#1 most frequent
United States of America
41.5%49,599 installations of 119,589
What is Microsoft Power BI?
Microsoft Power BI is a visualization and data discovery tool from Microsoft. It allows users to convert data into visuals and graphics, visually explore and analyze data, collaborate on interactive dashboards and reports, and scale across their organization with built-in governance and security.
Categories & Use Cases
Media
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Screenshot of Microsoft Power BI - Turns insights into impact for business users
Top Performing Features
Customizable dashboards
Customizable dashboards are dashboards providing the builder some degree of control over the look and feel and display options.
Category average: 8.6
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)
Multiple access permission levels means that different levels of users have different rights.
Category average: 8.3
Javascript API
A Javascript API is a type of API
Category average: 8.2
Areas for Improvement
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile
In-app dashboard reports and data visualization.
Category average: 7.9
Drill-down analysis
Drill down analysis is the ability to get to a further level of detail by going deeper into the hierarchy.
Category average: 8.4
Report-Level Access Control
Report-level access control means that the type of report determines who has access to it.
Category average: 8.1
Who Buys & Uses Microsoft Power BI
#1 most frequent
Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services
18.0%21,546 installations of 119,371
“Its ability to analyze and visualize data into insightful dashboards and reports”
#2 most frequent
Manufacturing
14.5%17,295 installations of 119,371
“Data visualization”
#3 most frequent
Finance and Insurance
8.7%10,389 installations of 119,371
#2 most frequent
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
6.0%7,132 installations of 119,589
#3 most frequent
Brazil
5.9%7,108 installations of 119,589
Pros
- Robust data visualization capabilities for creating insightful dashboards and reports (34% of reviewers).
- Strong data integration features, allowing consolidation from multiple sources (23% of reviewers).
- User-friendly interface, making it accessible for non-developers (21% of reviewers).
A powerful visualization tool
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
I use Microsoft Power BI to measure metrics and, with this information, to make decisions about the medical field. We use it a lot to monitor our teams' performance. I need to update the information at least weekly so management can make decisions. I use different types of visualizations and consume various databases.
Pros
- Very easy layout
- Powerquery is very instinctive
- AI helps create measures
Cons
- Editing views is very messy
- Some tools do not have a manual explaining each field
Return on Investment
- Positive Impact: We always accelerate our performance thanks to these reports. Because we have a detailed view of each person, we already know exactly where to target for improvement.
- Negative: Due to update errors, which often make no sense, this delays the delivery of the report.
Usability
Alternatives Considered
Tableau Desktop, Looker Studio and Qlik Analytics Platform
Other Software Used
Amazon Redshift, Microsoft Lists
Plugs into existing tech works well
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
I work at an architecture firm, and we use Microsoft Power BI for a range of uses, both internal-facing and external-facing. We have typical accounting data, project management data and marketing data - these get visualized for consumption using standardized dashboards. But we also have standard dashboards for staff skill metrics and analytics for our large (BIM) building models. Our final use case is for design studies, showing clients how different design options compare in terms of performance and cost.
Pros
- Drag and drop widgets that cross-interact
- Data ETL allows loading and cleaning of data from a variety of sources
- Keeping complex processes and large quantities of data tidy
Cons
- Text string length is capped during import, but it isn't well documented
- The UI can be very complex for new users
- Sharing content with people outside of your organization can be very difficult
Return on Investment
- Real-time reporting of BIM metrics helps teams make smarter, cleaner models and reduces time spent debugging or cleaning the models later
- Being able to do complex data visualization and analysis for clients has directly translated into new kinds of work and new projects. Tasks like spatial inventories and audits are now part of our service offerings.
- We've been able to see the information that was already stored in our systems in one place, visually. This has helped us de-silo and use that data to inform firm operations. Hiring and staffing in particular have benefitted from dashboards that show gaps in staff members' skills.
Usability
Versatile and fully customizable tool with game changing AI capabilities
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
I'm a healthcare data analyst for the southwest Missouri regional hospitals and clinics. We have several compliance and patient care KPIs that we need to track daily. I build Power BI reports for various healthcare service lines based on long and short term analytics goals. I connect our Power BI reports to a range of data sources, be it, Sharepoint, Oracle, or Cloud based sources. This offers a wide scope to our analytics playbook as patient care excellence requires many pathways.
Pros
- Connects to a large variety of data sources
- Has plenty of visual options and tools for complex reports
- Allows for very specific and detailed customizations.
- Has a robust and key AI assistant in Copilot
Cons
- Changes too often, the feature options and look are updated monthly
- Requires education, not a good right of the box tool for general use
- If there are failures or steps missed it is difficult at times to troubleshoot
Return on Investment
- Great for futurecasting!
- We can easily track healthcare trends across locations
Usability
Alternatives Considered
QlikView and Salesforce CRM Analytics
Other Software Used
Toad Data Point, Microsoft Excel, Epic EpicCare EMR
Easy to use data visualization tool
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
Microsoft Power BI is useful for designing and developing visual dashboards by connecting data from sources such as SQL, sharepoint, etc .The development canvas supports drag and drop allowing to drag a visualization and also configure the fields of the visualization using drag and drop. Also it allows the automatic refresh of data from the original source by just scheduling the time of refresh which helps to ensure that the users are viewing the latest and most accurate data in the visualizations of the dashboard
Pros
- Connects easily to the Microsoft data sources such as sharepoint files,onedrive,SQL etc very seamlessly and authenticates directly using your account
- Has a lot of inbuilt visual charts which are useful for creating visualizations in the dashboard
- The data query editor is very powerful and supports a wide variety of data transformations
Cons
- Carrying out data transformation on large data sets is very time consuming as previewing data at each step takes a lot of time
Return on Investment
- Data visibility has improved a lot. A dashboard can be shared to a wide er audience from multiple departments location easily by publishing to a common workspace improving better collaboration among team member and allowing them to make informed decisions based on data
Usability
Other Software Used
Miro
Microsoft Power BI is Powerful
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
I use Microsoft Power BI to prepare an analysis of web content audits - what is completed, late, and coming up. The report pulls data from a SharePoint list and filters based on quarters, completion, and late. In addition, I use Microsoft Power BI to provide budget reports to department managers as needed.
Pros
- Filter data by various fields and data points
- Easily refreshes data from data sources
- Easily allows users to format data in a variety of ways
Cons
- It would be easier for users could Microsoft Power BI and Excel used the same programming languages.
- Would like to see the online version of Microsoft Power BI be as powerful as the desktop version.
- Publishing a Microsoft Power BI file online and then having to save the file is somewhat redundant.
- Would like to export each page or chart as an image.
Return on Investment
- Having accurate reporting from multiple datasets improves our productivity.
- Easy-to-read visual graphics or charts assist managers in making accurate financial decisions.
Usability
Other Software Used
Claris FileMaker, Microsoft Power Automate, monday.com, Microsoft Visio, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Powerpoint, Microsoft 365, Microsoft SharePoint, Adobe Acrobat, Adobe Bridge, Adobe PhotoShop
