Microsoft Power BI Reviews

We have many projects in the company. Some of them are self-service where they can connect on their own to local on-premises databases. Some of them are with big databases on the cloud, such as Azure SQL or Azure Synapse, and some of them are with local sources, such as Excel files, etc.

It is really flexible. The charts and reports are really nice. You have the flexibility of self-service.

It is not yet ready for enterprises. For a big enterprise data model, it is not so stable, and it also doesn't scale so well.

I am not really satisfied with their support. Their support should be faster. They should also be more knowledgeable.

I have been using this solution for two and a half years.

It depends. It is not really for enterprises. Even though Microsoft is trying, it isn't yet ready for enterprise use. For self-service, it is pretty fine. If you don't have a huge data set, it is quite stable.

If you try to have a big enterprise data model, it doesn't scale so well. You wouldn't get results similar to some of the other on-premises tools.

In terms of its users, I don't know the exact number, but we have about 10,000  to 20,000 users. Its usage is increasing.

I have contacted them a lot of times. I am not really satisfied with their support. Lately, it has become even worse. They are probably overloaded, and it takes really long. Many times, they just say, "That's how it works." In reality, it is a bug.

Many times, their first-level support doesn't understand what the problem is, and they don't reach out to the proper people to get into the issue. It is not really good.

We have been using different tools, such as QlikView, on-premises OBIEE, Tableau, Excel, etc. We are trying to migrate almost everyone to Power BI. So, eventually, we will have only Power BI. Its usage is growing.

It is really easy. It is mostly automated. You simply publish the dataset. 

It doesn't take too long. It takes about 5 to 10 minutes.

I'm a part of the team that manages all the projects that are done with Power BI within the company. We guide them and help them with the development and all the architecture.

The number of people required depends on the size of the project. For one of the big projects we have, there are a couple of developers. There is one person for the management of Power BI. We also have 10 to 12 people doing the reports, etc.

We have premium licenses, but you can use it for free. You can share the content with anyone else, so you can use it for free.

I would recommend it, but if you want to use it enterprise-wide, you need to be really careful because you might face problems. In general, it's really a great tool. For self-service, it is more than okay, but when you try to use it enterprise-wide, it doesn't really work well.

Overall, I would rate it a seven out of 10.

We are power industry consultants and we collect line operation data from power plants, preprocess it and then put it into some visualization software such as Tabula or Power BI. We then generate a regular test report for our customers who are power plant operators. 

It provides good visibility to the customer. They can see everything that's going on in a logical and user-friendly way. 

If you create too many pages, things can get heavy and slow down significantly. Once you create the dashboard, the data is updated at certain time intervals. I'd like to see more flexibility around those time options. It's difficult to easily share the dashboard with people outside the organization. 

I've used this solution for two years. 

The Microsoft support is not very good. When issues arise, I use Google or the user discussion boards. 

Neutral

The initial setup is straightforward, it's just a matter of downloading the software from Microsoft and installing it. 

The solution is very affordable. 

The big difference between Tableau and Microsoft BI is the price tag which is much higher for Tableau. Tableau also provides a server for web publishing. It means you can easily share the visualization with people outside your company. In that sense, Power BI is more difficult. I also think Tableau may be more secure. 

I would recommend this solution if you're a smaller organization. If you have massive data, like a corporation, then Tableau is probably the product to use. 
I rate this solution six out of 10. 

I've mainly worked within the banking sector. It is particularly useful for vertical clients. Power BI is a great tool for reporting. You can source data from any database, like Oracle or Microsoft SQL. It generates reports and provides methods to control your report's power.

Power BI works with both real-time and offline data. When interacting with real-time data across multiple systems, it offers a great advantage.

I've worked with real-time interactions and appreciate them, similar to how AI is increasingly being incorporated. It's fascinating to see the shift towards AI.

Using middleware technology, like web services, allows Power BI to interact with multiple systems efficiently. This request and response mechanism ensures data is transmitted from the source to the target system in real-time, which significantly benefits business operations by providing up-to-date information.

