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Microsoft Power BI

By Cameron Hashemi-Pour

What is Microsoft Power BI?

Microsoft Power BI is a business intelligence (BI) platform that provides nontechnical business users with tools for aggregating, analyzing, visualizing and sharing data. Power BI's user interface is fairly intuitive for users familiar with Excel, and its deep integration with other Microsoft products makes it a versatile self-service tool that requires little upfront training.

Users can download Power BI for Windows 10 or Windows 11, called Power BI Desktop, and native mobile apps for Windows, Android and Apple iOS devices. There is also Power BI Report Server for companies that must maintain their data and reports on premises. That version of Power BI requires a special version of the desktop app -- aptly called Power BI Desktop for Power BI Report Server.

Why is Microsoft Power BI popular?

A few factors make Power BI stand out as an option for businesses requiring BI capabilities. Power BI provides compelling and customizable visuals and requires little in the way of prior analytics or software experience. Many, if not all departments in an organization can use its capabilities, which include these popular ones:

What is Power BI used for?

Microsoft Power BI is used to find insights within an organization's data. It can help connect disparate data sets, transform and clean the data into a data model and create charts or graphs to provide visuals of the data. All of this can be shared with other Power BI users within the organization.

Data models created from Power BI can be used in several ways, including the following:

Power BI also provides executive dashboards for administrators and managers, giving management more insight into how departments are doing.

Who uses Power BI?

Power BI is a self-service BI tool that brings data analytics to employees. However, it's mostly data analysts and BI professionals who use it to create the data models before disseminating reports throughout the organization. However, those without an analytical background can still navigate Power BI and create reports.

Both department staff members and management use Power BI to create reports and forecasts to aid sales and marketing reps. They also use it to provide data for management on how a department or individual employees are progressing toward their goals.

In addition, Power BI offers an administrative portal for administrators to configure the implementation of the tool. They can also use the portal to monitor use and manage licenses.

What are the advantages of Power BI?

Multiple advantages make Power BI an attractive option for businesses looking to explore their data through BI visualizations, patterns and insights. These include the following:

What are the disadvantages of Power BI?

While the benefits of the platform appear enticing, there are nonetheless caveats for business users to be aware of, as there are no perfect BI tools in existence yet. They include the following:

What are key features of Power BI?

Microsoft has added several data analytics features to Power BI since its inception and continues to do so. Some of the most important features include the following:

Microsoft Power BI update timeline

Power BI initially began as a Microsoft project under a different name and later released as its own platform offering. Significant developments have occurred since its inception. A full timeline includes the following developments:

Microsoft regularly updates the Power BI application with new features and improvements. To get updates, users can download the latest edition from the Power BI site; Microsoft Windows 10 and Windows 11 users can get Power BI Desktop from the Windows Store.

Power BI components

Microsoft Power BI connects data sources and provides BI reports and dashboards to users. It can connect with just an Excel spreadsheet or bring together cloud-based and on-premises data warehouses. Data pulled from cloud-based sources, such as Salesforce CRM, is automatically refreshed.

With applications such as an Excel workbook and Power BI Desktop file connected to online or on-premises data sources, Power BI users must manually refresh or set up a refresh schedule to ensure Power BI reports and dashboards use the most current data available.

Power BI consists of a collection of apps and can be used on a desktop, as a software as a service (SaaS) product or on a mobile device. Power BI Desktop is the on-premises version, Power BI service is the cloud-based SaaS offering and mobile Power BI runs on mobile devices.

The following are among the different Power BI components that let users create and share business insights in ways that fit their roles:

There are dozens of data sources that connect into Power BI. These include the following:

How to use Power BI

Power BI Desktop is where analysts and other users can create data connections, data models and reports. The Power BI service is where those reports can be shared, so other users can view and interact with them.

To build a Power BI report, users must take the following steps:

  1. Connect their data sources.
  2. Query the data to create reports based on user needs.
  3. Publish the report to the Power BI service.
  4. Share the report, so cloud and mobile users can see and interact with it.
  5. Add permissions to give or limit colleagues' ability to edit reports and create dashboards.

How much does Power BI cost?

There are three levels of Power BI for users: Power BI Desktop, Power BI Pro and Power BI Premium. The desktop version is free, while the Pro model costs $9.99 per user, per month.

Pricing for Premium depends on the size of the deployment and the number of users. It's split into two tiers: per user and per capacity. The Premium per user tier starts at $20 per user, per month, and the Premium per capacity tier starts at $4,995 per capacity, per month and provides access to Microsoft Fabric, an AI-powered analytics and data management platform.

Power BI vs. Excel

Excel and Power BI are both used to map out data sets and points. However, the two platforms have different uses and levels of in-depth functionality. Both are Microsoft software products that enable visualization and exploration of raw data. Both also enable the creation of reports and interactive dashboards. Power BI, however, is meant to provide more in-depth dashboards and analytics that provide business value and insight from an organization's data. Excel is focused on simpler use cases.

Power BI's visuals and reports are detailed enough to drive actionable insights. The platform analyzes relationships among data points and identifies patterns that drive businesses to act based on these findings. However, businesses still value Excel for its simplicity and other advantages, such as calculating numerical values faster than Power BI.

Power BI use case examples

There are a wide variety of uses for Power BI across different industries. The platform's ability to synthesize data from various sources makes it useful for analyzing and reporting data that's culled using an array of tools and methods. Some of the ways different industry sectors use Power BI to their advantage include the following:

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12 Mar 2024

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