Microsoft Power BI Reviews

We utilize Microsoft BI for conducting comprehensive analytics by comparing data from the current year with the preceding year to identify patterns and variations. This software aids us in performing overall data analysis.

The solution can be deployed on the cloud and on-premise.

Microsoft BI has proven beneficial for my organization as it simplifies the presentation of complex data that was previously challenging to comprehend through other means. Specifically, Power BI allows for graphical representation that significantly enhances data understanding compared to raw tables.

The most valuable features of Microsoft BI are its intuitiveness and ease to use.

Microsoft BI lacks some of the scheme features. It would be beneficial if there were a way to show how we move values in a different way.

I have been using Microsoft BI for approximately three years.

I rate the stability of Microsoft BI an eight out of ten.

I have plans to use the solution more in the future.

I rate the scalability of Microsoft BI an eight out of ten.

The initial setup of Microsoft BI is simple.

We have received a return on investment using Microsoft BI.

The price of the license can be better. 

I rate Microsoft BI an eight out of ten.

The use case for power BI is to generate dashboards for high-end management and operational dashboards.

Microsoft BI, if used properly, can provide insights that will help management to take better decisions and can benefit from cost optimizations, reduce risks, etc.

What I like about Power BI is how fast you are able to create dashboards and how fast you are able to fetch the data. You can connect to the database or data source, and then you can design your dashboards very easily.

The best thing about Power BI is that you can manipulate the data within Power BI, so you don't have to update the data source to have filtration or conditional formatting. You can easily do those things under Power BI.

It is easy and has rapid development.

It is stable and scalable as well.

There is an issue with Microsoft because the on-premises Power BI is behind the cloud Power BI. So, the on-premises Power BI is six months or one year behind the cloud version because Microsoft published the cloud features first, and then they published the on-premises version. This has been an issue. They should be on the same level of capability.

There are some limitations in Power BI; you have to work in the Power BI base. However, if you want something not out-of-the-box and you want something custom, you have to do a lot of work. Microsoft can provide some easy way to customize the dashboards.

I've been using this solution for two to three years.

It is stable, but there is an issue with Microsoft because the on-premises Power BI is behind the cloud Power BI. The features of on-premises Power BI are six months or one year behind the cloud version. They are not on the same level of capability.

The scalability of Power BI is quite good.

Microsoft technical support could be more knowledgeable.

We switched to Power BI because it is easy, and there is rapid development.

Installation is easy and took about half an hour.

It requires a little bit of effort, and we needed the help of a consultant.

Power BI comes with enterprise Microsoft licensing. So for the user, you don't have to pay, but you do have to pay a one-time cost.

If you want to use Power BI, you should go for the cloud version. Don't use the on-premises version because the cloud version has a lot of features which the on-premises version doesn't have.

Also, if you are going to use Power BI, you should know what all your capabilities are. Otherwise, if you try to do some things such as develop a dashboard which is not supported by Power BI, it will be a showstopper for you.

I would rate this solution at eight on a scale from one to ten.

Enterprise reporting and digitization of dashboards using Microsoft Power BI, SSRS and Azure Reporting DB by integrating several applications to establish single version of truth.

Microsoft BI stack is very easy to use and most of the developer versions are free such as Power BI, DAX, SQL Server Development Edition. This helped us quick prototyping to generate value of data resting in silos. 

What I like most is that I can do everything in Power BI that I can do in Excel. It is very compatible with Excel tools, and anybody who works with Excel can learn and use Power BI quickly. 

Writing formulas and data transformation are good features.

The only challenge I have found is that they do not have a Mac version of Power BI. They should have versions for both Apple and Unix because you cannot install the desktop version for these operating systems.

In the future, I would like to see them add more AI and machine learning features, as well as self-service analytics.

You can use R and Python, but it would be helpful if they had some no-code machine learning options that you find in other tools.

The UI/UX can be improved. Products such as Tableau and QlikView are very good in terms of the user interface.

I have been using Microsoft BI for five years, on and off.

I have not found any issues with respect to stability. Microsoft has invested a lot and they are continuing to invest in Power BI.

Given that there is a server version for services that can be used to implement and roll out reports at the organizational level, it's scalable.

In my current organization, I am training 15 people on how to use it and I am looking to expand to 50 users.

Microsoft support is quick. We also have a dedicated partner for support, and they are good.

Positive

Prior to incorporate Power BI in the stack, we were using Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services(SSRS) only. They do not have any visualization interface, but you can do static reporting. This is the reason that we are switching. Probably, we will use SSRS and Azure SQL at the backend, but there won't be used as the visualization tool.

