Microsoft BI is a business intelligence product used for data analysis and generating reports on server-based data. It features unlimited data analysis capacity with its reporting engine, SQL Server Reporting Services alongside ETL, master data management, and data cleansing.
$14
per month per user
Tableau Desktop
Score8.1 out of 10
N/A
Tableau Desktop is a data visualization product from Tableau. It connects to a variety of data sources for combining disparate data sources without coding. It provides tools for discovering patterns and insights, data calculations, forecasts, and statistical summaries and visual storytelling.
Product Manager in Product Management at Massey Services Inc (Environmental Services, 1001-5000 employees)
Chose Microsoft BI (MSBI)
The biggest player against Microsoft BI (MSBI) was Tableau, which was acquired by Salesforce. Recently there have been other standalone software/applications that provide similar functionality to Microsoft BI (MSBI). Because my company is a Microsoft shop, we have not explored …
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Verified User
Chose Microsoft BI (MSBI)
Tableau's feature set is comparable to Microsoft BI at a potentially lower cost, however, Microsoft provides better integration into a Microsoft Environment and more flexible deployment options. Microsoft also provides better enterprise support than Tableau (although this may …
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Verified User
Chose Microsoft BI (MSBI)
Unlike Oracle Business Intelligence Cloud Service (OBICS), Microsoft BI offers a good range of visualisation options. However, it falls behind in terms of data management capabilities. If your requirements are more data intensive and less reporting intensive, then Microsoft BI …
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Conseiller à l'implantation, Solutions de performance et gestion de l'information in Professional Services at Logibec (Health, Wellness and Fitness, 201-500 employees)
Chose Microsoft BI (MSBI)
For analysis and visualization, Power BI is aiming to take a large chunk of Tableau's market share. The rhythm of iterations at this time has in my opinion given the momentum to Power BI. The added functionalities in Excel also make it possible for intermediate users to get …
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Marketing Data Analyst in Marketing at Brandify (Information Technology and Services, 11-50 employees)
Chose Microsoft BI (MSBI)
Microsoft BI is very well suited to implement reporting and visualization within departments. Choosing Microsoft BI over tools like Tableau is the variety of third party apps it extracts data from. This functionality is limited in Tableau as it digests data from large data …
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
SharePoint/MS Project Server Engineer in Information Technology at Merck (Pharmaceuticals, 10,001+ employees)
Chose Microsoft BI (MSBI)
Microsoft BI is a great tool when it comes to various integration with line of business applications and its own ecosystem which contains office applications widely used all over the world. Hence, it is well suited for organizations that are complex and have global foot-print. …
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Business Analyst | Digital Analytics in Professional Services at Anametrix Inc, an Ensighten Company (Computer Software, 51-200 employees)
Chose Microsoft BI (MSBI)
Microsoft BI stacks up against Tableau because Tableau cannot blend various data sources easily. Tableau produces nice reports with a single data source. Today, it's not what we need. We need to easily combine multiple data sources. I would recommend either Microsoft BI or …
Business Intelligence Specialist in Information Technology at Kaiser Foundation Health Plan (Transportation/Trucking/Railroad, 501-1000 employees)
Chose Microsoft BI (MSBI)
-Tableau is clearly more cutting edge when it comes to data visualization and connecting to multiple data sources (support for MongoDB, Hadoop, etc). -Assuming your data is not that sophisticated, Microsoft BI is a great product. I would say its a good "all around" BI tool. It …
Software Engineer in Information Technology at Prime Tech Solutions Ltd. (Information Technology & Services, 51-200 employees)
Chose Microsoft BI (MSBI)
Better integration with Microsoft products is one of the advantages of using Business Intelligence (BI). It's simple to understand, and plenty of resources are available to outsource it. Many of our existing clients have Microsoft licensing agreements. It's an obvious path when …
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Customer Relationship Management Specialist in Information Technology at Green Light Ltd (Information Technology & Services, 51-200 employees)
Chose Microsoft BI (MSBI)
Outsourcing work is easy to understand, and there are plenty of resources available in the marketplace. It is expensive, but it is still significantly less costly than the alternatives. Results from Microsoft BI (MSBI) are dependable; therefore, there is no problem with trust. …
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
IT Specialist in Research & Development at Lamda I-TECH (Information Technology & Services, 11-50 employees)
Chose Microsoft BI (MSBI)
