Microsoft Power BI Reviews

In January, I successfully published my application on AppSource, specifically targeting retail customers. Recently, I received positive feedback from a customer, which was truly gratifying. It seems that my application is Microsoft's preferred choice as it effectively addresses the majority of customer requirements and is tailored to their specific requests. 

Apart from retail applications, I have also developed solutions for BigChange, an organization dedicated to driving significant changes. Additionally, I have worked on creating reports focusing on production efficiency within my company. These reports have been well-received and have provided valuable insights. Lastly, I have recently worked on an application that involves managing IT resources and has developed a multi-dimensional model including SSIS and Power BI.

For the last project, I worked on creating data flows and implementing incremental refresh functionality. However, there was an issue we encountered regarding the date field in the tables. The existing portal dates were incorrect as they did not reflect changes in the records. To address this, we collaborated with the developers to introduce an additional column that accurately captures modified data in the system. This improvement has proven to be significant, and it can be implemented using the pro license, rather than relying on the premium license, as the premium license covers different aspects.

The Pro license offers great features such as incremental refreshing, which is highly beneficial. While it doesn't include direct query capabilities, I believe that many customers don't actually require direct query functionality. 

Currently, the developers in my company are busy adding a column in the API as part of our transition to BC Start. Our intention is to gradually migrate our customers to SQL Server, and that's why we are using the app.

In a simplified manner, when working on-site, you cannot directly connect to the regular table without using APIs. That's why the APIs need to be modified to include an additional column, making it suitable for incremental refreshing. Apologies for any disruption caused, but I hope this explanation clarifies the situation.

They find Power BI's data pull mechanism to be sufficient and cost-effective, especially considering the stability it provides. In comparison with other solutions, Power BI stands out as a fantastic choice. Therefore, I would definitely recommend sticking with the Pro license.

I believe there is room for improvement in terms of authentication and certain functionalities in Power BI. For instance, adjusting the width of columns is not easily done, as there is only an option to enable or disable automatic adjustment. 

This can be a significant drawback for clients who desire more flexibility.

Additionally, changing styles and formatting options for numbers require external tools, which can be inconvenient and time-consuming. Ideally, Power BI should incorporate these features within its platform to enhance user experience and eliminate the need for external tools.

I understand your frustration with the lack of automation and dynamic features in Power BI, particularly regarding the assignment of dynamic titles and content titles. While there are some options available for creating dynamic titles, they may not fully meet your specific requirements. It would be ideal to have more flexibility in manually assigning the desired typography for each call and dynamically setting content titles. Although it is possible to find workarounds for these limitations, I believe Microsoft will likely address these issues in future updates to improve the user experience. Despite these shortcomings, Power BI remains a powerful and highly capable application, and I would rate it an eight out of ten.

I have a strong belief that within the next couple of years, or even sooner, significant advancements will be made in Power BI. These advancements will make it even more powerful and I am confident it will become truly exceptional. I have complete faith in the future development and potential of this platform.

I have been working with Microsoft BI since the start of 2020.

I am working with the latest version.

Microsoft BI is very stable.

Microsoft BI offers scalability, particularly with the availability of premium capacity. With premium capacity, whether it's per user or a dedicated resource, Microsoft BI can effectively handle increased data volumes and accommodate growing user needs. 

Microsoft BI offers scalability in specific areas, but it is important to note that scalability options are limited to certain aspects and may come at a higher cost. For instance, the premium package, which starts at around $5,000 or more, provides enhanced scalability features. However, if you opt for the per-user licensing model, the scalability may be constrained as it is tied to the number of licensed users. Therefore, in terms of scalability, the per-user option may have limitations compared to other packages.

I wrote to Chris Web, and he replied to me immediately. He is the principal program manager at Microsoft.

I have him I have him working And, usually, I don't contact them, only when it is something serious. top expert and experts, and they reply, you know, has been one for us. It's great

In my professional experience, I have primarily worked with AS (Analysis Services), Power BI, and SSIS (SQL Server Integration Services).

