Microsoft Power BI Reviews

The main use case is for dashboarding on Excel spreadsheets until data lake and similar sources are ready for us to start integrating and dashboarding that information. We are a government motor transport entity and for each vehicle, there's a lifecycle. At every step of that life cycle, we need to know how many of a particular type of vehicle we have in our fleet and its status. I'm an IT service and strategy consultant and we are customers of Microsoft BI.

BI is very easy to use including the desktop version. The visualization is valuable, it's easy to select visualizations and show your data in different views. It opens up a lot of possibilities that weren't previously available and it's versatile. We're integrating with other solutions and if you look at Power BI pulling information from the data warehouse, it's integrated to an Oracle warehouse and works well.

The formatting template could be improved. In order for me to easily do visualizations, I have to format my Excel spreadsheet in a very specific template. I can't take a spreadsheet from my financial director and quickly put it in Power BI and then pivot into visualizations. I have to first check the formatting, that it's in the proper columns, and headings are logical. It needs all of that database thinking before you can actually get valuable information out of it. 

I'd like to see more templates and better tooling so that when one opens a spreadsheet it's possible to manipulate data from Power BI without having to format the spreadsheet. If you were able to pull the information out of the spreadsheet via more detailed tooling, that would be brilliant.

We've been using this solution for about three months. 

Stability has been good so far. 

The scalability is good. 

We haven't required technical support.

The initial setup was straightforward and didn't take too long. We had a team, the Azure FastTrack team, that assisted us and they were superb.

We're using a subscription-based license and the government has a transversal agreement with Microsoft. We use the solution according to that contract, it's an EA license. When it comes to premium licenses, I think they all have room for improvement.

I would recommend this solution to everyone, whether small, medium, or enterprise-size companies. Smaller companies should use the free version because it offers quite a lot and is valuable. I would recommend it for any size environment and specifically because it's not boxed in and you can visualize data that's on Microsoft products. 

I rate the solution eight out of 10. 

I used it to build a simple dashboard. What I did was very simple. I used it to load different datasets. I defined relationships between them and played around with the data by using visuals.

I must have downloaded the version that was really available at that time.

I had to build a simple dashboard in which I had to combine two or three different datasets. They were large enough, so it wasn't possible to work on them easily in Excel. In Power BI, I used the relationship feature, and I was able to store the data in such a way that it does not occupy a lot of space. I could then send the file over email.

Its visualization capabilities are pretty good. It is very easy to use. You can easily make your dashboard.

There is a lot of self-help content available from a lot of different platforms, such as YouTube. So, whenever I faced an issue, it was not difficult. I could always find a solution to the issue I was facing.

Defining a relationship was very confusing. There were circular directions for which I had to do a lot of adjustments in the data. They can do something to make it easier.

I worked on it this summer. I just used it for a month or two.

Defining Relationships can be confusing when you are working with a complex data model. It can result in circular relationship referencing and the interface does not help solve it, or even understand it, in any way. It takes time to figure out a different way to structure the data model and Power BI offers no guidance on that. Online help is limited.

There is a lot of content available online. When I started out, the way I was defining the relationship between the data and the way my model was structured was not very efficient. I spent a lot of time in making it more efficient. So, I would advise others to do enough research. I was learning on the go. If you spend about six or seven hours learning it, it would be much better. Even though it is marketed as something that is easily usable and anyone can come and start using it, there is a bit of a learning curve.

I was very easily able to load the data and conduct an as-is analysis of what is happening, but if I want to do a deeper analysis of the data and break down a variable into different components, I don't know if it is possible in Power BI. I tried to do it a little bit, but it was not easy. So, it is good when you have the data, and you just want to present it and look at it in different ways, but if you want to analyze the data and break down the numbers and play around with the data, I don't know if it is possible in Power BI.

I would rate Power BI a seven out of 10.

We get a lot of chunks of data, especially production data and data based on education — performance-related data. We use BI to analyze the data so we can give feedback to our clients. If they're experiencing problems, we help them find trends, etc.

Within our organization, there are roughly six or seven people using this solution.

Microsoft BI allows us to connect to any database or any dataset. It automatically renders some of the information which makes things a lot easier for us.

Compared to other applications, like Tableau, Microsoft BI doesn't have as many functions that allow you to do a more in-depth analysis and represent the findings. I think they have a standard that they keep to.

As the UI experience is always changing, the interface and security can always be improved. 

I have been using this solution for roughly four years. 

Stability is quite good. It's reliable.

We haven't had to expand because usually we just wait for the data. However, we do have plans to expand.

On a scale from one to five, I would give their technical support a rating of four. 

The initial setup was very straightforward. 

