Microsoft Power BI Reviews

I have used Microsoft BI for sales analysis. I've also used it to analyze people. Pretty much across the board, whether it's the number of people, number of dresses, number of hamburgers, number of widgets and then creating the dashboards and the metrics and so forth.

The best feature for me is Power Query. I know that probably sounds strange, but you can't do too much with visuals and reports if the backend stuff is horribly dirty and just bad. But for me, that is absolutely fantastic. I can load the data and do the transformation and be able to load it in a useful way. There are tons of connections, which is absolutely fantastic as well. It's been fairly easy, and it's intuitive.

It would be better if they had some video tutorials. Most people from an Excel background may struggle with measures in Microsoft BI.

I have used Microsoft BI over the last 12 months.

I haven't really had any issues, but I haven't given it the full whammy or the full monty. It's been stable for my use.

The initial setup was easy for me.

I would tell potential users that there are many other tools out there, but I think it's a steep learning curve. For example, Alteryx and Domo, and Trifacta can be difficult to learn unless you have a SQL background. But if you're a Microsoft person, the transition is fairly easy for Microsoft BI. It's intuitive, and I would recommend it from that perspective. 

On a scale from one to ten, I would give Microsoft BI an eight.

We primarily use the solution primarily for making dashboards. We are also doing analytics on Microsoft BI.

The solution is very stable.

The product is easy to use and simple to navigate.

The product has proven to be quite flexible.

It is quite scalable and it is doing the work that we want it to. 

We'd like the solution to be more scalable. 

We'd like the ability to manage it on the cloud, as a cloud-based solution. It is running out of business as it is not able to keep pace with the big data. Big data is not something that BI can support. It cannot be scaled that much. 

The product doesn't support unstructured data. It doesn't support video, streaming, and strings of files. Microsoft is aware of this.

I've been using the solution for seven to eight years at this point. It's been a while. 

The solution is very stable. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable and the performance is very good.

The solution is quite scalable, although, in our case, as we are not on the cloud, we are facing some issues.

We have more than ten people using the solution currently.

I've never reached out to technical support in the past. I cannot speak to how helpful or responsive they are. 

I wasn't a part of the initial setup. That was something that was handled by another team. I can't speak to how long it took to deploy.

My understanding is that you only need two people to deploy the solution. Admins usually handle it.

I don't have any insights into the licensing and payments required. 

We are using the latest version of the solution. I'm not sure of the exact version number. 

I'd rate the solution at a seven out of ten. For us, it has met our expectations and we enjoy its capabilities.

I'd recommend this product to other users and organizations.

I have found the most valuable feature of this solution is the Natural Language tool.

The solution could benefit by allowing deeper data analytics.

I have been using Microsoft BI for approximately four years.

The solution is stable.

I was satisfied with the technical support.

I rate Microsoft BI an eight out of ten.

We use this solution for our departmental reports, which are accessible from Microsoft Project Server and SharePoint.

Microsoft BI is very friendly.

The interface is very easy to use.

The integration with other data sources is very easy and very handy.

The on-premises version lacks some technical features that are available with the Cloud version.

There is definitely room for improvement.

The visualization is lacking, it needs improvement.

I have been using Microsoft BI for one year.

Microsoft BI is a stable solution.

We have not contacted technical support.

Previously, we did not use another solution.

From a technical perspective, the installation is straightforward.

It took one week to deploy.

The deployment was done by the database team.

You only need one person to maintain this solution.

We did not evaluate other solutions before choosing Microsoft BI.

I would recommend the cloud version of this solution.

I would rate Microsoft BI an eight out of ten.

Since we are a consulting company, our cases vary from customer to customer and from department to department, but mainly we have found two "standard" cases: Business users connecting to a DWH, or trying to consolidate several Excel workbooks to create business dashboards.

In the DWH cases, it is simpler since most of the data transformations and modeling are done by IT, but in the 'spreadsheet world', it becomes more complicated.

Users try to move from a huge table filled with numbers and "color-coded" cells to data visualizations, sometimes not even knowing how to write a simple Excel expression.

The biggest improvement comes from a "do it once, refresh many" concept. The users used to perform a lot of massaging on the data itself prior to the analysis phase. Now, they build their reports and refresh the data, so they have a lot more time to perform analysis, which is the real added value to the business.

Unlike other tools (like Tableau), getting to this point took a lot of resources in training, but when the users got there, it is a real time saver for them, allowing them to focus more on analysis, not on data manipulation.

I like the downloadable visualizations a lot. I think that they give the user a very nice starting point in creating awesome dashboards, with the right way to tell their data story.

Data Modeling is very simple and powerful for an experienced user, but I think it needs some improvement for the non-technical people. Besides this, it allows us to save a lot of time in data "massaging" prior to the analysis phase.

Reports are quite easy to build, even when some programming concepts are needed. Some users struggle with DAX a lot!

I think Power BI needs to focus more on the end-user (i.e. the business user). Solving things in DAX is not a nice approach to a user that has no knowledge of IT nor wants to get it.

Some kind of expression wizard, where the user can build a complex expression without any knowledge of DAX, can be a good addition to the product.

I see a lot of materials on how to go about doing things in Power BI, but Microsoft can add a "learning path". It would instruct users where to start, then what to learn next, etc, to sort out their learning journey.