Last week, I worked on creating SSRS (SQL Server Reporting Services) reports and integrated them with SSAS (SQL Server Analysis Services). Additionally, I hold a Microsoft certification in this field.

The initial setup is straightforward. It is very easy to set up. it is very intuitive.

Perhaps it's because of my experience and expertise in the field that I approach things with caution. I don't take things for granted. Just because I obtain a certain result doesn't automatically mean it's correct, as there may be errors that are not displayed.

It's important to carefully check the measurements and ensure their accuracy, especially for beginners who may not be familiar with these nuances.

Maintaining the system is not difficult due to the availability of the admin platform. When it comes to permissions and access, it becomes straightforward as long as the customer's requirements are clear. 

You can easily define the level of access they need, whether it's building, reviewing, sharing, or restricting data access for online viewing. Depending on their specific needs, setting up gateways and configuring other settings is also simple. 

It's important to have a clear understanding of their security requirements and engage in discussions with the customer to determine the best approach. 

Often, customers may not be fully aware of what they want to achieve, and it's our job to help them identify their needs.

Especially for clients, it's important to understand that achieving the desired outcome is not as simple as just completing the task and generating the report.

There are several factors and considerations that come into play. Careful attention needs to be given to the creation process by different stakeholders if you truly want to achieve an exceptional result. 

Even small changes, such as removing certain elements from the selection or adjusting formatting, can have a significant impact on the report. Users may perceive the tool as being the same regardless of these details, but the difference between a subpar report and a high-quality one lies in the expertise and knowledge of the creator.

There are various options available for creating reports, particularly focusing on online reports. However, the foundation of the process lies in Power BI Desktop. Whatever we develop in Power BI Desktop can be published and accessed through a unified platform and tool. 

Data flows enable us to make necessary modifications, similar to working with Power Query and related functionalities. Personally, I find working with Power BI Desktop easier due to its comprehensive features and user-friendly interface.

You can gather data from various sources, including data flows, RBI databases, and SharePoint, among others, and then create and publish your report. While you do have the option to connect to online sources directly, I personally find that working with local data feels faster, at least for now.

Microsoft BI is considered to be competitively priced when compared to other similar solutions in the market.

I haven't had the opportunity to work with other tools as I found Power BI to be excellent. No one has specifically asked me to explore other tools.

However, I did purchase some tools on my own for personal learning purposes, particularly for tabular data. I may consider exploring other tools after June 15th, once I have completed my Microsoft exam DP-500 for Synapse.

Power BI is a complex tool that should not be taken for granted.

Its capabilities and functionalities are multi-layered, and the more you delve into it, the more you realize how much there is to learn. 

It can be both challenging and fun to explore the different features and unlock the full potential of Power BI.

As a BI developer, I joined the company without prior experience in BI. Since December 2021, I have been working on establishing a BI deployment in collaboration with a partner. My main focus is to create and enhance internal and external applications for app stores. Currently, my task primarily involves developing a new deployment strategy.

I would rate Microsoft BI an eight out of ten.

A client used Power BI mainly for banking reports. Another client was working in the field of laboratories, and they requested Power BI for the analysis of laboratory-related data for COVID-19. There were also some use cases where we used predictive analytics or utilized the power of Power BI services in the cloud.

It can be deployed on-premises and on the cloud.

It helps in automating the process of filling the data or refreshing the data to give you timely calculations for all the aspects of the dashboards that you have built. You can easily see all the real-time data with Power BI.

The good part of it is that you can do whatever you want with it when it comes to building BI. In terms of languages, it supports Python, and it also natively supports R.

You can integrate it with the cloud. On the desktop level, you just install the desktop installer, which is about a hundred megabytes or something like that, and it connects to the cloud. So, on the desktop, you can utilize the cloud power for AI and machine learning to help you with predictive analytics.