For visualization, we used to use Excel. Which not reliable. 

The installation is easy. The download takes perhaps five minutes, depending on the bandwidth. Overall, it can be downloaded and installed within half an hour and no training is required.

The desktop version is used for development and the cloud version is used to submit a report. Essentially, it is Power BI Desktop and Power BI Services. The desktop version is what is on-premises.

You can deploy yourself but of course, in an office, you require an administrator.

The cost of this product is very low, at approximately $8 or $9 per month for a developer. It is the cheapest of all of the visualization tools. They have a 30-day trial available for you to try it.

For personal use, this product is free to use.

Tableau is a little bit expensive, although it is good if they want a very sophisticated solution. Both Tableau and QlikView are a little better in terms of the user interface.

You need a technical team to operate the solution. You need people for the administration of the data connection and data integration. They should be skilled in SQL, data management, and so forth. Typically, these are data engineers.

We plan to continue using Microsoft BI. We are onboarding and implementing organization-wide for our long-term strategy, and the entire organization will be using Power BI.

My advice for anybody who is considering this product is that it is easy to learn, especially for somebody who is good at Excel. Other tools are easy to use as well but if you are a Windows user then Power BI is a good option.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

In my project, I have an integration with Microsoft Power BI: I bring the lock from Azure Monitor to Microsoft Power BI, then create a dashboard from there. In the morning, we have a screenshot of the dashboard, and it can show you if there's a failure or not, based on the locking, so I combine the data which we get from the on-premises system, Azure Monitor, and other tools.

What I find most valuable in Microsoft Power BI is that it gives users detailed error messages. The lock I bring from Azure Monitor into Microsoft Power BI shows us detailed error messages which is helpful, and this is something you can't get from Azure Monitor, unless you do a custom query.

With Microsoft Power BI, I just need to put everything into a table, so people can filter the data, then they can see the error messages which they find useful. In the morning, if we see some failure in our solution, we can go to the "Detail" tab to see detailed error messages.

Microsoft Power BI can be confusing, because it has two languages that you need to learn if you want to use it. This is its area for improvement. First, you have to learn DAX (data analysis expressions), then you also have to learn Power Query M. You need to learn two languages simultaneously. If they can combine and make it just one language, it will be easier for nontechnical users.

We've dealt with Microsoft Power BI for six months.

Microsoft Power BI is very stable, and it's a nine out of ten for me.

I'm rating the scalability of Microsoft Power BI a nine out of ten. Its scalability is really good, because Microsoft has put in a lot of effort. They have a lot of connectors that let us bring in a lot of data, and even if we don't have enough data, we can use HTTP and REST API code to get data, so that's good.

The way Microsoft Power BI is used, particularly its Cleaner tool, should be improved. I just started using the solution and I use the PowerBI Cleaner with all the BI tools, and we need to have a dedicated data warehouse for that. PowerBI Cleaner would just be plugged directly to the data, and that's not good when you use your analytics solution, plugging it directly to the online transaction database.

We should have an OLAP (online analytical processing) software that's dedicated only for that solution, but we don't do that yet. If we have time, we should do that, but the PowerBI Cleaner would just stop at that stage, because it serves it purpose, e.g. it serves us what we need.

We use this solution for all of our self-service analytics. 

We have the analysis services on-prem and Power BI Pro in the cloud. We are using the latest version of Microsoft BI.

It's the analytic engine in terms of the interface on the Power BI environment, as opposed to pivot tables, and it's a mobile solution.

They have a new update every month. It seems to be pretty dynamic in terms of improvement every year.

Right now, their premium pricing is keeping us out of the premium market. The premium price per user just doesn't make sense for us, but we haven't reached the limit of 500 users to justify the premium.

The stability is good.

We could scale up to premium or Azure. We're fine.

I haven't really used it other than going on their documentation and seeing posts. I have never had to call for technical support.

The initial setup was straightforward. I would rate it a 5 out of 5. 

Deployment was completed in-house.

I would rate them 4 out of 5 for their current pricing. There are no additional costs to the standard licensing fees.

I would rate this solution 9 out of 10. 

They're a market leader. They're the best in class, so I would definitely use them over any analytic tool.

We are using Power BI for reporting.

It is very good, and it supports the Microsoft ecosystem, including Excel, etc.