MSBI is great for data collection and reporting, but it lacks the visual appeal and features of Power BI. Even though it's still useful, it falls short of Power BI in terms of features. There's no reason to doubt MSBI's findings. MSBI has a proactive customer service team that …
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Verified User
Chose Microsoft BI (MSBI)
A lot of our existing client base has licensing agreements in place with Microsoft, couple that with decision-makers wanting to achieve the outcome with the least amount of additional licensing costs added, and it becomes an obvious path, however, it is very crucial to first …
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. TR verified that a representative sample of customers was invited. More Info
Graduate Research Assistant in Research & Development at Western Kentucky University (Higher Education, 1001-5000 employees)
Chose Microsoft BI (MSBI)
Specific data displays are some of the strongest aspects of Microsoft BI when compared to alternate programs. It also does a superior job in compatibility with many programs, especially those from Microsoft. Since my company primarily uses Office 365 and other Microsoft …
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Verified User
Chose Microsoft BI (MSBI)
The other programs listed are excellent. I have always been a fan of Google products because they are user-friendly and easily accessible by most. They also produce excellent data outputs. Google is still great for companies of any size but I believe Microsoft BI is an even …
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Planificador Territorial II in Research & Development at MPPP (Environmental Services, 501-1000 employees)
Chose Microsoft BI (MSBI)
The software stacks [well] because it has more graphics resolution and the colors are fresh and actualized. On the other hand, there is the Microsoft family software and this is an advantage. Microsoft has a lot of users around the world and it's like everyone knows how to do …
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Verified User
Chose Microsoft BI (MSBI)
Microsoft BI is ideal for proficient Excel users, and it is the best choice in terms of visualizations. We decided to use Microsoft BI for these reasons.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
BI Reporting Specialist in Professional Services at Impac Services - Risk & Safety Management Solutions (Professional Training & Coaching, 51-200 employees)
Chose Microsoft BI (MSBI)
I'd rather not say to avoid unnecessary arguments. Thanks.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
BI Consultant at Altis Consulting (Information Technology and Services, 51-200 employees)
Chose Microsoft BI (MSBI)
I have been using the open source open standards BI tool 'Pentaho' before moving into the Microsoft space and I must admit I was surprised how much more difficult it is to do development in Microsoft. Having said that the cubes (SSAS) and reporting (SSRS) side does seem more …
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
CIO (Chief Information Officer) in Information Technology at Mountain Medical (Hospital & Health Care, 201-500 employees)
Chose Microsoft BI (MSBI)
Microsoft is a distant me too in a world that is crowded and drowning in BI Me too products. Visualizations 5/10. Micro Strategy, ClickView, Domo, BOBJ etc will kill this product. The issue is cost and speed to implementation. The cost is far less than any of the previously …
Regional BI Practice Director in Information Technology at Neudesic (Information Technology and Services, 201-500 employees)
Chose Microsoft BI (MSBI)
With over 20 years in IT, I have experienced a full range of relational and non-relational data solutions, from Oracle and Informix to MongoDB and Hadoop. In my opinion, the Microsoft BI stack is the most complete, well-rounded, high performing data management system on the …
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Tableau
Verified User
Chose Tableau Desktop
Tableau is so much better for data visualization and analysis than Microsoft Reporting Services, but lacks the other functionalities that are included on Microsoft BI (MBI). That's why we use MBI to extract and consolidate our data and Tableau to create some advanced reports.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Marketing Analyst in Marketing at Craftworks Restaurants & Breweries, Inc. (Restaurants, 501-1000 employees)
Chose Tableau Desktop
While I haven't done a lot of work in Microsoft BI, I do think they are on the right road to being a great product but they definitely lag behind Tableau in the number of features available. Obviously, it does integrate well with Microsoft products, but it remains to be seen …
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Consultant in Information Technology at WNS Global Services (Outsourcing/Offshoring, 10,001+ employees)
Chose Tableau Desktop
It is very easy to use, we can create numbers of charts through it which I think other tools lack in. Lots of online communities are there which have provided solutions to the basic issues. Its ODS(output delivery system) is also very effective. We can use SQL in it for …
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Deputy CIO and BI Strategist in Information Technology at Arizona State University (Higher Education, 10,001+ employees)