Most of the dashboarding tools have prebuilt graphs. So, you have to stick with them, unless you are going to use a third-party tool to create them, and then you are going to upload them to the BI tool. In Power BI, they started supporting this functionality and created a tool for that, but it isn't yet complete and mature. It is still exceeding the expectations and is better than most of the BI tools when it comes to creating custom graphs, but it needs more enhancement and simplification. It would be good to have a design tool provided by Power BI to design the graphs that we want and set the figures that we want on them.

I have been using this solution for six years.

It is stable. Solving dashboard issues on other products, such as Oracle, took us a lot of time, whereas solving issues in Power BI was so simple. The language they're using is also easy. In Power BI, you use the DAX language, which is derived from Excel. So, anyone who knows how to write Excel code would know how to deal with Power BI. It is going to be so simple.

The cloud version is scalable.

It is super easy to set up. I've been giving training on this to new employees, and they quickly learn how to work with the whole product. It doesn't take them more than one or two sessions.

The installation of Power BI Desktop on a computer takes a maximum of 10 minutes. You just have to install it on the computer, and that's it. Most of the services are over the cloud. When you do the subscription, you just connect or sign in with your company email address that has been registered, and that's it.

The on-premises version requires extra staff. It requires an engineer who knows how to implement AI algorithms and then connect them to the offline Power BI solution.

Power BI is subscription-based, and you have three options. The Pro edition, which is the standard one, is about $9 per user. The Premium edition, which provides AI and cloud capabilities but at a limited size, is for small to medium enterprises. It is about $20 per user. For large enterprises, such as manufacturing facilities, there is an option for the capacity. The capacity subscription is about $4,000 per capacity level.

They also have an option for the on-premises version, but it is not common to see someone going for the on-premises version. The on-premises version requires a specific license that is attached to SQL Server. I believe it is about $17,000, but I'm not sure about it.

It has an on-premises version as well as a cloud version. I usually recommend people to work with the cloud version. In the on-premises version, if they want it to go with the artificial intelligence part, they are going to require engineers to configure it, whereas it is already there in the cloud version. It is already configured and affordable. The cloud version costs between $9 to $20 per user, which makes it very affordable, and you also have the capacity option, which costs about $4,000 per month per capacity. The capacity option is usually for huge enterprises. Regular companies, even banks, can work efficiently with the cheapest option, which is $9 to $20 per user.

After working with Power BI, I would rate it an eight out of 10. There is huge competition in the market when it comes to BI tools, and there are fractional differences between Power BI and some of its competitors.

I would describe myself as more of a casual user, only because I have so many other things that I have to get done. I wish I could be more of a user, but it's hard. Right now, I have two different main use cases. I use it for teaching. At another institution, I use it for demonstrating how easy it is to build dashboards. It was really to show to all my users the benefit of business analytics. I use it to demonstrate how easy it is to generate your own analytics versus having a department run reports for you then putting it in Excel and making graphs. 

I like the fact that Power BI lets me use Excel data. At least 90% of my state data is in Excel spreadsheets. Having the ability to just attach a spreadsheet as a data source is very, very important. It's also good for training and teaching. Sometimes you don't always have access to a live production database, so having a spreadsheet with sample data is always nice.

The Microsoft BI interface should be simpler and more user-friendly. I find it very difficult to move between their data sources and their analytics section. It's probably designed by data analysts that typically get the data from somewhere else. So, one person logs into Power BI, moves the data around and puts it in the proper form then somebody else goes in from the dashboard. What I'm finding more and more is that the person playing with the data is also going to be the person building the dashboard, so the interface needs to be more seamless and dumbed down for the average user. 

Tableau is much better at that, which is probably why it's more expensive. The days where one person works on the data and someone else does the analytics are coming to an end. In the past, larger organizations usually had a dedicated analytics team and a dedicated data team. Now we buy data as a service, so we got rid of our data team and we don't have analysts per se. Instead, we have smart users. So I think Microsoft BI needs to move on to the next iteration of truly user-friendly solutions.

I've been using Microsoft BI for about three years.

