Microsoft Power BI reviews

As the title says, it turns ugly numbers into pretty pictures. It is easy enough for a non-developer to use and turn a mess of data into an intelligent and understandable story.

It literally changes every three months. You just get used to it and with the next update a lot has changed. I don't really see this as a con though because this is more like a Christmas present waiting to see what they will have made better this go around.

I really like the profusion of learning media for PBI (webinar, forum, microsoft learning experience and LinkedIn Learning). You can learn at your pace. Quickstarting is easy. Becoming proficient require a bit more patience but is relatively easy for people using other microsoft tools (Excel).

I like that the product is deployed in many company. The competencies are transferable.

I like the well defined working environnement (Query -> BI -> Viz) and the provided editor that are really enabling for people like me that are not developper by trade.

Automation of import, analysis and viz is also a real game changer for people that were dependant on Excel before.

I dislike the lack of userfriendly info for more complex developpement.
I feel not guided enough regarding more technical information regarding the product.

Easy to get started with Power BI if you are on the Microsoft 365 platform. Power Bi provides an easy to connect and interactive method for pulling data in real time from data collection system such as the SharePoint online, MS Excel and others. The ease of connecting with SharePoint is the strong point for my review.
Having the Power Bi connected to the SharePoint system provides the opportunity to have real time dashboards and dynamic reports for any small organization that is wishing to provide real or near to real-time reporting without the heavy upfront implementation cost for software, training and human resource.
Microsoft has indeed liberated the Dynamic Reporting with Power BI, and has also allowed for some very elegant web reporting to be created by non technical users.
My simple work flow , SharePoint for data collection, PowerBi for reporting.

The main issues are around the changes that are made by Microsoft, this will always be a learning curve for the users.
The lack of consistency on certain actions will be the biggest issue.

We used to use Excel but switched over to Power BI for the more advanced features. And they've been very very handy for us. The data cleaning works a lot better, there's tons more cutomization options, and some integrations have been made much easier compared to just Excel.

The imterface isn't the best to be honest, especially compared to stuff like Tableu. But gets the job done nonetheless.

Power BI enables users to work together and share dashboards and data with other people. Reports and dashboards can be shared by email, social media, and web publishing, among other methods available to users.
To ensure that sensitive data is protected, Power BI contains robust security features. In addition to controlling access to data, reports, and dashboards, users can create rules for preventing data loss.

Data that Power BI can ingest is limited in size. The free version must be extended to the paid version if I want to import data bigger than 2GB. It can also crash while processing huge datasets with complicated measurements, which makes using Power BI stressful at times.

Capability to Extract, Transform data at the desktop level in a single package. (Others solutions like have Data transformation feature inbuilt)

On publishing your report online, it gets slightly cumbersome to configure through (like configuring gateways for auto-refresh)

Easy learning curve, user friendly interface, cross platform integration and compatibility, ability to setup custom logics.

DAX has a steep learning curve and power can be optimised to handle large volumes of data .

1. Improves with new releases every two weeks
2. Powerful insight management
3. Integration with MS products
4. Online forums and learning zones

1. Not as intuitive as packaged applications, but getting there
2. Not a good IDE for Python / R
3. Connectors to social media need to be improved

The thing that most sets PowerBI apart from comparable business intelligence solutions is the lower cost of multi-user deployment within an organization. PowerBI is part of a Microsoft Office 365 subscription package for businesses and you only need to pay an additional 15USD/month for each additional admin/analyst account you add. This is a stark contrast to similar solutions like Tableau, which charge a monthly fee for each user and has a minimum user count that equates to roughly a 15,000USD/year license cost as minimum. If your organisation is already invested in the Microsoft Office ecosystem this could be the ideal solution for you if you need to keep costs down.

It can't connect to google sheets and every other business intelligence platform can. This can be really limiting if your business uses a variety of SaaS solutions since many offer the simplest data integration options via Google sheets.

