Microsoft Power BI Reviews

I use the solution to visualize charts and graphs that provide data insights.

The product is user-friendly.

Power BI shows reports on actual data, not metadata.

I have been using the solution for a few months.

I rate the tool’s stability an eight out of ten.

The tool is scalable. We can create multiple reports. We have two to three customers who use the solution. Within the client organizations, teams can use different solutions. It depends on the client’s needs.

Creating a report takes 10 to 30 minutes, based on our requirements. It is easy if we have simple requirements. If it is complex, building a report can take days. The product is cloud-based.

People use other tools in the market, like Tableau and Qlik Sense. They are good competitors.

I work in data management. I focus on connecting to the source and getting the metadata information from the tool. I'm interested in metadata, not actual data. Integration with other tools is possible. The solution provides APIs.

I will recommend the solution to others, but my recommendation depends on the clients. If a customer uses Microsoft products, they can use Power BI. If someone wants to build good reports and perform data analysis, Power BI is a good choice. Any dashboarding tool is good for data analysis. Overall, I rate the product 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 it for reporting, analytics, and data science. We have its latest version.

Microsoft's CRM platform has very limited reporting capabilities. Power BI was able to meet the business requirements for reporting and more in-depth analytics. It is a part of the Microsoft Ecosystem, and there is a straightforward connection from Power BI to CRM. 

It is a pretty straightforward and flexible solution for data integration and modeling. It is a low-code solution. When you are doing data integration, you can use the GUI, which is very simple and straightforward. You can also do very intricate custom queries and model it at different levels. It is very easy to use and scalable. 

It is kept very current, and there is an update literally every month. However, the interface changes quite randomly with no documentation, which is difficult at the domain and architectural level where you're planning things and engaging the business. Things change frequently, and you wonder where has the button for the new report gone. They should provide better documentation on interface changes.

It should be better optimized. It is supposed to be a data integration tool, but it is doing relatively simple queries. It has its limitations. For example, you can only pull a number of columns. So, there is room for optimization on its ability to integrate multiple data sources. 

The desktop tool is very memory-intensive, and again, this is not documented clearly. It requires a heavy CPU and memory use, and it causes your operating systems to become unstable.

I would like to see the ability to create datasets within Power BI. Microsoft is promoting Azure as a cloud solution, but it is dependent upon a desktop component, which seems a little bit deceptive. Data set is the basic element that you report from, but it has to be created on the desktop and then published to the cloud. So, you're in the cloud, and you create a data structure or the data flow, but you can't report from that. You have to leave the cloud, go to your desktop, create the data set on your desktop, and publish it to the cloud. You go back to the cloud and create your report by using that published data set, which is very non-intuitive. If you go to the Microsoft Power BI community, this is a common complaint across the entire community.

I have been using this solution for about 18 months.

It is pretty stable. I haven't determined any major issues.

It is very scalable. It fits perfectly with the larger Azure Data Lake reference architecture. Power BI platform is a fundamental piece, and it becomes scalable to use with other components within that reference architecture.

We're in the process of laying out a three-phase approach. Over the next year, its usage will increase from 50% to 75%. In terms of the number of users, we have around 150 users who are data scientists and data analysts. We have around 5,500 desktop users, and it is a part of 365, which is on every desktop. 

There is a lot of online support. We also have Microsoft consultants on contract, and the support comes through them. Their support is very good.

We also have IBM Cognos. We haven't switched. They're being used in tandem. There are different sets of requirements for two different solutions. 

I wasn't part of the deployment, but my understanding is that it was pretty straightforward.

We used a Microsoft consultant for implementation. Our experience was good. We don't have any maintenance crew.

I would rate Microsoft BI a nine out of ten.

We use the solution for data analytics, so we use it to manage data governance, manage the data for certain organizations, and present it in a way that is more advanced than the manual reporting that was being done before via Excel. Now it's kind of interactive. It's more modern, so there are a lot of new features. It can be integrated with more BI tools also.

I've been in different organizations with different setups. I've experienced using on-prem, cloud, and hybrid.

