All Microsoft Power BI Reviews

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Eric

11 - 50 employees

Used free trial

Review Source: Capterra
This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you.

OVERALL RATING:

4

Reviewed March 2023

Makes Excel-based Data Pretty

User Profile

Andrew

Verified reviewer

Computer Hardware, 10,000+ employees

Used weekly for less than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you.

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

3

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

4

FUNCTIONALITY

4

Reviewed August 2019

There are plenty of competitors, but Power BI is tops

Power BI allows me to manipulate data and present it in visually appealing and flexible formats.

PROS

I have used Tableau and Google Data Studio - among other alternatives. Nothing has seemed to compare to the functionality that Power BI offers. Everything about the program is made with the full spectrum of analysis in mind - from the designer to the data 'wrangler' to the end consumer (ie. others within the enterprise). In this way, Power BI is extremely powerful because it can be used for so many different types of projects; the data-analysis intensive to the more visual 'data-presentation' dashboards.

CONS

Sharing dashboards and reports in Power BI is easy and it has a lot of options for doing so. However, the requirement that all users must have a Pro Account to view dashboards created in Pro is a bit of a hindrance in a global organization where it does not make economical sense for every employee to have a Pro account. It seems like it would be a great addition to allow limited sharing to everyone - even those without a Pro account, as most of my internal team does not have an account.

Reasons for switching to Microsoft Power BI

Data Studio has limited functionality, which is understandable since it is free. Power BI has more built-in data analysis and data processing abilities.

User Profile

Federico

Verified reviewer

Banking, 2-10 employees

Used daily for less than 12 months

Review Source: Capterra
This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered

OVERALL RATING:

4

EASE OF USE

4

VALUE FOR MONEY

5

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

4

FUNCTIONALITY

4

Reviewed November 2022

Great tool for Data Analysis and Dashboards

My overall experience is great, using it to compile, perform ETL, prepare reports and create Dashboards is simply powerful.

PROS

This is a great tool that integrates perfectly with Microsoft Excel (they are from the same family) it really makes life easy. Another great feature is the possibility to connect with a wide variety of sources such as Google Analytics, Facebook, SQL, data files, cloud files, and the list goes on. Free to use and very affordable price. Finally their visualization features are also impressive.

CONS

Like any other tool, we found a high amount of the time required to train and master it, when you try to go beyond create reports, you would need to learn about additional tools like Gateways and Report Server. In addition, their language DAX is not the easiest language to work with, but nothing some training and research can't solve.

Reason for choosing Microsoft Power BI

When performing our cost / benefit analysis it came with the highest rate.

Reasons for switching to Microsoft Power BI

Power BI presented better tools to perform Data Analysis and work with Data.

Anonymous

501-1,000 employees

Used daily for less than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you.

OVERALL RATING:

4

EASE OF USE

4

VALUE FOR MONEY

4

FUNCTIONALITY

4

Reviewed July 2023

Switch from Excel to pretty Dashboard and easy Data Analysis

PBI is not for everyone. It is not easy to use. I would say that everything corresponds to Microsoft's style: sometimes, what can be done easily, they make it difficult. But at the same time, it is an indisputably powerful tool for processing and visualizing data.

PROS

PBI is really great and powerfull tool for your data. You can integrates data from a large number of sources: FB, Google Analytics, SQL, your first party data etc..

CONS

For me, the biggest minus is definitely the complexity. Especially the initial settings.

User Profile

Imi

Verified reviewer

Government Administration, 1,001-5,000 employees

Used weekly for less than 12 months

Review Source: Capterra
This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you.

OVERALL RATING:

3

EASE OF USE

4

VALUE FOR MONEY

4

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

1

FUNCTIONALITY

4

Reviewed March 2021

Excellent tool for small offices and datasets but can lead to frustration overtime

I am generally satisficed with the product, price and ease of learning with lots of YouTube video and the Power BI community, there is always something new to learn and implemented to improve or help meet your reporting requirements.

PROS

Easy to get started with Power BI if you are on the Microsoft 365 platform. Power Bi provides an easy to connect and interactive method for pulling data in real time from data collection system such as the SharePoint online, MS Excel and others. The ease of connecting with SharePoint is the strong point for my review. Having the Power Bi connected to the SharePoint system provides the opportunity to have real time dashboards and dynamic reports for any small organization that is wishing to provide real or near to real-time reporting without the heavy upfront implementation cost for software, training and human resource. Microsoft has indeed liberated the Dynamic Reporting with Power BI, and has also allowed for some very elegant web reporting to be created by non technical users. My simple work flow , SharePoint for data collection, PowerBi for reporting.

CONS

The main issues are around the changes that are made by Microsoft, this will always be a learning curve for the users. The lack of consistency on certain actions will be the biggest issue.

