Microsoft Power BI Reviews

We have some monitoring data from turbines, and we want to plot the data to monitor the health state of turbines in different time stamps. I tried to download some data from the Postgres database and then do some plotting with that. I also tried to link different plots with each other to filter them and things like that.

I liked that Microsoft Power BI handles a large amount of data. I can handle hundreds of rows from Postgres in a few minutes. I also like how it detects the relationship between the tables without explicitly saying that. It just detects the relationship automatically. That made it easier to work with the data.

It's not really complicated, but I didn't find the things I was looking for. The ones I used to work with within Dash are more open, and there are more choices. But with Power BI, there are only limited types of plots that I can use.

For example, when I wanted to put the plots in Power BI, there was no extendable space. You have a limited page where you can place a maximum of three plots in that, and you can't do more than that on a single page. You have to create a new page, a different page for that. That made it a bit annoying, and the filtering part is limited, with basic functions. If you want to make custom filtering or custom functions, you can't do that.

Suppose you want to code a plot, Python available. You can code the plot you want, and you don't have to use a predefined one. But when you want to plot it and you want to import like five or ten packages in Python, there are limitations. It doesn't support all the libraries that Python has. Microsoft BI only supports a few, like three or four libraries at most. When I want to use my old code in Power BI, it doesn't handle it, and that was also annoying.

In the next release, it'll help if they added a coding area where you are more open to make custom things. Especially for a developer, it needs to be improved. For a Power BI person, it's fine, I think, because it doesn't require much technical knowledge, but a developer will need it. Maybe they should create a space for that.

I have been using Microsoft BI for the last three months. 

It's stable, but it's so slow. Sometimes it takes some time to respond, especially when you put two or three plots with big data. It becomes very slow.

I didn't contact technical support as I used the support on the internet. I'm satisfied with the documentation, but I didn't find what I was looking for.

I was using Dash Open Source, but when I discovered that it would take a lot of time, I wanted to define a platform for that. So, Power BI was the solution. Now I want to try Tableau, but I haven't had a chance to do that yet.

I used a two months free trial to see if it had what I needed. I can pay later for a full license, but I don't think I will do that.

On a scale from one to ten, I would give Microsoft BI a six.

I use Microsoft Power BI for analytics. It is an online service for business intelligence. I use it to analyze every piece of data that I have. My key performance indicators are on Power BI. My sales indicators, such as number of clients, number of sales and region, type of client, type of solution, due to date comparison, and due to year comparison, are really based on the sales of the company. I am using Power BI Pro.

Constant collaboration is the most valuable. I can build a dashboard, and several co-workers can access this dashboard. We can share information that is important for decision-making.

It is a very easy-to-deploy solution. It is compatible with a lot of data sources. It is also very stable and scalable. There is also a very good forum and a lot of help and online training.

I would like them to provide a license that just allows us to see dashboards. What I don't like about this solution is that in order to just watch a dashboard, you need a license. Currently, you need to purchase a full license of Power BI Pro just to see something, which is not attractive. If you have a license, you can see a shared dashboard, but you can also build a dashboard or you can collaborate with other people. However, if you only want to see a dashboard, there is no license for that. I only want to see the dashboard, and I don't want to do anything more than watching the information on the dashboard. There is no license that allows you to see a shared dashboard. This is one of the areas of opportunity because I would like a lot of people to be able to see a shared dashboard, not to interact with it or to collaborate online with it. 

I would like to see more compatibility with non-Microsoft data sources. Given the fact that everything is related to Microsoft Azure and all services available on Microsoft Azure, I see that they're building more connections to Microsoft Azure services instead of other non-Microsoft services. I understand the strategy, but it would be good to have more compatibility with non-Microsoft data sources.

It is a very robust and stable solution. We are a company that works with enterprise solutions from SAP and Microsoft. We have worked with companies that have 5,000 users and without a problem. So, it is very robust and stable.

Being a cloud solution, it is very scalable. You can easily scale it based on the usage. If you're using it, you pay for it, and if you're not using it, you stop paying for it.

In our company, Power BI being used by maybe 15 people out of 70. It is a growing solution. Three years ago, we had only five people who were working with Power BI. Now, we are building more and more dashboards for our service desk area, and its usage is growing.