Chose Tableau Desktop
Tableau supports more data sources that both Amazon QuickSight and Microsoft Power BI. It also created a much more sophisticated dashboard which is important for leadership and others who use it. However, we use other products like Toad Data Point and Alteryx and tools that …
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Verified User
Chose Tableau Desktop
Tableau has a great community engagement, and it's really great to find and connect with other Tableau users. I think that really sets them apart from other tools, where Tableau has invested in empowering local user groups and supporting users online through the Tableau …
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. TR verified that a representative sample of customers was invited. More Info
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Business Intelligence Analyst in Information Technology at Match.com (Internet, 201-500 employees)
Chose Tableau Desktop
My current work environment uses both Tableau Online, MicroStrategy & SSRS in parallel. Tableau is much closer to the SSRS in terms of visualization tool where as MicroStrategy is an enterprise data modeling and reporting tool.
Based on the use case we use different tools. Here …
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Technical Leader for Modeling and Simulation in Research & Development at MITRE (Management Consulting, 5001-10,000 employees)
Chose Tableau Desktop
Excel is almost as good as Tableau. If you have a few thousand floating around just spring for the Tableau. QlikView is an abomination. Not much else to say there. SAS and friends are like ye olde-timey versions of Tableau in terms of their visualization abilities. Python, R, …
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Microsoft BI is well suited for Stream analytics, easy data integration, report creation and UI/UX designs (limited but what all available are great ones) Microsoft BI may be less appropriate for handling huge number of datasets and difficult queries. It may also be difficult for a company with heavy data.
The best scenario is definitely to collect data from several sources and create dedicated dashboards for specific recipients. However, I miss the possibility of explaining these reports in more detail. Sometimes, we order a report, and after half a year, we don't remember the meaning of some data (I know it's our fault as an organization, but the tool could force better practices).
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
An excellent tool for data visualization, it presents information in an appealing visual format—an exceptional platform for storing and analyzing data in any size organization.
Through interactive parameters, it enables real-time interaction with the user and is easy to learn and get support from the community.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
The race to perfect gathering of Non-Traditional datasets is on-going; with Microsoft arguably not the leader of the pack in this category.
Licensing options for PowerBI visualizations may be a factor. I.e. if you need to implement B2C PowerBI visualizations, the cost is considerably high especially for startups.
Some clients are still resistant putting their data on the cloud, which restricts lots of functionality to Power BI.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. TR verified that a representative sample of customers was invited. More Info
Microsoft BI is fundamental to our suite of BI applications. That being said, Northcraft Analytics is focused on delighting our customers, so if the underlying factors of our decision change, we would choose to re-write our BI applications on a different stack. Luckily, mathematics are the fundamental IP of our technology... and is portable across all BI platforms for the foreseeable future.
Our use of Tableau Desktop is still fairly low, and will continue over time. The only real concern is around cost of the licenses, and I have mentioned this to Tableau and fully expect the development of more sensible models for our industry. This will remove any impediment to expansion of our use.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
The Microsoft BI tools have great usability for both developers and end users alike. For developers familiar with Visual Studio, there is little learning curve. For those not, the single Visual Studio IDE means not having to learn separate tools for each component. For end-users, the web interface for SSRS is simple to navigate with intuitive controls. For ad-hoc analysis, Excel can connect directly to SSAS and provide a pivot table like experience which is familiar to many users. For database development, there is beginning to be some confusion, as there are now three tool choices (VS, SSMS, Azure Data Studio) for developers. I would like to see Azure Data Studio become the superset of SSMS and eventually supplant it.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Tableau Desktop has proven to be a lifesaver in many situations. Once we've completed the initial setup, it's simple to use. It has all of the features we need to quickly and efficiently synthesize our data. Tableau Desktop has advanced capabilities to improve our company's data structure and enable self-service for our employees.