I have been using Microsoft BI for ~four years.

I am using this solution for official purposes and for my personal needs. I use it to sort my documents.

I have yet to experience all of the useful applications. I need to experience a lot more.

I would like to see better, undisturbed stability without any interruptions.

I have been working with Microsoft products for three decades.

I believe we are using Version 10.

Because our internet here is not constant, it fluctuates, which is why I don' use the cloud-based version.

It is not stable. The stability could be improved.

Microsoft BI is scalable.

We have more than 50 users in our organization. More of the users are technical people.

We have an IT technical expert in our organization. If we have any issues, he is the person who resolves them.

The initial setup is straightforward. It is very easy to install.

I completed the installation myself. I did not need the help of an integrator or consultant.

I am considering personalization but I don't know what the possibilities and the advantages of it are.

I would recommend this solution to others who are considering it.

I would rate Microsoft BI an eight out of ten.

We have some monitoring data from turbines, and we want to plot the data to monitor the health state of turbines in different time stamps. I tried to download some data from the Postgres database and then do some plotting with that. I also tried to link different plots with each other to filter them and things like that.

I liked that Microsoft Power BI handles a large amount of data. I can handle hundreds of rows from Postgres in a few minutes. I also like how it detects the relationship between the tables without explicitly saying that. It just detects the relationship automatically. That made it easier to work with the data.

It's not really complicated, but I didn't find the things I was looking for. The ones I used to work with within Dash are more open, and there are more choices. But with Power BI, there are only limited types of plots that I can use.

For example, when I wanted to put the plots in Power BI, there was no extendable space. You have a limited page where you can place a maximum of three plots in that, and you can't do more than that on a single page. You have to create a new page, a different page for that. That made it a bit annoying, and the filtering part is limited, with basic functions. If you want to make custom filtering or custom functions, you can't do that.

Suppose you want to code a plot, Python available. You can code the plot you want, and you don't have to use a predefined one. But when you want to plot it and you want to import like five or ten packages in Python, there are limitations. It doesn't support all the libraries that Python has. Microsoft BI only supports a few, like three or four libraries at most. When I want to use my old code in Power BI, it doesn't handle it, and that was also annoying.

In the next release, it'll help if they added a coding area where you are more open to make custom things. Especially for a developer, it needs to be improved. For a Power BI person, it's fine, I think, because it doesn't require much technical knowledge, but a developer will need it. Maybe they should create a space for that.

I have been using Microsoft BI for the last three months. 

It's stable, but it's so slow. Sometimes it takes some time to respond, especially when you put two or three plots with big data. It becomes very slow.

I didn't contact technical support as I used the support on the internet. I'm satisfied with the documentation, but I didn't find what I was looking for.

I was using Dash Open Source, but when I discovered that it would take a lot of time, I wanted to define a platform for that. So, Power BI was the solution. Now I want to try Tableau, but I haven't had a chance to do that yet.

I used a two months free trial to see if it had what I needed. I can pay later for a full license, but I don't think I will do that.

On a scale from one to ten, I would give Microsoft BI a six.

Microsoft BI can be used for business data visualization.

When there are large amounts of data being processed there are additional tools needed to handle it.

In an upcoming release, there could be an associative experience, such as in Qlik.

I have been using this solution for approximately four years.

The stability is good but as you add more data the stability decreases.

In my experience the scalability is good. You are able to increase users and add more data.

The initial setup can be easy if you have a small amount of data being used. I have found Qlik is better if you have large amounts of data.

We have a team of approximately 20 people that handle BI operations.

The solution is priced well for what they offer. However, the premium version is very expensive.

I have evaluated Tableau and Qlik.

I would recommend this solution to those that have smaller businesses where they have lower user numbers and not a lot of data points. If they have a larger business I would choose an alternative, such as Qlik.

I rate Microsoft BI a seven out of ten.

This solution can be used for enterprise reporting, ad hoc visualization, and statistical analysis.

In an upcoming release, the solution could be simplified and have a more complete product package rather than a suite of products that we have to put together.

I have been using this solution for approximately one year.

In my experience, I have found this solution scalable.

The scalability is good. We have 20 people in my organization using this solution and plan to increase usage.

The technical support has been good and the responses have been fast.

I have used other business intelligence solutions previously and I switched because this solution was cheaper and is on a Microsft platform.

The initial setup is more complicated than other solutions. Microsoft typically has more involved installations. 

I did the implementation myself. We have three administrators doing the deployment and maintains of the solution.

Power BI is cheaper for smaller groups when comparing to competitors. It requires a monthly per-user subscription.

I have evaluated Tableau.

I would recommend this solution to others.

I rate Microsoft BI a seven out of ten.

We use it for management reporting.

It's quite flexible, and it's easy to create reports using this system. It is very graphic and very user friendly.

One of the advantages of Microsoft BI is that it's easy to integrate it with any databases.

Another is that it doesn't need a lot of technical support because it's easy to use.

The smart phone application could be improved, along with better graphics and faster updating.

I've been using it for 3 or 4 years.

It is a stable solution.

It is scalable.

It's easy to install. It requires that you prepare some databases for installing this product, but it doesn't take too much time to do it.

We used a consultant.

Microsoft BI is not expensive. Compared to the price of other BI products, the price is very fair.

On a scale from one to ten, I would rate Microsoft BI at ten.