As a consultant, I propose something appropriate for my client companies. Mostly, it's some type of ERP, warehouse management, or BI software. It depends on the size of the companies and their requirements.
Small and medium-sized businesses usually need some operations software to cover all the daily necessities. In most cases, I propose some local or regional software for ERP and warehouse management solutions. But for business intelligence and reporting, I typically go with a Microsoft solution.
Senior Consultant at ICTPro
Easy to prepare, distribute, and automate reports or connect to databases
Pros and Cons
- "Many of my customers already use Microsoft products like Office 365, so I often propose Microsoft Power BI because it integrates well with all the standard Microsoft business tools. And it's the quickest tool to implement and start using daily."
- "Microsoft BI's visualization could be better. Though Power BI's visualization has steadily improved over the years, it's not on the level tools like Tableau and SAS or some of the more expensive products on the market."
What is our primary use case?
What needs improvement?
Microsoft BI's visualization could be better. Though Power BI's visualization has steadily improved over the years, it's not on the level tools like Tableau and SAS or some of the more expensive products on the market.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Power BI is as stable as every other Microsoft product. It depends on the environment and other factors — it's not just Power BI. But it's quite stable, I think. And it's also on a very high level.
How are customer service and support?
Microsoft has a lot of partners that offer support and help you with implementation. So if you have some issues that can't be resolved by one level of support, you can find someone else in the same environment. I would say that from the partner level, Microsoft support is excellent. But, of course, it depends on how much you want to pay for it.
Buyer's Guide
Microsoft Power BI
November 2024
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How was the initial setup?
The complexity of the Power BI setup depends on how much integration you need, the number of different databases you have to connect, and whether you're automating the system. However, setup is relatively easy for a standard environment. For reporting alone, it was easy to set up. So it really depends on the complexity of the environment, not on the tool.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Power BI's price is reasonable, especially if you can put it in some bigger package and use it with other products. The value of a solution doesn't just come from its features as a standalone product. The price should also reflect how easy it's to set up, clean data, and integrate with other solutions. So in that regard, I would say Microsoft Power BI's price is appropriate.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
I recommend Tableau to customers for some things and Power BI for others. But, overall, you can use Power BI in more ways, it's cheaper, and it has a better pricing model.
What other advice do I have?
I rate Microsoft Power BI nine out of 10. It's widely used and incredibly practical. And it's a little easier to prepare, distribute, and automate reports or connect to databases. Power BI is also useful for warehouse management and data systems in data lakes. It's like a Swiss knife for reporting. So I generally recommend Microsoft Power BI for clients who don't have specific requirements for visualization. Tableau is better in that area. But at the same time, Power BI is also upgrading those features.
Many of my customers already use Microsoft products like Office 365, so I often propose Microsoft Power BI because it integrates well with all the standard Microsoft business tools. And it's the quickest tool to implement and start using daily. You don't need much training. People can pick up this tool quickly and start using it right away. So I think that's the biggest advantage of Power BI.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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Assistant Vice President at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
A complete and in-demand solution with good price, integration, and features
Pros and Cons
- "Most of the clients I am interacting with are looking towards Power BI because of the cost and simplicities. It provides an entire feature set and a complete solution. It has tight integration with Office 365, Dynamics 365, Microsoft Technology Stack, and datatypes like R and Python."
- "It should be more scalable for an enterprise-level implementation. When you deploy large data sets, the response has to be faster in Power BI. This is one thing that needs to be improved in it."
What is our primary use case?
I lead the data visualization competency. As a competency leader, my responsibility is to make people grow in this technology. It could be Power BI, Tableau, or QlikView. We are service-oriented, and depending upon the demand, we have to have experienced people and a resource pool ready in these areas. Depending upon the requirement, I decide how many people need to be trained or hired.
What is most valuable?