Microsoft BI has never crashed on me.

I honestly can't comment on how scalable Microsoft BI is because I've never taken it beyond training or simple use. But I would imagine, if it's on Azure, that it's scalable. I haven't had the pleasure of scaling it, so I don't know, but it doesn't strike me as a solution that would have problems with scalability.

I have not had to contact technical support, but I've actually downloaded and taken three Power BI courses for free and they're very good.

I was using Tableau but the licensing cost went up when Salesforce required them to raise the price. But if the price hadn't changed, I would've absolutely stuck with Tableau because I like it. I do not know about the cost of the licenses. We buy it from the state and when it went up, our CIO at the time said no more Tableau licenses. I had to scramble to find a replacement, and fortunately, I discovered that Power BI is included in Microsoft 365. However, I prefer Tableau's interface. Microsoft BI's user interface is convoluted in terms of how you attach a data source. You have a separate screen for defining your data and then you have to jump to a different screen to model the results. In other words, there are two separate interfaces for data and analytics. In Tableau, it's more seamless. 

Setup is very easy. You click on the icon, download the MSI, and it loads itself. It takes about a couple of hours to deploy overall.

I'd rate Microsoft BI as an eight out of 10. The biggest drawback is the user interface. From what I'm seeing, Windows 11 is going to have a more user-friendly interface. Even Microsoft Edge is adopting a more user-friendly interface. I'm hoping that Power BI follows this trend as well. 

My advice for anyone who is thinking about adopting Microsoft BI is to understand what you're trying to do with it. If you're trying to do analytics with it, then it depends on the kind of analytics. If you're want to do statistical analytics, it's not the tool for you. It's a tool that's better suited for visual analytics than it is for straight-up analytics. If you're dealing with patterns and data, it's great. If you're working with numbers and data, it's not so good. You're better off with a statistical package.

I developed a product based on Power BI. I intensely use it. 

I also use it to generate reports and monthly management reports. It's connected to the production database with connectors. It's not so big data, but it's for medium-sized datasets.

It's easy to develop custom solutions. The DAX scripting solution of Power BI is easy to use and covers a lot of needs. 

It's user-friendly. It also has the capacity to connect to a variety of data sources without any other solution – especially within the Microsoft environment- which is very easy.

For us, it's difficult to manage business data and visualize and model it without Power BI or a similar tool. Although, I am more comfortable using Power BI than any other tool. Data modeling is one of the most important features of Power BI because you can model almost anything. For me, it is very helpful. 

I haven't personally faced challenges with Power BI, but it might be challenging when it comes to big data usage. I haven't had a real challenge yet - maybe it could become challenging due to a lack of information or skills to use Power BI at a more advanced level.

So, the product could be complex for inexperienced users. It's very complex and you need to keep up with the updates. Otherwise, you can miss a lot of nice features that can be useful in your daily work.

I'm looking for something that can make it much easier to incorporate Power BI visuals or dashboards into, let's say, Power Apps – custom Power Apps or anything like that. 

The most important thing would be to seamlessly embed reports in applications. For example, to have buttons that can be navigated through multiple solutions – from Power Apps to Power BI to SharePoint – via links or something like that. 

If this transition is more natural (so users don't notice they're moving between solutions), it will be very helpful in developing complex solutions without sophisticated workarounds or lots of code. 

Staying within the low-code area, there's a lot of potential for interesting things. This is my main focus – developing low-code solutions that integrate with Power BI.

I work with Microsoft's entire suite of products. 

I have been using Power BI for more than five years. 

I haven't had major issues because my usage is at a medium level, not a high level. I haven't personally interacted with Microsoft support. But, there seems to be a lot of information and people using this solution, and it's easy to escalate problems within your company. You can learn a lot of things quickly using resources like ChatGPT or Microsoft's own solutions, which are very helpful within the Microsoft ecosystem.

I used MicroStrategy. It's very nice, and similar, but a bit more difficult to connect to other systems. You need more technical skills. With Power BI, those connections are easier. I am not obliged to learn a lot of technical aspects.