I haven't contacted them. We report everything to our own Service Desk, and they are the ones who scale the problem to the manufacturer. This means that every time that we have important issues, they have to be solved in a very decent period of time by the manufacturer. There is a very good response time, and every time we had problems, they were solved. We didn't have anything pending.

Given the fact that it is on the cloud, it is really easy to deploy. It is only about connecting the engine to your data source and start building the dashboards. You can just connect your data. It doesn't matter if it is on-premises or as a service. You can just connect it.

It is based on the usage. If you're using it, you pay for it, and if you're not using it, you stop paying for it.

If your data source is a Microsoft-based data source, this is the best choice. If you have a data source that is not Microsoft-based and is on a non-Microsoft platform, such as MongoDB or Unix, you should see some solutions like MicroStrategy or Qlik. If you have a pure 100% Microsoft-based data source, Microsoft Power BI is the answer. You can do wonders with Microsoft Power BI. It is a very cool solution.

I would rate Microsoft Power BI a nine out of ten.

I primarily use this for creating dashboards and reports for the oil and gas industry.

Power BI is always updating. I receive multi mail from Power BI with new visualizations, new analytics, new webinars and I'm going to Microsoft here locally in order to have a updated presentation about the new features of Power BI. For me it's very versatile. I can publish on my iPad. I have a Power BI application in order to manage the visualization of my report and my dashboard. Also I can speak to Power BI and ask about production and Q&A. But, I don't have compilation with other tools yet. For me, Power BI is the best.

I would like to see a feature that connects with a Machine Learning platform like a RapidMiner or Azure Machine Learning Studio. It would be great to have a Machine Learning application link to connect. 

It was straightforward. We had no problems with implementation.

The pricing is fine for our company. It is reasonably priced.

Because this solution is very easy, and very visual, you can have results in minutes. 

I have started a consulting business. So my use case is typically what my clients are doing. I've used it for healthcare analysis, headcount analysis, financial and performance analysis.

One thing it's doing in the early stage of an implementation is, it not only helps decision making, but it allows people to have insight into problems with data so that they can go and get it corrected.

The ability for business users with a mission to solve their own problems, without an IT person.

One thing I would like to have is the scripting language, as they already have within Excel. It's already within a Microsoft business product, because Excel is the number one business product out there. So it would be nice to have the scripting capability in order to automate certain processes.

It's not only stable but it's constantly improving. 

The scaling is dependent on the data source itself, so it's not dependent on the solution. SQL Server, which is one of the strongest enterprise databases, makes that a good thing.

We were previously using Excel, and Excel did not have the ability to deploy nor did it have the ability to easily do some of the things that people were asking for. The switch was driven by being overwhelmed in the Excel world.

My most important criteria when selecting a vendor are

• usability
• the ability to develop solutions in an agile fashion
• the ability to have power users on the business side able to do their own work.

It's very, very easy to get started. The complexity is the typical complexity in deployment, in that you have to have people make decisions on who has rights to what data. As far as the implementation, it's quite easy.

Pricing, that's where Microsoft beats Tableau. It is priced much cheaper.

The short list was really only Tableau and Microsoft, and frequently clients have Microsoft products already installed so they have the security, the Active Directory, as well as the use of Excel, and the use of the collaboration tools like O365.

I'd say that Microsoft and Tableau are both nine and a half out of 10, and it's per the requirements I already mentioned. They both are very high-quality, easy to use, stable, they both allow business users to do a level of development, and they're both highly deployable.

My advice to a colleague would be that they actually do short trials with each of the products they're considering and the check the vendors' support.

We use Microsoft BI to construct panels and analysis for the final users by themselves. We have all the units outside and analyses made by the final users. They can share their work with other colleagues and other teammates easily.

The most valuable features in Microsoft BI are the analysis using the feature drag and drop function. It's very easy to load and use different data sources.

Microsoft BI could improve by allowing large-size data sources. We have large data sources, and we have problems loading them in Microsoft BI.

I would like to see in a future release the ability to create rules with no code. Similar to drag-and-drop solutions, or some other way with no code.

I have been using Microsoft BI for approximately two years.

The solution is reliable, we do not have a problem with the availability.

Microsoft BI is a scalable solution.

We have approximately 500 users using this solution in my organization. We have plans to increase the use of the solution. Our employees are getting better with the ability to use the solution.

