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. 

Private Cloud

Microsoft Azure

This solution can be used for enterprise reporting, ad hoc visualization, and statistical analysis.

In an upcoming release, the solution could be simplified and have a more complete product package rather than a suite of products that we have to put together.

I have been using this solution for approximately one year.

In my experience, I have found this solution scalable.

The scalability is good. We have 20 people in my organization using this solution and plan to increase usage.

The technical support has been good and the responses have been fast.

I have used other business intelligence solutions previously and I switched because this solution was cheaper and is on a Microsft platform.

The initial setup is more complicated than other solutions. Microsoft typically has more involved installations. 

I did the implementation myself. We have three administrators doing the deployment and maintains of the solution.

Power BI is cheaper for smaller groups when comparing to competitors. It requires a monthly per-user subscription.

I have evaluated Tableau.

I would recommend this solution to others.

I rate Microsoft BI a seven out of ten.

Public Cloud

My team uses it. They majorly used to work on SSRS and SSIS.

It gives you an edge if you are on the Microsoft platform. If you have been using Microsoft products for a long time or if you have the Microsoft infrastructure, this is the right tool for you. It has seamless integration with Microsoft SQL Server and other sources, and you get the best of the three things (SSIS, SSAS, and SSRS) in one suite.

It should be more user-friendly and simple.

I have been using this solution for almost five years.

Their technical support is good.

Companies that are Microsoft shop do prefer using this solution, but non-Microsoft companies or customers generally go for solutions such as Tableau and Domo. Companies that want to go really cheap without any tool costs generally go for an open-source solution. In terms of reporting, data visualization tools such as Tableau and Domo are its competitors. 

The pricing of all these tools will vary depending upon the licenses that you are using and the contract that you have, but from the ease-of-use perspective, Tableau is very easy to work with. A lot of work is being done on Tableau.

I would rate Microsoft BI an eight out of ten.

It is for dashboards and reports. 

It is low-cost and easy to deploy. It is fully-featured.

They are improving it all the time. What would be nice is if they could respond to feature requests more quickly. They can provide faster support for new features.

I have been using this solution for two years.

It is reasonably stable.

In my organization, we have around ten users. In our client's organization, we have about 100 users.

I normally find whatever I need in Microsoft documentation or through Google. There is a lot of activity in the market. A lot of other people typically would have already asked the same question that I have, so it is fairly easy to find information.

I didn't really use any other product. I used to be a Qlik partner, and I became a Microsoft partner two years ago.

Its installation is straightforward. The developer suite has one-click installation. The end-users just get a web URL. There is no installation for end-users. They just access it.

There is a Microsoft certification that you need to complete, but it is all deployed on the Microsoft Azure cloud. So, there are no infrastructure requirements.

It depends upon the tier of your Office 365 subscription. On E5, which is a Microsoft Azure subscription, you get it for free. If you are on a lower tier, you can subscribe for $10 a month per user, which is really cheap.

I would recommend this solution. It is pretty good. Technically, it is at the same level as the other products that I've used so far. It has all the features, and it is easy to deploy. Its costs are really palatable. They are improving it all the time. I am fairly satisfied with this product.

I would rate Microsoft BI a seven out of ten. There are always areas for improvement, but I am fairly happy with it. I would not rate anything else also higher than seven.

Public Cloud

Microsoft Azure

We are using Power BI Premium at the moment. It is an online solution, which always has the latest version.

It is for data visualization and data insights. BI means business intelligence, so it helps you understand the performance of your business better. It gives you deeper insight into the data so that you can draw meaningful conclusions from the data, and your decisions are based on data insights rather than a hunch. 

It is a good and very useful product. I find it to be extremely useful because it gives me a deeper insight into my business, and it lets me analyze things and make decisions based on the data.

The way data is presented is very valuable. The amount of information that we can get at a glance is also valuable. You can then drill-down and see data from many different angles in the same chart by selecting certain things. Based on the selection, everything changes automatically. If we have four parameters in a particular item, when you select a parameter, the remaining charts on that page automatically change for that particular parameter.

Its price could be better. Its licensing cost is very high.

We discovered it about two months ago, and we started using it.

It is very stable.

You can scale it to thousands of users. It is a cloud product. Microsoft Cloud is being used by people across the world. So, there is no limitation in terms of scalability.

At the moment, we have about five users, but the number of users will increase to 50. We are absolutely going to keep using it.

We generally don't approach Microsoft for support. We are able to handle things at our end.

We used simple Excel reports, but Excel reports are not as good as Power BI. Power BI is far ahead.

It is a cloud product. You can access it through a web browser. It takes no time. 

It takes time only when you have to prepare the reports because you need to know how to prepare the Power BI reports. There is an MIS team, and there are Power BI designers who design the reports, but for users, it doesn't take much effort because they just have to click and see.

Its licensing cost is very high. It is $20 per user, which is very high, but it is a good product, so you pay for it.

I would recommend this solution. I would rate Microsoft BI a nine out of ten.

Public Cloud

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.

Public Cloud

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Our primary use case is for data prediction. We use our predictive model index, and then express the data to Power BI.

It's user-friendly and provides data abstracting capabilities. We are also able to share reports with our colleagues very easily.

The DAX features need some improvement. It's not as easy as Excel. They need more DAX formulas.

The stability is good.

The setup was straightforward.

The most important criterion for me, when selecting a vendor, is that the product is cost-effective.

It depends on how you're going to use the reports, but when looking into this product or similar solutions, check the security side of things. If you don't want to share information with everyone, how does it deal with that?

So far, it's one of the best reporting tools I've found. They are improving the product every month. I would rate it at eight out of 10. The two missing points are to see what comes out in the future.

Microsoft SSRS is a fantastic means for end users to access, run, and schedule delivery of reports. - Core functionality is simple to use for business users of all skill levels - Report models even allow end users to adjust their own reports using a model of your data - Report builder provides an even easier method for users to build their own reports - Report data can even be scheduled for periodic delivery with the report data as an attachmentMicrosoft SSAS is one of the best BI suites on the market. It is also one of the least expensive, and the features bundled rival competitors with prices many more times as expensive. - This feature is one of the most exciting areas of database technologies today - Very powerful and relatively easy to use when compared to other Bi suites

- Active Directory authentication requires an additional login for users without Internet Explorer - Learning curve behind any business intelligence package is quite steep - Price of the SQL Server bundle is potentially cost prohibitive for smaller businesses

I am quite passionate about the SQL Server suite of tools, and am a fervent user of SSRS. I use SSAS less, only because I am focused more on administration and have not moved into the SSAS space - yet. I am looking to head into the BI arena later on this year, and SSAS is my BI suite of choice!