For me, Power BI is a very good option. If you're in the Microsoft ecosystem, working with people who use Microsoft solutions, Power BI makes sense. It might be a bit more difficult if you're in a different ecosystem – companies tend to promote their own technologies for upsells and cross-sells. It's a sales thing.

Price is the best feature of Power BI! You get a lot of value for the price. If you know how to use it, it's a great BI solution for your money. 

A complete solution license is no more than fifty euros per month – that's not expensive at all. Even thirty euros per month is enough to have Power BI, Power Apps, SharePoint solutions, and things like that. Very, very cheap.

Overall, I would rate the solution a nine out of ten.

I would definitely recommend using this solution. Power BI offers very good value for money. You do need some skills, but not necessarily deep technical ones. 

It's more important to understand the business context and how to design effective reports in order to put Power BI and connected solutions from the Power Platform to best use. 

My view is that we often overemphasize the technology and miss the true asset: the value that Power BI and the others bring to the business.

Microsoft BI's initial setup is very straightforward.

The solution's documentation needs improvement. It is always a challenge to connect any data that Microsoft needs to read. I'm not able to find out. The solution's visuals and themes are really poor and should be improved.

I have been using Microsoft BI for around one or two years.

The performance of Microsoft BI is very poor because whenever the reports are published, data never comes in the first place when the site is open. It takes a long time to load, and the access level restriction is not as easy as it is in Tableau.

More than 5,000 people are using Microsoft BI in our organization.

I previously used the Tableau solution.

Microsoft BI's deployment takes hardly 10 to 15 minutes or less than that. I had to just download and install the solution, as it was a desktop version.

Overall, I rate Microsoft BI a six out of ten.

Currently, it is used in our financial reporting and financial consideration reports.

It is stable.

It has good functionality and is fully integrated with Microsoft products. If you have already a direct connection or direct integration with Microsoft products, it is very good actually. In some cases, we just developed our BI dashboard and sent it to PowerPoint, for example. It'll be published as the power BI format, which is very good as a feature, to have that capability to just easily populate everything in PowerPoint.

Like all Microsoft products, it is very easy to set up initially.

It's pretty user-friendly.

The product can scale.

Our main concern with Power BI is it doesn't have a connection with the finance application. Power BI is used to present some financial data. However, if there is no direct connection or a ready API to be connected either to Oracle ERP or SAP or a different ERP, it won't be very useful. We need more integration capabilities. 

We've been using the solution for five years. 

The stability is good. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable. 

The scalability has been great. If a company needs to expand it, it can.

In my organization, there are about 10 to 20 users. The majority have shifted to Qlick.

I haven't contacted technical support in the past. The product has been so stable we haven't needed assistance. 

We have multiple BI tools. We previously worked with Oracle BI. Our expectations were not met, and therefore we moved over to Microsoft BI.

In my sector, currently, we are using Qlik Sense. We started using it one year ago.

We are shifting from Microsoft to Qlik due to the fact that we have Oracle ERP as a back end. We are trying to find a technology or BI, which already has a direct connection with this ERP. We went into Qlik Sense for that reason.

The initial setup is straightforward, actually. It is like any other Microsoft product. All of Microsoft's products are straightforward. It isn't complicated. This is one of the main benefits.

I'm not sure how long the deployment process was. I can't speak to how big the technical team was that handled the rollout.

We pay an annual licensing fee. 

I would recommend the solution if they already have a Microsoft ERP system. If they have already Microsoft and they have already their financial system in place and if they don't have data movement, Power BI will be very powerful. If a company has different financial systems, they have to track all these data points first, build the business model and then import it to Power BI. 

I'd rate the solution at an eight out of ten.

My primary use case of Power BI is to generate dashboards and reports based on past data. Especially for people who aren't engineers, like purely business people, Power BI is helpful because it allows them to analyze and assess their complete business solutions end to end. Power BI provides insights that can help company growth, in terms of revenue and ROI. This solution is cloud-based. 