Most of the clients I am interacting with are looking towards Power BI because of the cost and simplicities. It provides an entire feature set and a complete solution. It has tight integration with Office 365, Dynamics 365, Microsoft Technology Stack, and datatypes like R and Python.
What needs improvement?
It should be more scalable for an enterprise-level implementation. When you deploy large data sets, the response has to be faster in Power BI. This is one thing that needs to be improved in it.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using this solution for close to two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
We found no issues. It is an aggregated reporting tool. It cannot handle a detailed level of data. It is meant only for the dashboarding purpose. You need to have your underlying data in an aggregated way, and then it would be faster. It depends on whether you have a live connection or you don't have a live connection.
How are customer service and technical support?
We don't see many issues, but whenever we put a request, they at least respond.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I have worked on Tableau. Before Tableau, I have worked with traditional tools, such as SAP BusinessObjects. My team has got experience with Spotfire, but we are not seeing a great demand for Spotfire.
If you ask me for the top three, I would qualify Power BI, then Tableau, and then QlikView. That's the demand that I'm seeing in the market from various customers.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I am satisfied with its price. Its price is very less as compared to Tableau and QlikView.
What other advice do I have?
My first advice is to learn SQL. The foundational knowledge and SQL skills are the most important. You have to be very strong in writing SQL code. You have to improve your mind so that you know what you are writing in Power BI. After that, it is very easy to pick up any front-end reporting tool, such as Power BI or Tableau. After you have good expertise in Power BI, you can slowly learn Python so that you can do good integration. All these efforts would be great for your career.
Being a gold partner of Microsoft for the past few years, we work directly with Microsoft product teams. Sometimes as part of a pre-launch, they also connect with us. If we see a feature or functionality that a client requires, we at least put it across to them. How they prioritize it within their product team is up to them. They prioritize depending on the need of the market and demand from various clients, and they release features accordingly. Sometimes, we also work on a pre-release.
They release new features and functionalities every month. They have also recently released data protection smart narratives. If you look at the Gartner report, they are leading. I see a lot of demand for this solution.
I would rate Microsoft BI an eight out of ten.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: partner
Buyer's Guide
Microsoft Power BI
November 2024
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Learn what your peers think about Microsoft Power BI. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: November 2024.
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Team Leader at Eurobank EFG Bulgaria AD
An intelligent and intuitive data visualization and analytics tool
Pros and Cons
- "It's similar to Excel, but it's much more powerful than Excel."
- "I cannot comment on the stability as we haven't yet used it for a big project."
What is our primary use case?
We use Microsoft BI for the visualization of data. We also hope to use it for machine learning as it's very powerful, but at the moment, we are trying to get authorized for reporting and analysis.
What is most valuable?
It's similar to Excel, but it's much more powerful than Excel. I love the unlimited number of rows that can be processed, the grant server application, and the strong security.
It produces a very nice picture — very nice graph managers that are very attractive.
The way you prepare your reports is very intelligent and intuitive.
It's very easy to operate and the dashboard is great.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using this solution for a few months now.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Microsoft BI is stable, but I cannot comment on the stability as we haven't yet used it for a big project.
How are customer service and technical support?
The customer support is excellent. We get perfect support and it is regional — not only in our country, but there is also regional representation from Microsoft's so-called architects; they are very good professionals who help us with whatever we require.
How was the initial setup?
Currently, we are in process of implementing this solution on my computer. I installed the Microsoft Power BI desktop application very easily and started my training. I didn't experience any difficulties.
I collected information from several sources and it's been working well — I am happy with this software.
I needed about 15 minutes to install the desktop application. The other portion is web-based, so I haven't gotten to that yet.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Microsoft BI is not very cheap. A premium license costs roughly 5,000 euros a month.
What other advice do I have?
I would absolutely recommend this solution to other interested companies.
