Power BI

PowerBI is the Microsoft Cloud service that allows you to download data from different sources, their storage and processing in order to generate vivid reports that an be seen on almost every platform imaginable. This is a tool that Microsoft has high hopes on and which is developing at an incredible rate. Every month there is a new version that fixes bugs and brings new functionalities.

PowerBI comes in several “flavors”: as a Cloud Service (PowerBI.com), as a development environment for reports which later could be published in the cloud (PowerBI Desktop) and as a mobile application (PowerBI Mobile), available for Windows, Android and iOS devices.

The data used to create reports can be imported from a file located on your computer, taken from OneDrive repository or from one of the Azure data sources. It is hard to name all the sources because PowerBI can connect with almost all known databases, ERP and CRM solutions, Big Data and with services such as Facebook or Twitter. There is also the ability to connect to databases in the local network so that the possibilities of exploitation are incredible.

What’s under the hood? Even in 2009 appeared PowerPivot, Excel add-in, which included a local instance of tabular model of MS SQL Server Analysis Services. From version to version it was better and better, and Excel 2013 brought innovations in the form of add-ins like PowerQuery, to connect to numerous sources and purge the data, as well as PowerView data visualization tool. PowerBI is the successor of all of these applications, but it is a service that exists in the cloud. As PowerPivot it allows using DAX language to make reporting dimensions that can be used for visualization.

PowerBI comes in free and a paid version (PowerBI Pro). The main difference is in the space that you get to store your reports. Free version provides 1GB of data storage space, a second 10GB. PowerBI Pro also provides advanced capabilities for administration, it allows you to specify who gets to see which reporting dashboards, that is very important in medium and large organizations. Also PowerBI Pro allows you to directly connect and synchronize with the local database and has several more features important for enterprises. Conclusion: if you are a beginner or you work in a small company free version of PowerBI solve all your problems, but if you work in medium or enterprise company consider the Pro license. The price is the same as when you buy Office365 plan and functionality that you get will certainly be useful.

From now on, the PowerBI Premium package is also available. It is intended primarily for large organizations, but allows scaling solutions in accordance with the needs of the company. You can see a comparative overview and prices of all solutions on following link.

These were the opening remarks and in the texts that follow I’ll show you how to sign up for service, import data, create reports and place them on dashboards.