BI excels against its competition in being a great combination between feature set and scalability. Tableau is more integrated with Salesforce but it has a high starting price point whereas Microsoft Power BI can start out with a single license for less than $20 a month but will have full functionality.

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

Any time you need to have a complex dashboard with numerous cuts of data that needs to be aggregated, Powerbi is absolutely a go-to. I do not recommend it for simple reports that can be done directly in your CRM but if a large amount of data needs to be crunched and manipulated, PBI is the way to go.

Microsoft Power BI Feature Ratings

BI Platform ()
Not Rated
Supported Data Sources ()
Not Rated
8.0
Pixel Perfect reports
7
Customizable dashboards
9
9.3
Drill-down analysis
10
Formatting capabilities
9
Integration with R or other statistical packages
9
Report sharing and collaboration
9
5.4
Publish to Web
7
Publish to PDF
4
Report Versioning
4
Report Delivery Scheduling
7
Delivery to Remote Servers
5
7.8
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)
9
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization
9
Predictive Analytics
7
Pattern Recognition and Data Mining
6
7.2
Multi-User Support (named login)
6
Role-Based Security Model
8
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)
8
Report-Level Access Control
8
Single Sign-On (SSO)
6
7.7
Responsive Design for Web Access
8
Mobile Application
7
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile
8
7.5
REST API
8
Javascript API
8
Java API
7
Themeable User Interface (UI)
7

Using Microsoft Power BI

2 - Our CEO and VP of Sales both look at the dashboards I create in Microsoft Power BI to understand our financial health as a company based on current revenue and expected revenue. This is broken down by customer and project type. I also provide them in depth analysis by customer using drill-through.
1 - It's just me. I create and update any and all dashboards that we have. Historically, the company relied only on basic Salesforce reporting but as our needs became more complex I introduced the scalability of Microsoft Power BI. It was difficult to overcome the lack of direct interface with the CRM but as they saw what I could do with the data in Microsoft Power BI, they came around to it.
  • Data Aggregation
  • Revenue Health
  • Forecasting
  • Possibility of iframing in Salesforce for ease of access
  • Daily refreshes using only Oauth
  • Data sources outside of Salesforce
  • Commission Calculations
  • Utilization Reporting
  • Billing reporting
  • Invoice Status
Microsoft Power BI is an excellent and scalable tool. It has a learning curve, but once you get past that, the sky is the limit and you can build from the most simple to the most complex dashboards. I have built everything from simple reports with only a few data points to complex reports with many pages and advanced filtering.

Evaluating Microsoft Power BI and Competitors

  • Scalability
  • Integration with Other Systems
  • Ease of Use
The scalability is the number one point. We don't have to jump into an expensive Tableau solution when we can create a few Microsoft Power BI licenses and provide the data that the leadership team is looking for. As we grow and our need for more data and more eyes on the data, we can continue to scale what we've built but don't have to do it all at once.
I knew exactly what I needed and wanted as I had used Microsoft Power BI in my previous role. I wouldn't change anything. I'm very glad I had experience with Microsoft Power BI that gave me the confidence to tell my team that it was the tool that would fit our needs the best.

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