2022-12-30T07:30:00Z

Is Microsoft Power BI good for an ETL process?

Hi Peers, 

I am a Lead Information Technologist at a large tech services company. I am working on a project to compare BI tools such as OBIEE, Tableau, and Power BI. 

Is Microsoft Power BI good for an ETL process? 

Thank you for your help.

BO LU - PeerSpot reviewer
Lead Information Technologist at MITRE Corporation
  • 4
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4
PeerSpot user
4 Answers
PM
Financial Systems Advisor - US Controller Group at McDonald's
Real User
2023-02-14T16:00:36Z
Feb 14, 2023

As a user of multiple BI ETL and visualization tools, each has a place in the BI landscape. Power BI with Power Automate can offer a powerful ETL and visualization process depending on your ability to model your data and understand ETL activities. OBIEE is a large self contained environment that can build extensive and complex subject areas on which to build reports and dashboard. OBIEE report and dashboard development is much more difficult and involved than either Power BI or Tableau.  Tableau has more traditional ETL capabilities than Power BI but significantly less visualization capabilities than Power BI. Another alternative is Alteryx. It also has less visualization than Power BI  but is easier to master than Tableau.

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Ronald Chavez - PeerSpot reviewer
Cloud Services
User
Top 5
2023-01-27T22:38:08Z
Jan 27, 2023

I have trained end users on both Power BI and Tableau, but more with Power BI.


The question is will they use it?

A) End users (they use excel) or


B) Data analysts


Power BI is friendlier and easier for end users.


The price is more comfortable.

AS
Senior Manager at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
Reseller
Top 5
2023-01-02T18:39:37Z
Jan 2, 2023

Microsoft Power BI requires an independent data source in order to model inputs for display and analytics.  MS Power BI outputs are typically "flat files" that potentially could be imported into another analytical tool, but one has to question why? ETL tools are only required to map or translate data from an original data source (i.e. existing ERP systems) to enable that data to be read by other specialised analytical FPM tools, covering uses such as Financial Consolidation, Planning, or Forecasting solutions. Most frequently, ERP source data is held in relational table-based sources (e.g. SQL or SAP) whereas many of the "best" and/or proprietary analytical solutions (such as Board) make use of data cubes for their "guided data analysis" and graphical presentations, along with "drills" to source documents and/or data inputs. Most BI solutions along with virtually all modern financial reporting tools do have in-built ETL tools (or pre-built ERP connectors) to the common ERP solutions, without any need for third-party applications. Java scripting enables remaining, less common, data sources to be included within "best of breed" reporting applications, i.e. Fluence Technologies.

SK
Group DWH and BI Senior Manager at Virgin Mobile Middle East and Africa
Real User
Leaderboard
2023-01-02T12:00:23Z
Jan 2, 2023

Definitely not. Power BI is mainly used for enterprise BI platforms and it's an efficient self-service tool. On the other hand, Qlik BI supports ETL to a large extent.

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The two are similar, it is cars but of different brands; I ask 1-) the users use Windows 2-) you have Office 365 3-) They will use Excel for the data. If you answer yes to the 3, better BI due to integration, and learning is easier for the user. If they are non-Microsoft databases, investigate on the provider's side, for example, SAP, IBM, etc. I have trained end users in Power BI. I know that Power BI has the majority of connectors. I hope my comment is helpful. Regards
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This market comparison chart....https://www.gartner.com/doc/re...;ct=230130&st=sb
RV
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Hello peers,   I am looking into extracting reports, dashboards, and data from Oracle Fusion into Power BI. It is easy to do? What is the best practice for this? Thank you for your help.
2 out of 3 answers
PM
Financial Systems Advisor - US Controller Group at McDonald's
Apr 19, 2023
Hi Ross, Easy is a tricky description...We are going through this effort too. We are 'grappling' with the governance of this type of access as well as the technical journey. So you are not alone. Fusion Middleware applications include a number of connectivity options including native client or Oracle Data Access Components (ODAC), with OLEDB, JDBC, etc., on top. Each has its own quirks. This is the 'plumbing' between the analytic tool and source. Adding to that is the cloud and database level security of the data source.  A good way to start is to use Oracle's SQL Developer to connect to your data source. It gives developers a great query tool for Oracle and other databases. (https://www.oracle.com/databas...) Once you understand what you can access, you can easily migrate that connectivity to Power BI. Moreover, you will have validated queries that you can test directly or simply bring in the tables using the PBI Navigator.
DM
Technical Marketing Specialist at Guidanz Inc
Apr 20, 2023
Hi Ross,Good news! The BI Connector, a Power BI-certified connector is created exactly for this purpose!With BI Connector, it's possible to extract your Oracle Fusion data directly to Power BI. Please check it out below:https://www.biconnector.com/po...The connector works seamlessly with both Power BI Desktop and Service (or Report Server) and supports Import and Direct Query modes. It also retains the underlying table joins in the Oracle Fusion Cloud, so you don't have to recreate them from scratch in Power BI.Thanks,Dinesh
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