Moreover, integration capabilities were smooth. I worked on integrating Power BI with PeopleSoft, focusing on custom solutions rather than out-of-the-box features, tailoring the experience to specific needs.

Power BI is very user-friendly and easy to learn. I've even uploaded instructional videos on YouTube, which have helped many users, including some who have become long-term administrators of Power BI.

Reporting is the best thing about Power BI. And it could help improve decision-making in many ways.

Power BI is flexible and easier to use compared to tools like Crystal Reports.

It should integrate with multiple enterprise applications. For instance, integrating CRM (Customer Relationship Management) and HCM (Human Capital Management) with Power BI can be a significant advantage.

Because, organizations focus on and like software that can do multiple tasks.

The user interface is good but it should have the ability to interact with multiple systems.

I would like to see more AI capabilities in future releases. There's a strong interest in AI, including technologies like GPT, which facilitate real-time interactions.

It's all about real-time interaction between customers and the system, automated to operate under specific scenarios. This ensures it functions in real-time, leveraging AI for more dynamic engagements without needing predefined projects or setups, much like how chatbots are designed for real-time use.

In future releases, I would like to see more encrypted software, and there should be version control for Software. It will avoid pirated downloads. 

I would also like to see dynamic content. It should be an add-on in Power BI. It helps users understand reports more easily. For example, when a developer is building a report, they should consider using dynamic content to make the report more user-friendly.

I've worked with Power BI for almost one and a half years, focusing on reporting and integration with Power BI.

Power BI is very stable, especially in sectors like banking, retail, pharmaceuticals, and telecommunications. 

Its stability is expected to increase in the future with advancements in Azure.

I would rate the stability a nine out of ten. 

I would rate the scalability a ten out of ten. It's very scalable.

I haven't needed to press for support activities, so based on my experience, it is good in general. 

Positive

Compared to other reporting tools, it is very easy to acquire, demonstrate, and understand.

I would rate my experience with the initial setup a nine out of ten, with ten being easy. 

It is very easy to set up. Security in a private cloud is optimal, whereas public cloud lacks in security. Hybrid solutions offer some balance, but on-premises solutions have a lot of limitations.

Many customers are moving to the cloud for its ease of use, security, availability, and flexibility. Cost efficiency is also a factor. For example, Why would you use the cloud? Say you have 1000 people in your organization, and only 500 need access to Power BI. On-premises, you'd need to buy licenses for all the users. With the cloud, you only pay for what you use.

Considering cost, cloud solutions like Amazon Cloud, GCP Cloud, or Azure Cloud are preferred for their scalability and cost-effectiveness.

So, our customers mainly use cloud deployments.

Deployment doesn't take much time, thanks to it being a Microsoft product, which makes it easy to handle compared to other software.

So, it takes just a few hours.

It's about balancing cost and value. Although Power BI is cost-effective compared to other reporting tools, its pricing should be more adaptable based on the size of the organization to ensure it remains cost-effective for both small and large entities.  For example, if the organization has a million end-users, it should be cost-effective. 

This is important when considering the scalability of solutions like Kronos or Banner ERP systems, ensuring the cost is aligned with the organizational needs.

The pricing is very low and competitive. Microsoft could consider adjusting the price according to the size and needs of the organization, balancing demand with supply.

Power BI is an essential tool for any kind of detailed reporting. It's efficient and effective. 

I would definitely recommend using this solution. Overall, I would rate the solution a ten out of ten. 

It’s not just a specific tool I use when providing solutions. In these scenarios, clients often have a significant Microsoft presence with servers for data collection, whether it's in a data lake, data warehouse, or a data lake house. Their users typically require reporting, dashboards, or ad-hoc queries based on their specific business needs. However, most vendors tend to offer inflexible solutions, focusing on predefined reports.

Power BI stands out because it provides considerable flexibility in creating reports, dashboards, and various types of analytics to meet those dynamic requirements. It is lightweight and easy to use with good support.       