Overall, on a scale from one to ten, I would give Microsoft BI a rating of eight.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Business Intelligence Developer at Kathmandu
Easy to make people understand what is going on but I would like to use SQL properly within the reports
Pros and Cons
- "The drag and drop facility to easily change the data correctly is the most valuable feature. I am happy to see visualizations. It's easier to talk about and make people understand what is going on."
- "I would like to be able to use SQL properly within the reports and allow multiple people to work on the same report at the same time. If one person is working on it, then it causes issues for anyone else wanting to make reports."
What is our primary use case?
Our primary use case is to learn what Power BI can do. We also use it to create dashboards and to see what is available for people to use. We see how it integrates with Excel. You can easily get the data into a visualization but also still have access to the underlying data.
We use it see how we can move away from an Excel spreadsheet but still give the users the correct answers to the questions that they have. I want to move away looking and fixing issues on particular lines and be able to easily answer the questions with visualizations so users can answer the questions a lot quicker and adapt to changes easier.
How has it helped my organization?
I was self-learning it, we don't use it in our organization. We are looking to use it though in the future. We use a different tool and want to see if we can get more questions answered with Power BI. It's linked to Office 365 and Azure, so it would help us to answer some difficult questions and help identify issues/problems so we can find solutions and adapt the model a lot quicker. Going through over 100,000 lines of data takes too long and we need to be able to group the data more to be able to identify what works better, so a pie chart or map will help to identify issues that are not working.
What is most valuable?
The drag and drop facility to easily change the data correctly is the most valuable feature. I am happy to see visualizations. It's easier to talk about and make people understand what is going on. But I need a way to work on getting the data showing correctly and be able to drill down into a worksheet like Excel, as people like to know what the top-level information means. It's important to be open and show them what they want. The number of visualizations is great. So many different options to choose from like heat maps to pie charts.
What needs improvement?
I would like to be able to use SQL properly within the reports and allow multiple people to work on the same report at the same time. If one person is working on it, then it causes issues for anyone else wanting to make reports. We want to condense some reports, so they work for all departments, and not have a version for every single department. Also, I would like to have formulas easier to complete and create. Having its own system means something new to learn, although saying that, it's not hard to pick up this information.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Microsoft BI for six months.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Microstrategy, and no, we have not swapped yet. I use both to keep on top of my own skill set.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
It depends on what you are wanting to do. Get the cost of users, and the servers, and work out if you are hosting, or if it's going into the cloud.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We didn't as it's a company decision to look to change the BI system.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Microsoft Azure
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Database Analyst at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
This is the most compatible solution for medium sized organization but the robustness of the stack could be improved
What is most valuable?
The integration tool in Microsoft BI stack is one of the best in terms of understanding and together with the script component can make most data imports pretty simple and accurate. Also, the ease of use of the product.
How has it helped my organization?
Prior to using the Microsoft BI stack the organization was using a lot of Access and Excel applications which became cumbersome as the organization grew. These tools helped us to streamline the reports and data integration.
What needs improvement?
The robustness of the stack could be improved as it fails when we import/extract large amounts of data.
For how long have I used the solution?
Four and a half years.
What was my experience with deployment of the solution?
No issues encountered.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Yes, when the volume of data is large.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Yes.
How are customer service and technical support?
Customer Service:
Excellent with online social help and customer care from Microsoft.
Technical Support:There is a lot of room for improvement in technical support.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I used other reporting platforms along with the Microsoft BI stack, but never switched.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is pretty simple for most starting users.
What about the implementation team?
It was an in house implementation.
What was our ROI?
Very high, as it is a very cost effective application compared to any BI tools in the market.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
It is setup by the organization, so I am not sure about the exact cost and renewal cost.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
No, I did not have an opportunity to do any evaluations.
What other advice do I have?
It is a great, cost effective solution if the size of the organization is only medium and easy to use and cost of finding a resource is low.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
The solution has a quick and straightforward setup, but its documentation and performance need improvement
Pros and Cons
- "Microsoft BI's initial setup is very straightforward."
- "The solution's documentation needs improvement."