The most valuable feature is that it's easy to use. It's very useful for non-engineers and it is the ultimate solution for providing information and insights. Power BI is the best visualization tool I have ever worked with. 

This solution's performance when handling big data could be improved. Right now, if you're handling big data, the application becomes slow and the performance is very low. 

Other than that, their licensing costs could be lowered. Microsoft handles everything. For example, if I want to publish a report order from Powerpay, Microsoft doesn't allow me to do this. It's a complete business, but the licensing is very costly. I don't think Microsoft will change their pricing system, though. 

I have been using Power BI for the past five years. 

Power BI can handle a maximum of one to four gigabytes of data, but the performance becomes very slow if you handle big data. Since this solution is cloud-based, it's always updated to the latest version. 

The development is very easy because it depends on each computer. Power BI is a desktop solution that you install on your computer. Once I complete my development, I publish through the internet, which the external users are using. The number of users doesn't matter. 

There is a Power BI community, which I'm very happy about. They're there for anything and they're very helpful. In the past, Microsoft has helped us with infrastructure problems. 

In the past, I worked with other Python data visualization tools like Dash and Panel. Compared to those tools, Power BI is very easy.  

The installation is very straightforward. I did it myself and it took barely ten minutes. 

I implemented this solution myself. 

You don't need a license for the development, but if you want to publish to external users, you need a license. The licensing is very costly, but I think that since the advantages and benefits of Power BI are so high, people are willing to pay. I can't blame them. 

Another visualization tool I've heard of is Splunk, which helps to handle and visualize huge amounts of data. In the future, if Power BI is unable to handle this sort of streaming data, I may consider switching to Splunk. When I extract huge amounts of data with Denodo, Power BI becomes very slow—for example, it takes more time for the display to load. Right now, Power BI can handle a maximum of around one to four gigabytes, whereas Splunk can handle very large amounts of data. 

I rate Power BI an eight out of ten. I recommend this solution because it's the best visualization tool I have ever worked with, but the licensing is costly. 

We use Microsoft BI all over our enterprise but our main use is for the organizational dashboard. My organization sends all of our systems and ERP data into a Power BI dashboard, which goes to all the managers, the leadership, and then gets reported up to the company executives.

Microsoft BI has helped out the organization because it has brought visibility of our data across the organization allowing everyone to see the same metrics.

My favorite feature is the power query editor, where it can do the data transformations.

Microsoft BI could improve by having better collaboration between developers working on the same dashboard. The developer platform is all done on a single laptop and it's difficult to have the same project files work. Two developers have to go back and forth. You have to have the project file on one developer's laptop making it difficult to co-develop.

In terms of the performance, it could always improve sometimes. It's only slow to update. The automated data feeds have to be all updated.

I have been using Microsoft BI for two years.

The stability of Microsoft BI is very good. We have not had an issue.

Microsoft BI has scaled very well for us. We have a very large organization with users all across the company.

We have approximately 100 users using this solution. It's a standard program for analysts and even managers will use it. It is a standard business analyst software. 

The solution is extensively being used in our organization.

I have not contacted Mircosoft for technical support. I only use our internal support.

We previously used SAS and it is similar to Microsoft BI. It's a little different in the visualization. It was more on analytics, but it also had the visualization.

We had SAS Enterprise Guide which was on-premise. When they were looking at cloud solutions, they kind of opened it up for more possibilities. The deciding factors of why we switched to Microsoft BI was we already had many Microsoft products and we have a SQL Server Data Warehouse. There's good integration between our existing Microsoft systems with Microsoft BI.

I was part of the initial user testing of Microsoft BI, but it was mostly IT that handled all the initial implementation.

We have a dedicated IT team of two administrators that support Microsoft BI. One of the administrator's full-time job is to manage the Microsoft BI.

My advice to those wanting to implement this solution is to do some training. There is enough training curriculum available to get people going.

I rate Microsoft BI a nine out of ten.