When used as a stand-alone tool, Tableau Desktop has unlimited uptime, which is always nice. When used in conjunction with Tableau Server, this tool has as much uptime as your server admins are willing to give it. All in all, I've never had an issue with Tableau's availability.
SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) can drag at times. We created two report servers and placed them under an F5 load balancer. This configuration has worked well. We have seen sluggish performance at times due to the Windows Firewall.
Tableau Desktop's performance is solid. You can really dig into a large dataset in the form of a spreadsheet, and it exhibits similarly good performance when accessing a moderately sized Oracle database. I noticed that with Tableau Desktop 9.3, the performance using a spreadsheet started to slow around 75K rows by about 60 columns. This was easily remedied by creating an extract and pushing it to Tableau Server, where performance went to lightning fast
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
While support from Microsoft isn't necessarily always best of breed, you're also not paying the price for premium support that you would on other platforms. The strength of the stack is in the ecosystem that surrounds it. In contrast to other products, there are hundreds, even thousands of bloggers that post daily as well as vibrant user communities that surround the tool. I've had much better luck finding help with SQL Server related issues than I have with any other product, but that help doesn't always come directly from Microsoft.
Tableau support has been extremely responsive and willing to help with all of our requests. They have assisted with creating advanced analysis and many different types of custom icons, data formatting, formulas, and actions embedded into graphs. Tableau offers a weekly presentation of features and assists with internal company projects.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
It is admittedly hard to train a group of people with disparate levels of ability coming in, but the software is so easy to use that this is not a huge problem; anyone who can follow simple instructions can catch up pretty quickly.
I have used on-line training from Microsoft and from Pragmatic Works. I would recommend Pragmatic Works as the best way to get up to speed quickly, and then use the Microsoft on-line training to deep dive into specific features that you need to get depth with.
I think the training was good overall, but it was maybe stating the obvious things that a tech savvy young engineer would be able to pick up themselves too. However, the example work books were good and Tableau web community has helped me with many problems
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
We are a consulting firm and as such our best resources are always billing on client projects. Our internal implementation has weaknesses, but that's true for any company like ours. My rating is based on the product's ease of implementation.
Again, training is the key and the company provides a lot of example videos that will help users discover use cases that will greatly assist their creation of original visualizations. As with any new software tool, productivity will decline for a period. In the case of Tableau, the decline period is short and the later gains are well worth it.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
We have used the built in ConnectWise Manager reports and custom reports. The reports provide static data. PowerBI shows us live data we can drill down into and easily adjust parameters. It's much more useful than a static PDF report.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
I have used Power BI as well, the pricing is better, and also training costs or certifications are not that high. Since there is python integration in Power BI where I can use data cleaning and visualizing libraries and also some machine learning models. I can import my python scripts and create a visualization on processed data.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Tableau Desktop's scaleability is really limited to the scale of your back-end data systems. If you want to pull down an extract and work quickly in-memory, in my application it scaled to a few tens of millions of rows using the in-memory engine. But it's really only limited by your back-end data store if you have or are willing to invest in an optimized SQL store or purpose-built query engine like Veritca or Netezza or something similar.
As a SaaS provider we see being able to provide self-service BI to our client users as a competitive advantage. In fact the MSSQL enabled BI is a contributing factor to many winning RFPs we have done for prospective client organisations.
However MSSQL BI requires extensive knowledge and skills to design and develop data warehouses & data models as a foundation to support business analysts and users to interrogate data effectively and efficiently. Often times we find having strong in-house MSSQL expertise is a bless.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Tableau was acquired years ago, and has provided good value with the content created.
Ongoing maintenance costs for the platform, both to maintain desktop and server licensing has made the continuing value questionable when compared to other offerings in the marketplace.
Users have largely been satisfied with the content, but not with the overall performance. This is due to a combination of factors including the performance of the Tableau engines as well as development deficiencies.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