The support from Microsoft is satisfactory.

The initial setup of Microsoft BI was straightforward.

I would encourage others to use Microsoft BI, it is a good solution.

I rate Microsoft BI a nine out of ten.

We are using Power BI for reporting.

It is very good, and it supports the Microsoft ecosystem, including Excel, etc.

We have been using it only for a couple of months, and we are at the beginning of our learning. The area of improvement is difficult to say. The handling of the workspaces can be made more granular for user access rights. It can be managed a little bit better in terms of the connection to Active Directory so that we have more granular access rights. I am not sure if this is really possible or if we can solve it differently, but we need a lot of workspaces, and we are not sure how we can deal with it from the access rights perspective.

I have been using this solution for a couple of months.

It is stable.

We are not sure because we currently have a simple installation on the PC, but the idea is to scale it via Office 365 cloud implementation.

It seems suitable for small, medium, and large enterprises. It should be able to scale up. Based on the marketing slides, it should be able to handle all kinds of enterprises.

We have not had any problems, so we had no requirement to use technical support. 

It is quite easy. You just need to install a program and use the connectors and drivers, and that's it. 

I did it myself.

We are end-users, and we don't take care of the prices and accounting. We get a product and pay the fee to our internal service provider, but its price should be reasonable. Otherwise, they wouldn't have bought it.

We are not very experienced in it. So, I don't know if I can recommend it, but we are using it because it is very good.

I would rate it an eight out of 10.

We are providing BI services to clients in India who are using Microsoft BI. We are able to provide the clients with data-driven decisions by the use of the reports that we are creating using Microsoft BI. The reports are usually graphical and intuitive.

When we are introducing Microsoft BI to our clients, if they're familiar with Excel, the transition phase will be much easier for them. They can easily switch from Microsoft Excel to Microsoft BI. The core foundation or the base technology is the same in both tools. There are a few limitations in Microsoft Excel, and this is where Microsoft BI comes in.

Microsoft BI can improve some of the visual level filters or visual functionality, that are available in other BI tools, such as Tableau or Qlik Sense.

I have used Microsoft BI within the past 12 months.

The stability of Microsoft BI is stable.

Microsoft BI is a scalable solution. Here in India, it is a popular tool for people to implement.

The client that we are working with has approximately 500 to 600 users.

The support from Microsoft is helpful. If you're facing any sort of issue or error, you can raise it to the Microsoft BI community.

We work on a very concise team of three to four members for the deployment. We will be requiring only a data engineer, Microsft BI developer, business analyst, and project manager. 

If the user requirement is high, we can increase the number of members in the team. However, if you have a team of four, then you can deploy the project. A minimum of four people is required.

For its maintenance of Microsoft BI, you require only two people. If there are some backend data issues, then you will require a data engineer. However, if the issue is related to the frontend or BI report, then you only need one developer for that.

My advice is for the companies who want to make data-driven decisions or to share the report with the security feature in it, they should opt for Microsoft BI services.

I rate Microsoft BI a nine out of ten.

We get our reports from, NetSuite, and we prepare resource forecast and finance dashboard reports in Microsoft BI.

The most valuable feature is the ease of use. It is very easy to use.

It is very user-friendly.

There is also a chart store where we can download charts, which is extremely useful.

I don't believe it needs additional features. It appears to be adequate for the reporting tool. It appears to be fine.

The default parameters of the prompt could be improved by including a dynamic option. We are unable to select any default parameters or it is not dynamic, so we must manually select that prompt value. For instance, there is a year prompt, and if it needs to be changed, someone will have to open Microsoft BI in edit mode to update it. If you have a dynamic option, it makes things a lot easier.

I have been using Microsoft BI for three years.

I work with the most recent update.

Microsoft BI is a stable solution.

We have not tried to scale this solution.

In our company, we have ten users.

We use this solution on a daily basis.

We have not contacted technical support.

The initial setup is very simple. It only takes five minutes to deploy.

Other than refreshing the dataset, it does not require any maintenance.

Microsoft BI is not expensive. It is affordable.

There are no additional costs.

If they are looking for a reporting tool that is easy to use and expandable in terms of charts, or new charts, they should use Microsoft BI, because there are many charts on the market that they can download and use very easily.

I would Microsft BI a nine out of ten.