Reason for choosing Microsoft Power BI

Cost, Familiarity and given that is is a free offer within the MS Offfice 365 or M365 platform, it leads to an easy choice.

Karina

Human Resources, 201-500 employees

Used daily for less than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

4

VALUE FOR MONEY

4

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

4

FUNCTIONALITY

4

Reviewed July 2023

Ideal for generating kpi's

As an HR analyst, I was in charge of generating monthly headcount reports and analyzing FTE's in the CSA region. After hearing positive reviews about Power BI, I decided to try to streamline our reporting process and gain deeper insights from our data.

PROS

- User-Friendly Interface- Powerful Data Visualization, including charts, graphs, maps, and custom visuals.- Seamless Integration with Multiple Data Sources, including databases, cloud services, Excel spreadsheets, and online services- Real-Time Data Analysis- Collaboration and Sharing, allowing users to share reports and dashboards with colleagues, teams, or stakeholders-Mobile Accessibility: ensures that users can stay connected to their data and make informed decisions from anywhere, anytime.

CONS

- Steep Learning Curve- Cost: The cost may be a barrier for small businesses or individuals with limited budgets.- Data Size Limitations- Dependency on Internet Connectivity-Data Security: data is in clouds- Limited ETL Functionality- Data Refresh Limitations

Simon

Wholesale, 201-500 employees

Used weekly for more than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered

OVERALL RATING:

4

EASE OF USE

4

FUNCTIONALITY

4

Reviewed August 2023

Power BI @ Taiga

My overall experience with Microsoft Power BI has been good so far. It is user friendly and provides me with accurate and timely information to perform my duties.

PROS

Microsoft Power BI provides us with quick and reliable information for financial reporting purposes. The data can be exported quickly and use with a few adjustments. I think Microsoft Power BI is very user friendly and provides me with what I need quickly.

CONS

I don't think i have a problem with Microsoft Power BI. I think the only thing is the data in Power BI is one day behind, so it doesn't have live data. However, I think that is a common issue for most financial reporting software.

Deniz Nur

Electrical/Electronic Manufacturing, 201-500 employees

Used weekly for more than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

4

VALUE FOR MONEY

5

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

4

FUNCTIONALITY

5

Reviewed August 2023

The greatest visualization tool I've ever used

I've develeoped numerous dashboards to visualize process parameters, including real-time information on the performance of our manufacturing processes. Our efficiency, productivity and effectiveness have significantly improved.

PROS

I've always been keen on making data-driven decisions, and Microsoft Power BI is an incredibly easy to use, feature-rich, and powerful self-service vizualization tool, truly the best ever.

CONS

It is regrettable to express a negative comment about such a remarkable tool. I wish I had encountered it when it was first released.

Prasant

Aviation & Aerospace, 10,000+ employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you.

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

5

FUNCTIONALITY

5

Reviewed August 2023

Great tool to visualize your data

PROS

The features are great and output is generally of a high quality.

CONS

I wish there was a self study guide to learn more.

Mustafa

Retail, 501-1,000 employees

Used weekly for more than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

5

VALUE FOR MONEY

5

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

2

FUNCTIONALITY

5

Reviewed August 2023

Reporting and dashboarding

I use Power BI Desktop for free on my computer to trait data from different ERP and Software databases and even excel files in order to build a perfect dashboards and powerfull reports with graphs and KPIs.

PROS

1- Connects to all kind of databases: Excels, Access, SQL Servers ....2- Add personalyzed and auto calculated rows .3- Drag and drop on different types of graphs.4- Use Filters to change the scoop

CONS

Only Desktop edition is free and Entreprise edition based on collaboratif environnement is expensive

Magaly

Verified reviewer

Textiles, 11-50 employees

Used weekly for more than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered

OVERALL RATING:

4

EASE OF USE

4

VALUE FOR MONEY

4

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

4

FUNCTIONALITY

5

Reviewed August 2023

Data analysis for all company sizes

Compared to other similar software it is the most powerful and economical, so far it processes clean data in a simple way. In addition, the integration with Office allows me a greater ease of use.

PROS

Its main advantage is the price, it is accessible for small companies and others. It also has a simple interface that allows users of other Office products a greater ease of use.

CONS

Looking for disadvantages, one could mention the high RAM consumption of the devices to handle large volumes of data.

Deepak

Computer Software, 51-200 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you.

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

5

VALUE FOR MONEY

5

FUNCTIONALITY

4

Reviewed February 2020

The visualization and analytics product that is constantly evolving - for the better

With Power BI we identify patterns, issues and opportunities in sales, marketing, operations, supply chain, people management and finance data. The ways to look at the data and the drilling capabilities make this a wonderful tool

PROS

1. Improves with new releases every two weeks 2. Powerful insight management 3. Integration with MS products 4. Online forums and learning zones

CONS

1. Not as intuitive as packaged applications, but getting there 2. Not a good IDE for Python / R 3. Connectors to social media need to be improved

Reason for choosing Microsoft Power BI

Deeper integration with Microsoft tools online and offline.