Microsoft BI typically connects to a database, often SQL Server, but it's also capable of connecting to multiple databases, pulling data from them, and allowing for data consolidation. You can then aggregate and generate dashboards and reports from this combined data. Personally, I wouldn't claim to have the expertise to suggest significant changes or additional features, as it functions quite well as is.

I have been using this solution for the past five years. 

It is a stable solution. 

It's a cloud-based platform, and it scales seamlessly based on your usage, which is one of the key advantages of cloud services. You pay according to your usage, without worrying about licenses or ownership. However, there are some limitations to consider. While it's a front-end tool for visualization and analytics, it lacks extensive customization options. If you require complex reports or queries, Microsoft offers support to help you achieve those goals. In my experience over the past five years, I haven't encountered any use case that couldn't be addressed with Power BI. On the contrary, I faced performance issues with other tools like Spotfire, which prompted us to explore different solutions. The effectiveness of Power BI also depends on factors like architecture, deployment, and network quality. If network configurations aren't optimized, it can lead to slow data transfer. However, being a cloud-based solution, the cloud infrastructure often manages these issues. Nevertheless, if you want the best performance, you might need to invest in improving your network infrastructure.

Positive

I'm not very familiar with the licensing aspect, as it operates in the cloud as a SaaS (Software as a Service) model. Essentially, you pay based on cloud cost models, which might include hourly rates or similar billing structures introduced by Microsoft. Many organizations utilize it and pay for its services, somewhat like Office 365. It's a cloud-based platform that provides the necessary services, including support, for development, and you pay accordingly for the usage.

 would recommend the solution, rating it eight out of ten. There’s no such thing as an ideal product. In my perspective, perfection remains an unattainable goal. However, I can't rate it lower than eight because Microsoft actively invests in BI's development and expansion. They have a roadmap and allocate resources to it, which is evident in the growing user base. This continuous growth adds value to the product and benefits its users.

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.

My company uses Microsoft BI for reporting purposes. In my company, we extract data from different sources, put it in the staging area, and then use Microsoft Power BI to build the reports and dashboards.

The most valuable feature of the solution is that it is an easy-to-use tool.

Microsoft BI lacks integration capabilities, so it needs to consider increasing its integration capabilities. Microsoft BI needs to improve its mobile application compatibility so that people view their reports and dashboards through a mobile app since, nowadays, people move towards tools that are in the digital transformation phase.

I have experience with Microsoft BI. I recently joined a new organization where I see Microsoft BI being used extensively.

Considering that most people in my organization use Microsoft BI, I can say that it is a stable solution.

Microsoft BI is a part of Microsoft Power Platform, because of which Microsoft can increase its capacity based on the needs and licenses of its users.

Around 20 people in my company use Microsoft BI.

My company plans to increase the use of Microsoft BI.

The initial setup of Microsoft BI is straightforward since it comes along with Microsoft Power Platform.

The solution is deployed on the cloud.

I am unsure about Microsoft BI's deployment process since it was already deployed when I joined the organization.

In my company, we have two developers and two testers to look after the deployment and maintenance of the solution.

The company's in-house team did the installation process of Microsoft BI.

When my company compared the price of Alteryx to Microsoft BI, we found Alteryx's price to be higher than Microsoft BI's price.

In general, Microsoft BI's price is lower compared to Alteryx.

I am not a user of the solution at the moment. I am an architect taking time to evaluate and see how my company can use Microsoft Power BI.

Our company hardly finds a tool where we can say one size fits all, so we need to use other tools for larger amounts of data and data cleansing.

It would be effective for those planning to use the solution to find the best solution that suits their requirements.

I rate the overall solution a seven out of ten.

I've been using it for financial data.

Flexibility and usefulness of the data.

Trend data and dashboards need improvement.

I have been using Microsoft Power BI for some time. 

The stability is a seven out of ten. 

The initial setup is straightforward. 

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