I believe we pay on a monthly basis. Compared to what's available on the market, I think we pay a fair price.

I would recommend Microsoft BI to others. On a scale from one to ten, I would give this solution a rating of seven.

I have used the solution for analytics which is displayed on the dashboard for my client.

The solution is easy to use.

There are some problems with the functionality of this solution. The dashboard is not very user friendly and is quite complicated. They need to make it easier for developers because they could bring key components into the dashboard. I have found using scripting language in other competitor solutions easier.

Since I am new to using this solution I am not sure what should be in a future release. I probably do not need all of the features in this current version.

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

The stability is good. 

The solution is scalable. We have a couple of people using the solution in my organization.

I have used Qlik Sense in the past and it is more functional than this solution. I prefer Qlik Sense and I will most likely be switching soon.

The solution is easy to install and it does not take long.

I did the implementation.

As far as I am aware you do not need a license for the solution.

Comparing this solution to others such as Tableau and Microstrategy, this solution is probably better. However, I think overall Qlik Sense is best for me.

I am not going to be using the solution in the future because I prefer Qlik Sense.

I rate Microsoft BI an eight out of ten.

Our primary use is real-time & batch analytics on Postgres databases in combination with MS Excel.

This solution has improved our ability in making decisions and explaining data.

The most valuable features are the automation of analysis and already prepared tools to do the analytic work rapidly.

We would like to have better SQL support for queries. It means to have a kind of development environment trying to correct bad sintax in SQL query, or having an intellisense like style for code completion being aware of table's fields and having a preview of the query response without needing to run the whole procedure. 

We have been using Microsoft BI for two months.

Previously we used MS Excel but continue using it mainly for prototyping.

Power BI free layer is attractive and second stage with Power BI online is not expensive.

Tableau.

We use Microsoft BI for all of our data analysis processes.

In comparison to Excel, this is a much more powerful tool. 

It is a very good software solution. It makes life very easy for us. It is easy to grasp, and it is useful. The set-up visualization format was very helpful.

I've been working with connecting with the right platforms and we need to use other connectors to link with the data. This would be a nice feature for BI to add in the future. For example, we needed another connector in order to make our Wordpress functional. More options for the connectors are really important for us.

At times it is not stable, and we need to use other connectors to link with the data.

We have not had a need for technical support for this solution.

When evaluating a new product, I would first ask my colleagues or other friends that I know based on what their opinions are about the product.  Also, I would be concerned with the level of crashes. The less they crash, the less problems and the easier our life will be. Furthermore, the level of support that the product provides is important, as well.

I used Excel and Rapidminer in the past. But, I really like the BI product.

Consolidating data from multiple sources and providing dashboards to a broad set of users: Finance, Human Resources, Operations, and Leadership.

It allows individuals to do the analysis themselves. We are getting adoption beyond original expectations.

Most importantly, the dashboards. Recently, we are exploring vendor provided analysis/visuals and the use of R.

Drill-down in dashboards needs to improved. The capability only works in Power BI Desktop today. We need to have an alternative approach today.

The self-service part.

We are a consultancy firm, helping our clients with billing and business intelligence solutions. We can see that it's really improved the way end users can do their own graphs and pick their own fields of information and present that in a nice way.

The navigation. The way you navigate the product, compared to other products in this industry, that could be improved a bit. It's user friendly, but you would like to have it even more user friendly.

When you do selections in one tab in Report, and then you move to the next tab, then you have to do your selections again. So one tab as a global, central selection possibility would help.

If you compare to QlikView, there's still a lot of functionality that QlikView has that Power BI doesn't. For most companies, Power BI is good enough, especially if you consider the price tag it's an easy choice. But it still has some catching up to do to match the functionality in QlikView.

Eight to 10 months.

It feels very stable. A bit slow sometimes when you change stuff and you want to refresh data and apply it to the data model in your queries. You want to apply that to your reports and dashboards and it can be a bit slow sometimes.

We don't have that experience yet. We still don't know how it is to deploy it in larger scales. So, that's my concern, but I haven't seen the scalability issues at our clients.

No, not yet. There are a lot of self-training videos and such out there on the internet and on the Microsoft websites.

QlikView and Qlik Sense. We felt demand in the market for Microsoft Power BI. Also, within my company we are selling services around Microsoft Dynamics, and Microsoft Power BI hooks very well into the other Microsoft products.

It was pretty straightforward. Not much to set up. Cloud service and desktop client that you need to download and install, but if you have worked with other similar tools then you and know about that.

We are constantly looking for what is hot in the market and this has really come up as a rising star on the BI market, so it was not so much of a question about it at all. Quite obvious.

There are some limitations in regards to the navigation part.