Reasons for switching to Microsoft Power BI

Power BI is evolving faster and with better options and integration

Virgil

Non-Profit Organization Management, 10,000+ employees

Used monthly for less than 12 months

Review Source: Capterra
This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered

OVERALL RATING:

4

EASE OF USE

2

VALUE FOR MONEY

3

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

2

FUNCTIONALITY

3

Reviewed February 2021

Moderate cost for a moderate experience for medium sized enterprises

So so. The dashboards and reports are limited in visual design, so they all look the same and quite ugly. Because of the difficulty sharing reports/dashboards to external individuals and the lack of a Google sheets connector I couldn't use PowerBI for most of the solutions we need, but will use it for some since it integrates well with the rest of the MS office ecosystem.

PROS

The thing that most sets PowerBI apart from comparable business intelligence solutions is the lower cost of multi-user deployment within an organization. PowerBI is part of a Microsoft Office 365 subscription package for businesses and you only need to pay an additional 15USD/month for each additional admin/analyst account you add. This is a stark contrast to similar solutions like Tableau, which charge a monthly fee for each user and has a minimum user count that equates to roughly a 15,000USD/year license cost as minimum. If your organisation is already invested in the Microsoft Office ecosystem this could be the ideal solution for you if you need to keep costs down.

CONS

It can't connect to google sheets and every other business intelligence platform can. This can be really limiting if your business uses a variety of SaaS solutions since many offer the simplest data integration options via Google sheets. PowerBI also has real issues with external sharing of dashboards/reports. You only have the option of publishing internally (visible to your organization's users) or publishing publically (indexed in search engines). There is no option of sharing dashboards and reports to individuals outside your organization via a login, like what is done with Google Data Studio. PowerBI also has a steep learning curve and uses 3 coding languages (DAX, M, and SQL). It's more complicated than it needs to be but it's relational database modeling has proven a good one and competitors have copied PowerBI's approach in recent years (Tableau).

Reason for choosing Microsoft Power BI

For the unique cases where I will use it, I'm chosing it because it is part of the MS office ecosystem which my organization uses and it will be easier to deploy and share products with colleagues who all build in PowerBI also. I won't use PowerBI exclusively though since it can't do everything I need.

Jerry

Non-Profit Organization Management, 201-500 employees

Used daily for less than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you.

OVERALL RATING:

4

EASE OF USE

3

VALUE FOR MONEY

5

FUNCTIONALITY

4

Reviewed December 2019

Very robust, though a little overwhelming

We're moving from having staff creating Excel reports or Access database reports to having Power BI do it all for us. We spend some time cleaning up the user's data, streamlining how they enter it (and where - we still use Access, some SQL, some Sharepoint), and Power BI does the rest after that. Our staff loves that they no longer have to manually create reports, and they love the way Power BI looks for them. We are enjoying it overall.

PROS

The dashboard creation is amazing. Give it a data source, design how you want to see your data, and it shows it to you. I enjoy creating dashboards for our different departments. And once our staff sees the reports and dashboards they get from this, vs how they used to get it in an Excel spreadsheet or an Access Report, they are hooked.

CONS

Overwhelming in the back end. Sometimes you just cannot get the data to display the way you want. There are so many options, features, methods. It gets overwhelming. My biggest gripe is that the back end is not as user friendly as other programs. And, comparing it to something that one of my users would create in Excel, it's difficult for me to get the exact data reported that they want. I have to figure out how to display it, and because the Power Bi is just so robust, it's a little overwhelming in that respect.

Reasons for switching to Microsoft Power BI

User data was all over the place. Excel files everywhere. And only the users who created them knew how to create their reports from them. Same with Access databases. Some "power" users would use Access to create a database and some reports, and then leave, and remaining employees wouldn't know how to create new reports, or change what data was collected. Creating standards for where and how we collect data, and then using Power BI to report on it all was our goal. We are getting there.

Utkarsh

Verified reviewer

Computer Software, 501-1,000 employees

Used daily for less than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

5

VALUE FOR MONEY

5

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

4

FUNCTIONALITY

5

Reviewed June 2021

How Powerful is Power BI ?

I am a Power BI Developer and have delivered many dashboards to the client in Power BI. Its Better than other Products. Its Save my lot of time by using Power BI various features. From Importing the Data to Publishing ,Its a easier platform I would suggest you to use. It contains the most trending Visuals in the market that a every developer wants.

PROS

1)Its Easy to use, Provides a Reliable user interface . 2)Its Time efficient as most of the work Power BI does it even before you know. 3)Integration to the third party visuals and creating its own market place have already took it way further than other products. 4)A User can customize its design and can easily give the dashboard access to the public. 5)It contains the most trending Visuals in the market.