We have been using it only for a couple of months, and we are at the beginning of our learning. The area of improvement is difficult to say. The handling of the workspaces can be made more granular for user access rights. It can be managed a little bit better in terms of the connection to Active Directory so that we have more granular access rights. I am not sure if this is really possible or if we can solve it differently, but we need a lot of workspaces, and we are not sure how we can deal with it from the access rights perspective.

I have been using this solution for a couple of months.

It is stable.

We are not sure because we currently have a simple installation on the PC, but the idea is to scale it via Office 365 cloud implementation.

It seems suitable for small, medium, and large enterprises. It should be able to scale up. Based on the marketing slides, it should be able to handle all kinds of enterprises.

We have not had any problems, so we had no requirement to use technical support. 

It is quite easy. You just need to install a program and use the connectors and drivers, and that's it. 

I did it myself.

We are end-users, and we don't take care of the prices and accounting. We get a product and pay the fee to our internal service provider, but its price should be reasonable. Otherwise, they wouldn't have bought it.

We are not very experienced in it. So, I don't know if I can recommend it, but we are using it because it is very good.

I would rate it an eight out of 10.

The solution is very powerful and very flexible. 

It is very easy to set up and you can connect it to multiple systems very easily.

They keep on upgrading, performance-wise. 

Power BI is very fast; they have improved Power BI a lot in general over time. YOu can see the difference. 

The stability is great and continues to get better and better.

The pricing is pretty good.

They should provide some kind of extra visual. There are a lot of third-party companies that provide these visuals, however, it would be better if, instead of relying on a third party, they could have their own. We should have by default in the package itself, some good visuals.

Technical support could be a bit better.

The performance could be enhanced in the sense that there is a limitation of the volume of data that it can hold. 

While they have some different options out there, they did not improve anything when you connect to any dataset, when you have to import. You need to connect online, meaning live.  

You cannot create so many things on the Power BI side, such as adding a new column, which is not possible in your live reporting, direct query option. In contrast, with the import method, you can do so many things. They need to improve on the direct query option side.

The product is stable. I have seen a lot of improvements in the stability of their application lately. If you compare what's available now to the last three to four years back, you can see it's more stable.

It's scalable and it scales quickly. Nowadays, being on the cloud, expanding is very easy.

While support is okay, they need to improve it a lot. Of course, they're improving as we speak, yet, I would say, if you can ask me the ratings, I would still say it's still rather low and good - not great.

I'm also familiar with SAP, which doesn't scale as well. SAP also is much more expensive. SAP is a big product, whereas Microsoft BI is much smaller. They only overlap in terms of the analytics cloud and the SAP goes above and beyond and offers many, many more things. 

The pricing is fair. They give you many options by splitting up the licensing. They have multiple types of licenses out there based on your usage. You can increase your pricing if you use it a bit more, however, it's still quite reasonable as compared to SAP. 

We are a customer and end-user. We are not a Microsoft (or SAP) partner.

I would rate the solution at a seven out of ten.

Power BI is used internally to track indicators like KPI, sales, and a bunch of other essential metrics for our company's strategic planning. Power BI creates reports and compiles data coming from various sources, and we create dashboards for managers and executives to monitor these indicators.

There is also an external use case. We also have a team that provides BI as a service. Let's say your company collects all your data manually in Excel sheets and creates reports. We get rid of the Excel files and automate everything using Power BI to create dashboards and reports.

Microsoft has made a lot of progress with Power BI in the past couple of years, but there is still some room for improvement. For example, Integration is one area they could work on. They are adding more integration with other Microsoft tools, but I would like it if they sped up the process.

We've been a Microsoft partner for 12 years.

Microsoft Bi is stable. 

Microsoft BI is scalable. 

Power BI has strong support from Microsoft. If you need help, they answer promptly. There are also several discussion groups where you can get information, like the product roadmap and any new things coming up. 

Everything is in the cloud, so you don't do anything. You only need to download a client, and that's it. If you have to create an embedded solution, it only takes five minutes.

The entire deployment takes a couple of hours, but you don't need a specialist to deploy it. Obviously, you need someone who understands the technology and how to follow instructions, but it's pretty straightforward stuff.

Power BI's price is good relative to its competitors. It has more than 400 or 500 different connectors. A lower price would always be welcome. The price is fine, but the licensing is complicated. Quantum mechanics is easier to understand than Microsoft licensing.

I rate Microsoft BI nine out of 10. If you are thinking about using Microsoft BI, go for it. Microsoft BI is worth it. It's one of the products Microsoft got right from the beginning. It's perfect.