PowerBI also has real issues with external sharing of dashboards/reports. You only have the option of publishing internally (visible to your organization's users) or publishing publically (indexed in search engines). There is no option of sharing dashboards and reports to individuals outside your organization via a login, like what is done with Google Data Studio.

PowerBI also has a steep learning curve and uses 3 coding languages (DAX, M, and SQL). It's more complicated than it needs to be but it's relational database modeling has proven a good one and competitors have copied PowerBI's approach in recent years (Tableau).

We used to be on Excel which was pretty good by itself, but Power BI takes it to a whole another level. It has tons of advanced features like better data connectors, embedded reports, better dashboards and worklows, the ability to handle bigger data, and more.

It would be good to have more dashboard and report templates to work off of, and we've had issues with cloud syncing in the past that caused us a lot of headache.

1. The wide and deep design and full support for upstream and downstream systems;

2. Excellent query engine with well design data modelling principals (which is better than Tableau);

3. Seamless integration with other Microsoft data integration products such as SSIS, SSRS, SSAS;

4. Excellent knowledgebase community and support;

5. Quick update to the Azure cloud support

1. UI design is a little bit inconvenient comparing to Tableau.
2. DAX is a bit complicated for power users.

I love how easy it is to make really powerful visualizations. The ease of use in order to basic visualizations is similar to Pivot tables in Excel. If you have a basic understanding of Pivot tables you will be able to open the software and get straight to visualizing. Once you take a deeper dive into the queries and data transformations you will uncover an entirely new world of analysis.

The software is easy to use for basic functions but when you get into more detail it can be difficult. It is also really hard to share your work with someone that does not pay for the service. Without paying for a Power Bi Pro account it is basically impossible to share the visualizations that you have created. Also, the Arc GIS feature only works within the software. If you try to post a map visualization to a website through an embed it doesn't work.

I think it's great that the interface takes most of its elements from Excel. As a person who has used Excel for pretty much the whole of the last two decades, it was much much easier to pick Power BI up for me in the beginning because I was used to most of the visual elements anyway.

Not a huge issue but it would make my work so much easier to have the live support option as they offer in some of the other BI tools.

The ability to do data linking from different data sources and doing relations and end up developing organized and analyzed data for easy decision making.

It provides the ability to break down data to a level that is easy to understand.

The creation of dashboard in Power BI makes the reports appealing and data presented friendly to interact with.

Loading Microsoft power BI takes quite some time especially the desktop version. I don't the reason behind it but it could be better if it is looked into and a solution found will be of great help.

Power BI allows for easy sharing of reports and dashboards with colleagues and stakeholders. This promotes collaboration, as everyone can access and interact with the same data. The interactive features of Power BI dashboards enable users to drill down into data, apply filters, and explore different aspects of the dataset. This interactivity enhances data exploration and analysis.

Data Refresh Limitations, Limited Offline Access, Advanced Analytics Requires Expertise. Power BI heavily relies on online connectivity for data retrieval and sharing. Offline access to reports and dashboards is somewhat limited, which can be a concern in certain scenarios.

Microsoft Power BI is an easy-to-use analytical tool that provides a convenient self-service data reporting and visualization solution for the average and non-technical business users. The desktop app and online service support data extraction, transformation, and visualization from various file types and offer built-in Power Platform integrations. The web service's rich AppSource marketplace provides apps and templates that help users design better dashboards more efficiently. Power BI's well-organized navigation menus make it seamless to integrate with other Microsoft solutions like Azure SQL database, virtual machines, and various Fabric Platform services for data science and data warehousing workflows. The Power BI community forums and user tutorials are helpful for new and experienced users alike.

Managing user permissions can become a bit complex when dealing with a large number of users and varying report access levels within the same workgroup and department. Also, the increasing number of options available in the user interface can sometimes feel overwhelming.

The features and ease of creating visualizations are top notch. Also integration with all other Microsoft products as well as pre-built connectors to many of the most popular software is hard to beat.

There are many features not available unless you pay for expensive premium capacity.