CONS

1)Software is reliable on Latest Machines. 2)Old machines then need to be upgraded(OS, RAM) to use this software smoothly. 3) Multiple Dashboards can hang the entire system.

Reason for choosing Microsoft Power BI

Its Integration among other Microsoft Products . Easier to Clean the Data and create beautiful Visuals in matter of time. Gets Published and can also export to website without throwing any error. Its a great Platform!

Anonymous

10,000+ employees

Used daily for less than 12 months

Review Source: Capterra
This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you.

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

4

VALUE FOR MONEY

5

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

5

Reviewed December 2019

New to Power BI but love it

Overall I love the software and would highly recommend it. Not only does it help visualize data but also helps to keep it updated in real time with the ability to connect to a server. The automation of pulling the data on a schedule and importing it directly into the visualizations solved a huge problem for our company.

PROS

I love how easy it is to make really powerful visualizations. The ease of use in order to basic visualizations is similar to Pivot tables in Excel. If you have a basic understanding of Pivot tables you will be able to open the software and get straight to visualizing. Once you take a deeper dive into the queries and data transformations you will uncover an entirely new world of analysis.

CONS

The software is easy to use for basic functions but when you get into more detail it can be difficult. It is also really hard to share your work with someone that does not pay for the service. Without paying for a Power Bi Pro account it is basically impossible to share the visualizations that you have created. Also, the Arc GIS feature only works within the software. If you try to post a map visualization to a website through an embed it doesn't work.

Reason for choosing Microsoft Power BI

We chose Power Bi because we had an enterprise with Microsoft already.

Anonymous

2-10 employees

Used weekly for less than 12 months

Review Source: Capterra
This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

5

VALUE FOR MONEY

5

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

4

Reviewed June 2021

Outstanding Report Tool

Having switched from excel recently, Microsoft Power BI has been of great help. Having good visuals for data is a plus to us as an organization for they help do comparisons at a glance.

PROS

The ability to do data linking from different data sources and doing relations and end up developing organized and analyzed data for easy decision making. It provides the ability to break down data to a level that is easy to understand. The creation of dashboard in Power BI makes the reports appealing and data presented friendly to interact with.

CONS

Loading Microsoft power BI takes quite some time especially the desktop version. I don't the reason behind it but it could be better if it is looked into and a solution found will be of great help.

Reason for choosing Microsoft Power BI

Microsoft Power BI has added features that our organization required.

Reasons for switching to Microsoft Power BI

Microsoft Power BI makes work easier for it has features that Microsoft Excel does not have.

Ck

Computer Software, 10,000+ employees

Used weekly for more than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you.

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

5

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

4

Reviewed May 2022

Powerful BI tool

PROS

If you have worked with Office tools, you would grasp the basic functionality very quickly. It's very user-friendly. The power comes from a plethora of data source connectors that it provides out of the box. I am also impressed by its data visualization capabilities. It also integrates well with other Microsoft products. Best of all - it's free for most use cases. The cloud version offers a lot more options for storage and collaboration at a modest price. It's also easy to switch between the desktop and cloud versions.

CONS

The desktop app can be sluggish at times, especially if you are dealing with large and varied data sets. Also, to utilize its more powerful features, you need to have a greater learning curve than competing products. Cloud integrations are also not very easy to configure and connections to on-prem and SaaS data sources can be challenging.

Reason for choosing Microsoft Power BI

It's free and came bundled with our enterprise Office license.

Robert

Construction, 10,000+ employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you.

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

4

FUNCTIONALITY

4

Reviewed January 2021

Enterprise Analytics - with some gotchas

We're using this as our enterprise analytics platform to supplement paginated reports in SSRS/PBIRS. Aside from the wrinkles mentioned, it's been a solid performer. If there was a little more "admin" capabilities around subscriptions and permissions, it'd be a home run.

PROS

Near-constant updates and feature additions. It's exceptionally easy to throw together a Power BI Report across a bunch of different data sources and then share it with 1 or 100 people. Tons of connectivity support - if you have data somewhere it can *probably* read it into a model for consumption. The "front end" development is pretty straightforward with the ability to get very fancy with custom visuals - although you need to be a real developer to build those yourself.

CONS

It feels like there are some (currently) missing enterprise features. We still haven't really figured out a holistic way of managing both the enterprise stuff, as well as the "power user" self service stuff that gets published around the org. To Microsoft's credit, there are pretty much monthly releases that add ne functionality and features. Some things I'd like to see include more API support and additional sources like Box, perhaps.

Viveka

Information Technology and Services, 10,000+ employees

Used daily for less than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

5

VALUE FOR MONEY

5

CUSTOMER SUPPORT