What is most valuable?
Microsoft BI's initial setup is very straightforward.
What needs improvement?
The solution's documentation needs improvement. It is always a challenge to connect any data that Microsoft needs to read. I'm not able to find out. The solution's visuals and themes are really poor and should be improved.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Microsoft BI for around one or two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The performance of Microsoft BI is very poor because whenever the reports are published, data never comes in the first place when the site is open. It takes a long time to load, and the access level restriction is not as easy as it is in Tableau.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
More than 5,000 people are using Microsoft BI in our organization.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I previously used the Tableau solution.
What about the implementation team?
Microsoft BI's deployment takes hardly 10 to 15 minutes or less than that. I had to just download and install the solution, as it was a desktop version.
What other advice do I have?
Overall, I rate Microsoft BI a six out of ten.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
MBA, MS Business Analytics at a consultancy with 1,001-5,000 employees
Good visualization, simple to use, and easy to install
Pros and Cons
- "The most valuable feature of Microsoft BI is its visualization and its ease of use."
- "I would like to see more visualization options."
What is our primary use case?
In general Microsoft, BI is used to build dashboards, and the analyzing of data as well as some econometrics.
How has it helped my organization?
Primarily, it's all about visualization and dashboards. My organization is large, and I don't believe Power BI as a tool has changed or revamped the entire organization; rather, it assists us in creating dashboards. It made things easier.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature of Microsoft BI is its visualization and its ease of use.
What needs improvement?
I would like to see more visualization options. I have noticed that it's more driven by corporate data when you look at it. Because I work for the IMF, my data is slightly different, and the corporate solution does not always work.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been working with Microsoft BI for one year.
We are using the most recent version.
It can be deployed both on-premises and on the cloud.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Microsoft BI has been good. I don't believe I have any issues with the stability aspect of it yet.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Scalability is good; for the time being, it serves the purpose of what we are trying to achieve. However, we haven't attempted to scale it very much.
There should be more than a hundred users in our organization. I'm only referring to the people who develop and implement changes, whereas people who use the dashboards and view them on the entire URL on that page represent the entire organization. There are about 100 or 200 people who actually work and develop things.
For the time being, we are only using it for dashboards because we have other tools for analytics and other things.
How are customer service and support?
I have not contacted technical support.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We work in such a way that we can use any tool and accomplish whatever we want. That's the way it works. I wouldn't be able to say that every team uses Power BI for the same purpose, but we have Power BI available to us and can use it however we see fit. I know that it is primarily used for dashboards at this point.
How was the initial setup?
I installed my own personal version of it, and it appeared to be pretty straightforward.
We have a large IT team to update and maintain this solution.
What about the implementation team?
In most cases, the setups are completed by our vendors. We only receive the finished product.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate Microsoft BI a seven out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Hybrid Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
I like its drill-down feature and overall ease of use
Pros and Cons
- "I like Microsoft BI's drill-down feature and its overall ease of use."
- "The setup took a lot of tinkering with InfoSec to allow us to do stuff."
What is our primary use case?
The primary use case for Microsoft BI is reporting. It comes with the Microsoft 365 E5 license. Then you just need to secure and harden it. That took a bit of time, but you can open it up and let people use it after that. There is a desktop component that they can work on that's independent of the Microsoft license. In that case, they can create files that are like dashboards.
What is most valuable?
I like Microsoft BI's drill-down feature and its overall ease of use.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using Microsoft BI for about eight months.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Microsoft BI has been stable so far.
How are customer service and support?
Microsoft's support is pretty good.
How was the initial setup?
Installing Microsoft BI was relatively straightforward. It just took a lot of tinkering with InfoSec to allow us to do stuff.
What other advice do I have?
I rate Microsoft Power BI nine out of 10. If you plan to implement it, ensure that you harden it, so you do not leave it wide open. Otherwise, you're vulnerable to data leakage.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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