Considering that it's Microsoft, it can be integrated with the Power Platform, which is also Microsoft-based, like SharePoint, Power apps, Power Automate, and Power BI, which is the most user-friendly. It can also be integrated with more systems or domains that are non-Power BI domains, so it can be connected using API, SQL, or Azure. You can connect into your local premises, or database, et cetera. There's a lot that you can use Power BI with, and I think it's the number one BI platform in the market.

Based on my experience, everything's good in Power BI. Consistently, it's being updated every month. There's a new feature that is being added to the platform, but I think one thing that can be improved is with regard to the error messages. When there is a problem, the error message is not specific about what's causing the problem. Maybe they intentionally generalize it because there could be a lot of causes. From an improvement perspective, I think if the Power BI developers of that platform would really focus on being more detailed and specific on the error messages, it would help a lot of developers troubleshoot and maintain the report ECT or the dashboard ECT.

There needs to be more specific error messages. You encounter problems normally for the development part and maintainability part, and there are some issues that you or any developers would encounter. It's resolvable, but it would take some effort to really dig in and investigate. Some of the messages, for example, will say that the main package is missing, which could mean a lot of things. It could be a formatting error, it could be a file type error, it could be a transformation error on the helper file, et cetera. If there was a sub-description of what that is, it would be a great improvement on Power BI.

I have been using this solution for three years.

It is very stable. It's been around for more than five years. It was released to the market around 2015, it was conceptualized in 2011, and consistently it's been at the top of the market, against all its competitors, because it's a Microsoft product. I think the secret there is in the way they update their report consistently. The platform is being updated every month, so all the needs of the developers are being met.

It's scalable. You can be a junior developer and work on your mini projects or your supporting mini team, and you can create your own presentation with Power BI, as simple as that. You can also handle multi-database projects and huge enterprise level data and combine all the different systems, get all the data, and put it into Power BI. Power BI has the capability and the power to cater that.

There are times when I can't resolve certain problems, and of course I'll exhaust all my resources. I would talk to my colleagues as well. Aside from that, there are BI groups or BI developer groups on Facebook, wherein I just post a question and then we all help each other. But if there are problems that can't be resolved, we go to Microsoft and create a ticket.

You don't need any technical support for BI because you have a very big community. There's Google, and then there are a lot of people who are very willing to help.  Adam, from Guy in a Cube, is very popular. He's part of Microsoft, and he's popular on YouTube. He answered one of my questions, and it's a very hard question. I think a lot of the problems that I encountered were resolved.

I have also used Active Directory. I was a service desk analyst, which is a level one IT. For Active Directory, I use that to support the organization's directory, IT concerns like internet error issues, their profile, if they can't access a certain website, their password needs to be reset, et cetera. 

Power BI has different kinds of setups, so one setup would be connecting to an SQL server database. I have experience connecting to SQL databases, and I do basic SQL coordinates because normally it's done in collaboration with SQL administrators.

I'm a seasoned BI developer, so it's easy for me, especially if it's not a very complicated project. There are different setups, depending on the project and depending on the organization. There are really complicated ones. For example, if you are going to connect to SSA live connection, a cube has to be built, there will be expenses, et cetera. There are requirements that would involve different teams and different people because of the expenses, et cetera. There are also simple ones like when you're just connecting to Big Data, or SharePoint, or SAPI, or local, or databases. It depends on projects, but for me as a seasoned developer, I think it's going to be easy.

I would rate this solution 10 out of 10, against all the other competitors and as a BI tool.

It's a 10 because of the price. It's not that expensive compared to other BI tools. It's also with regard to maintainability. It's easier to understand, easy to manage, and it's very flexible. You can create projects, you can create a website, et cetera. It also has accessibility. It can be integrated with a lot of systems and applications. It's the leading BI tool in the market.

We use Microsoft BI to fetch data from one server in SSMS to another server.

I find many of the features of Microsoft BI valuable, in particular, I use the data flow tasks, look up and incremental loading of data. They have also introduced Hadoop in the control flow task.

I have created particular dashboards for a specific project so that I can show the clients the data related to their needs. Being able to show them a visual of the percentages in a pie chart has been very effective.

The only concern I have faced with Microsoft BI is the time it takes to find out an issue and rectify it.

In my last project, I worked with SSMS as my source and Oracle as my destination. This meant that there were certain compatibility issues between the two. I recommend for incremental load that Microsoft BI can include one task to overcome this concern.

I have been working with Microsoft BI for six years.

Most of my experience was with MS BI, with Power BI the difference is mainly in the report sections. It is more user-friendly compared to SSRS.

If you are not comfortable with SSIS, SSRS, and SSAS, there are many tutorials available for MS BI, especially if you are new to the solution.

I would rate Microsoft BI an 8 out of 10.

We are impressed with Microsoft Power BI. The tools seem very easy to use and very interactive. People love to see us reinforcing it, especially the top management. They're okay with that. We are exploring Supersets. 

It's user-friendly.

The most important thing is the developing version is free. Only the online version you have to purchase. That is one of the key advantages we are getting. We can reduce the internal costs that way. 

It can take in all kinds of data to analyze. 

It's very comparable to other solutions on the market.

The initial setup is relatively simple. 

Power BI doesn't support some open-source data sources that are new, such as SnowSQL, Iceberg, or ClickHouse. Those are the data sources I didn't find in Power BI. Those data sources cannot be connected to Power BI. You need third-party support for that. This is the one key problem I have with Power BI right now.

We have various departments in our company. While some departments have used it for maybe two years, my particular department has only used it for about a year. 

This is a stable product. I found, once, in the middle of the work, it shut down or something. However, it is stable. When I put some of the reports in the Power BI cloud version, everything worked fine. I was able to get the report data. 

As long as I can scale my data, I can scale the product. I just put my data into Power BI and do what I need to do. 

The data solution we have is open source. The whole team is working on it, and that's a team of 15 people. The number of people that are actively writing and reporting is maybe six or seven people. Maybe two or three people seeing are seeing report deposits and getting the outcomes. 

We don't have any technical contract with anyone, whatever the problem comes up, we can solve it ourselves. In my country, I personally don't know anyone who is actually, is smart enough to show us anything extra that we don't already know.

We are exploring Power BI, Microsoft Synapse Analytics, and some BI features on Azure. 

We previously used Oracle BI. It's a good tool. Oracle BI is more for the enterprise, big enterprise, for big control of data security and can get into how you control your people, who can see what, et cetera. The downside is, it is very old. You will not get the very latest tools or visuals in Oracle BI. That, we can easily find in Power BI.

The implementation process is relatively easy. One the junior developer can learn the process in maybe one or two days. He can catch up on Power BI and how it works. It is straightforward, I would say.

We do have a license for the product. 

We purchased a few licenses for the top bosses who want to see the reports on the run, on their own PC, laptop, or mobile. We purchased a few licenses for the developers as well. other than that, no need to purchase a license.

We have both on-premises and cloud versions. The advanced team who has actually been using it for around two years have an online version. They're putting the data online and showing it. I cannot say exactly what they do. However, on our side, we do not use an online version. We have the three versions that we are using now that are on-prem. 

Overall, it's a good solution. However, there are a lot of other really great similar solutions you can use as well.

I'd rate the solution at a seven out of ten.

The visualization part and its inclusion in a cloud-based application are valuable features. 

The solution is somewhat costly in comparison with MSBI tools. 

In MSBI, when it comes to mobile and maps-related applications, we are always looking for some support with the reporting tools. Once we click on the region, then automatically it goes to the two area maps. Based on the map, it will reinforce our data values. There is constant change involved and new updates and enhancements are coming out as needed in new versions. 

The solution performs well and is stable. 

The scalability is very good and use of the application is flexible. 

We can create certain tickets, contact them and explain our requirements and they will look into the issue and help us to find a workaround for us to implement. They will address the issue in the next version. 

We are very satisfied with their support. 

We are implementers of this solution and maintain the visualization on the reporting parts, as well as fulfill the business requirements. 

The solution is less expensive than other PowerBI tools, but more so than those of MSBI. 

The solution is less expensive than other PowerBI tools, which is why most people go with it, although it does cost more than MSBI tools. It has good feasibility for fulfilling one's business needs. PowerBI is very strong in the market at the moment and we are creating visualization that works. It is a stable tool, as well. 

While PowerBI is cloud-based, it can be used both on-and-off-premises. MSBI can also be implemented on-premises. PowerBI mostly involves visualization. 

I rate Microsoft BI as an eight out of ten.